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Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s1.t4: D. Transitional

Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s1.t4

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D. Transitional

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What I have termed the transitional period, or from 1000-1300 A. D., marks the rise and most flourishing period of the North Dravidian literatures. During the whole of this time the older kingdoms decayed rapidly, feudatories became more or less independent, and changes in the limits of territory subject to the different sovereigns were perpetual. The encouragement of literature was, however, general, and this period is also marked by the rise of several religious sects. The result, palæographically, was that by 1300 A. D. the old Tĕlugu-Canarese alphabet which was in use from the coast of Canara to Rajahmundry, presented scarcely any varieties or differences of form of the letters sufficient to justify a distinction being made⁴. From 1300 A. D. up to the present time, however, a marked divergence has arisen between the alphabets used by the Telugus of the coast and the Canarese people; and this divergence has been much increased since the introduction of printing in the course of the present century.

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⁴ Al-Bīrūnī, however, (Reinaud, “Memoire”, p. 298) distinguishes in 1030 between the Karnata and Andri characters.

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The feudatories which overthrew the Western Cālukya kingdom appear to have been partial to the N. Indian culture, and used the Nāgarī character for their grants¹. The Coḷas (who succeeded the Eastern Cālukyas) preserved the indigenous character and used Sanskrit for the northern part of their territories, but soon gave these up for Tamiḻ. Thus, at the time of the Muhammedan invasions and settlements in the peninsula about the beginning of the fourteenth century, the use of the South-Indian alphabets was confined to the extreme south of the peninsula, and did not extend much beyond the present northern limits of the Madras Presidency. That the Telugu and Canarese alphabets and literatures did not become entirely obsolete, is owing to the considerable power of the Vijayanagara² dynasty in the 14th, 15th and early part of the 16th centuries, and to the steady patronage of South-Indian Hinduism by the kings of this dynasty during that period of time³. It is owing to this influence that many inscriptions from about 1500 to 1650 A. D. in the North-Tamiḻ country and even still further South are in the Telugu character. This is especially noticeable in the old Tŏṇḍaināḍu (or neighbourhood of Madras), and it is to the same influence that must be attributed the numerous settlements of Telugu Brahmans over greater part of the Tamiḻ country, and especially in Tanjore.

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¹ I shall for this reason notice them when describing the varieties of the Nāgarī character used in the South of India.

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² Or Vidyānagara. The last (Mr. Kittel tells me) occurs in the C. Basava-Purāṇa, ch. lxiii., 2-3 (1369 A. D.). Both forms seem equally authentic, but the first seems to be the earliest, and occurs in a grant of 1399. Cfr. Colebrooke's *Essays*, ii. p. 263. Couto's explanation (Dec. vi. f. 92 *b*. of orig. ed.) shows that about 1600 ‘Vijayanagara’ was the accepted form. He says that the name signifies: “Cidade de vitoria.”

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³ The Telugu poet Bhaṭṭamūrti was encouraged by Narasarāya, and Allasanni Peddaṇṇa by Kṛishṇarāya. (“*Madras Journal*,” v. pp. 363, 4.)

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The transitional type of the Telugu-Canarese alphabet differs from the Kaliṅga-Cālukya by the admission of a number of new forms which eventually became permanent; they are used, however, concurrently with the older forms except in a few instances.

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The exclusive new forms of letters are: 1) č, in this the top is opened out; 2) dh, in which the old square form is now provided with a ˇ at the top, 3) and bh. This last was evidently written in the alphabet of 945 A. D. by two strokes, the second being made from the first, and prolonged down in a curved form; in the transitional alphabet which began in the next century these two strokes are separated. 4) ç has a more cursive form than in the alphabet of the previous century.

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As in the alphabet of 945 A. D. there is little distinction between the long and short i superscript. In the older alphabets the long ī is marked by a curl in the left end of the circle which marks this vowel, *e.g.* ∩ (i) and 𑌲 (ī), but from the tenth century this distinction is almost lost.

