Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s3.2.1

c7.s3.2.1

The direction of the Kharoṣṭhī from right to left made it *a priori* highly probable that its elements had been borrowed from the Semites; and the almost exact agreement of the forms for *na*, *ba*, *ra* and *va* with Aramaic signs of the transitional type induced E. THOMAS to assume a closer connection of the Kharoṣṭhī with this alphabet.⁶ His view has never been disputed; but of late it has been given a more precise form by I. TAYLOR and A. CUNNINGHAM, who assign the introduction of the Aramaic letters into India to the first Akhaemenians.⁷ The reasons which may be adduced for this opinion are as follows: — (1) The Aśoka edicts from the western Pañjāb use for "writing, edict," the word *dipi*, which evidently has been borrowed from the Old Persian, and they derive from it the verbs *dipati*, "he writes," and *dipapati*, "he causes to write;" see above, § 2, B. (2) The districts where Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions occur, especially in earlier times, are just those parts of India which probably were subject to the Persians, be it with or without interruptions, from about B. C. 500 to 331. (3) Among the Persian *sigloi*, there are some marked with single syllables in Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī,⁸ whence it may be inferred that they were struck in India during the Persian period, and that the Kharoṣṭhī was current during a great part of the fourth century B. C., certainly before the fall of the Persian empire in B. C. 331.