Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c4.38

c4.38

As regards the second possibility, that the southern Açoka alphabet came from the Himyarites, the great difficulty is to show that the people of S. W. Arabia were in a position to furnish India with the elements of an alphabet so early as the 4th century B. C. It is very remarkable that the Himyaritic character was written from left to right, and that this was an innovation made by the people of Arabia is proved by the boustrophedon Himyaritic inscriptions that have been recently discovered¹. The difficulty of the direction of the southern Açoka character being from left to right would disappear if the Himyaritic character be assumed to be the original; but it remains to be proved that the civilization of S. W. Arabia had advanced so far already in the fourth century before the Christian era, as to be able to furnish India with a system of writing. It must also be recollected that the Himyaritic alphabet did not mark the vowels, as its derivative, the Æthiopic alphabet does. It is to be hoped that the intrepid explorer M. Halévy will be able to clear up the very interesting question of the date of the Himyaritic civilization.