Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c4.40

c4.40

The possibility and probability that the Indian alphabets are derived from an Aramaic type used in Persia, seems not to have been yet considered. The Persian² or Assyrian cuneiform characters cannot be thought of as a direct source, though the last remained in use up to the first century of our era³ for many purposes; but it is certain that a cursive Aramaic character was already long used, before (in the third century A. D.) it became (in the form of Pahlavi) the most generally used character for the official languages of Persia. The researches of Fresnel and Layard brought to light bricks with inscriptions in cuneiform and also in Egyptian and Semitic characters⁴, and these go back, probably, to the time of the Achæmenides⁵. Whichever of these three probable sources of the Indian alphabets may be accepted, there is a difficulty which seems to have escaped the notice of palæographists—the origin of the manner of indicating vowels in the body of a word. All the three primitive Indian alphabets possess this peculiarity with comparatively unimportant differences, but, though the system closely resembles the vowel points used by the Semitic races, it seems that there is not the least evidence for believing that it was used by these last earlier than at a time when it was already in use in India. This problem is, perhaps, the most important that awaits solution out of the many regarding Indian palæography.