Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c4.16

c4.16

¹ The Southern Inscriptions of Açoka have *e. g.* yv where vy must be read, (*e. g.* in katavyo) and the v is put under the right end of the y. Again the vowel e precedes the consonant which in reading it must follow. The peculiar way of marking r to be read before or after the consonant above which it is marked (as was first pointed out, I believe, by Profr. Westergaard) appears to me also to point to the same conclusion. So also the marks which qualify the sign for 100 in the cave character, and which are affixed to the *right* side of the sign. [^2) ]: In the Journal of the R. Asiatic Society, New Series V. pp. 420-3, see p. 420 *n.* "The Aryans invented no alphabet of their own for their special form of human speech, but were, in all their migrations, indebted to the nationality amid whom they settled for their instruction in the science of writing: (4) The *Devanāgarī* was appropriated to the expression of the Sanskrit language from the pre-existing Indian Pāli or *Lāt* alphabet which was obviously originated to meet the requirements of Turanian (Dravidian) dialects." Mr. Thomas goes on to connect the advance of Sanskrit Literature and Grammar "with the simplified but extended alphabet they (*i. e.* the Aryan invaders of India) constructed in the Aryan provinces out of a very archaic type (! ?) of Phœnician, and whose graphic efficiency was so singularly aided by the free use of birch bark." On p. 423 he appears to consider that the Dravidians were taught by Scythian invaders who preceded the "Vedic Aryans". It is not clear if Mr. Thomas considers that the primitive alphabet which he assumes to have existed, was invented in India or an importation. [^3) ]: Below, App. A. Now in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achæmenides ḍipi is the term used for those edicts. Thus in the Behistan inscription of Darius we find (iv. 15) "tuvm kā hya aparam imām ḍipim vaināhy." 'Thou whoever beholdest afterwards this *writing*! It seems to me, therefore, not unlikely that lipi has been introduced into India from the Persian dipi. Both Kossowicz and Spiegel refer ḍipi to the Sanskrit √() lip, but I see (by a note) that Dr. Hincks took this word to be Semitic. I have lost the reference, so cannot give his derivation, but the root *ktb* will occur to every one. With an admittedly Semitic ultimate origin of the Indian alphabets, it is natural to expect a foreign term for the art of writing, and I would, therefore, suggest that lipi is not a derivative of √() lip, but, a corrupt foreign term. The *primâ facie* derivation from √() lip assumes that 1. writing is indigenous to India, and 2. that it originally began there with marks not scratched on a hard substance but painted on the prepared surface of a suitable stuff; both which assumptions are strongly negatived by facts. (*contra* Pott's W. W. v. pp. 180-1). On lipikara=maker of inscriptions, see M. Müller, in Ṛigv. iv., p. lxxiv., *n*.