Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s2.9

c7.s2.9

' In spite of its frequent utilisation for epigraphic documents, the Kharoṣṭhī is a popular script, destined for clerks and men of business. This is proved by the throughout highly cursive character of the letters, by the absence of long vowels, which are useless for the purposes of common daily life, by the expression of groups of unaspirated double consonants by single ones (*ka* for *kka*) and of unaspirated and aspirated ones by the latter alone (*kha* for *kkha*), and by the invariable use of the Anusvāra for all vowelless medial nasals.⁴ The discovery of the Khotan MS. makes it very improbable that there existed another form of the script which, being more similar to the Brāhmī in completeness, would have been more suitable for the Brahmanical Sāstras.