Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s2.t1.10

c8.s2.t1.10

The finds of nearly or quite contemporaneous inscriptions with northern characters in Rājputāna, the Central-Indian Agency,⁶ and Valabhī, as well as the Nāgarī signatures of the Gurjara princes,⁷ prove that northern scripts were being used simultaneously with this southern alphabet. And this circumstance is no doubt the cause of its showing traces of northern peculiarities in the following letters: — (1) in the *kha* with a large loop and a small hook (plate VII, 9, I—IX; VIII, 12, I), instead of which the true southern form appears only very rarely;⁸ (2) in the *ca*, rounded off on the right (plate VII, 13, I—IX; VIII, 16, I); (3) in the ancient *ta* without a loop (plate VII, 22, I—IX; VIII, 25, I); (4) in the narrow *dha* (plate VII, 25, I—IX; VIII, 28, I; compare plate IV, 25, I—III); (5) in the looped *na* (plate VII, 26, I—IX; VIII, 29, I), which agrees more exactly with the northern forms of plate IV, 26, than with the southern one of VII, 26, XIII (compare below, § 29, A); (6) in the Mātrās often placed above the line in medial *e* (plate VII, 26, V), *ai* (plate VII, 10, IV) and *ō* (plate VIII, 35, I), which latter, however, has a peculiar looped form in *lō* (plate VII, 34, III, IV); (7) in the medial *au*, consisting of three strokes above the line (VII, 25, V; 36, III); and compare plate IV, 7, IV); (8) in the subscript *ña*, which occasionally, as in plate VII, 42, VII, shows the northern cursive form. The inscriptions Nos. 17 and 62 of FLEET'S Gupta Inscriptions (CII. 3), plates 10, 38 B, which are not represented in plate VII, show, [62] besides, the northern *A* and *ka* without the curve at the foot. A *ka* of this description occurs also sometimes in the Valabhī inscriptions (plate VII, 8, V).