Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c4.37

c4.37

[^1): Cfr. Grote's "History of Greece", ii., pp. 144-148 on the long period during which the Homeric poems were recited before they were committed to writing. [^2): "Orient und Occident" iii., p. 170. "Dass es einen uralten Zusammenhang zwischen Indien und dem Westen gab, wissen wir mit Entschiedenheit durch König Salomon's Ophirfahrten. Sicherlich waren diess nicht die ältesten. Die Phönicier waren gewiss schon lange vorher Vermittler des Handels zwischen Indien und dem Westen und wie sie, höchst wahrscheinlich, die Schrift nach Indien brachten, mochten sie und vielleicht Ægypter selbst auch manche andre Culturelemente hinüber und herüber bewegt haben." [^3): By F. Lenormant ("Essai sur la propagation de l'alphabet Phénicien" Vol. I., pt. I., Table vi.) The author makes the "alphabet primitif du Yémen" the source of both the Himyaritic and Māgadhi (!!) alphabets. [^4): It is also worthy of notice that all the Southern Açoka Inscriptions from Gujarat to Ganjam (in the Bay of Bengal) are in precisely the same character. This looks as if the art of writing had then first spread over Northern India from the place where it was first used, perhaps Gujarat. In the course of a few hundred years, however, the alphabets used in Gujarat and Bengal had already become so different as to be very little alike in appearance.