Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s3.t3.1

c8.s3.t3.1

The third and last variety of the Kanarese-Telugu alphabet, which BURNELL calls “the transitional” and FLEET more appropriately “Old-Kanarese,” does not differ much from the modern Kanarese and Telugu scripts. In the east, it first appears in the Veṅgi inscriptions of the 11th century; in the west, a little earlier, in a Gaṅga inscription of A. D. 978 and in a not much later Calukya inscription.¹ Some of its characteristics, like the opening of the loop of *ma* and of the head of *va*, appear however in the sign-manual of Dhruva II. on the Baroda plates, mentioned above under B. The specimens of this script² in plate VIII, among which cols. VI. and VII. date from the 11th century, col. VIII. from the 12th, and col. IX (according to HULTZSCH, Telugu) from the 14th, show the gradual progress very distinctly.