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In the eleventh century the modern form of the subscript **u** begins to appear, and is used far oftener than the old form written underneath the preceding consonant; but the reverse is the case with the long **ū** which rather preserves the old form. In the next century the modern form of **ū** (to the right of the preceding consonant) prevails nearly universally, but the old form of the short **u** is by no means entirely disused. The secondary forms of **e** and **ui** and **ai** are very nearly the same as in the alphabet of 945 A. D., *i.e.* written at the top of the preceding consonant, whereas in the earlier forms they are on the left side. **O** and **au** are also very little changed in form.

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It is necessary also to notice the changes in the way of distinguishing **ph** from **p**. In the earliest form (Pl. i.) this is done by the upper end of the stroke on the right side being curled round to the left; in the later alphabet of the tenth century there is a loop on the middle of the inner side of this stroke. In the alphabet of the next century this loop has become a slanting stroke across the upright stroke, and finally about a century later this is underneath the middle of the letter.

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It is necessary here to notice the use of a sign for **ç**, and also the signs added to the original Sanskrit alphabet to express the Dravidian letters **ḻ**, **ṟ**, etc.

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A sign for **ç** does not occur in the S. Açoka and Cave inscriptions, but only **sh** and **s**. In the Sah, Veṅgi, and later characters we have a distinct sign. Now in some of the earliest Ceylon inscriptions M. Rhys Davids detected two sibilants: one the ordinary **s**, the other a 𑀲, and the two are indiscriminately used for **s**1), and this has been assumed to be quite peculiar to Ceylon2). The importance of the discovery in respect of phonetics is very great, but I think it will eventually be admitted that this letter is merely the Sanskrit sign for **ç**. If the sign for this letter in the earlier S. Indian inscriptions be referred to, it will be seen to be almost the same. It is certain, at all events, that this sign was early in general use, for we find it in the earliest Javanese (Kawi) inscriptions3); but the Ceylon form is evidently the earliest and, I think, will help to show the real origin of the sign for the Sanskrit **ç**. In the later Phœnician and in the Aramaic character4) of from the seventh to the fourth century B. C., the letter ‘shin’ has the form ש or 𐡔 or 𐤔, and this is obviously the original of the **sh** of the earlier southern inscriptions, which is ᑌ (*e.g.*) in the Mathura (or E. Cave) character¹. In the northern character this is inverted to express **sh**, and it appears to me that this same letter, but inverted, is used in the S. alphabets to express **ç**. Such divergences between the N. and S. Açoka characters exist, and prove an independent development. The N. and S. (Açoka) signs for **s** are, however, clearly derived from the later form of ‘Samech’.

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1) *Indian Antiquary*, i. p. 140.

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2) See the late Dr. P. Goldschmidt's *Report* (of 1876) p. 4 in which he says: "A graphical peculiarity of the most ancient inscriptions is the use of two *s* (one the common *s* of Açoka's inscriptions, the other one resembling a Greek Digamma, a form unkown in India), which it would be difficult to account for without the supposition that the pronunciation of *s* in Ceylon must have struck the Hindu introducers of the art of writing as somewhat different from their own." See also *Academy*, xi. p. 139.

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3) See especially ‘Çrīman’ in the Tjaroenten inscription (? middle of the 5th century A. D.). It occurs in several inscriptions of the 8th century A. D., *e.g.* in the Çaivite one from Brambānan (Cohen-Stuart, No. xxiii., lines 1-4 etc. repeatedly), also in the Sumatra inscriptions.

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4) See pl. ix. of vol. i., pt. 1 of Lenormant's "*Essai*".

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¹ *J. R. As. Soc.* New Series, vol. V. pl. i. Both ᖵ and ᑌ occur in the Kangra inscription. See Prinsep's “Essays” ed. Thomas, i. p. 159. (pl. ix.)

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The sign for **ḷ** in the Telugu and Canarese alphabets is a development of the sign for **ḍ**; it is very nearly the same up to about 1200 A. D.; a little after it appears with the tail turned to the left, and thus has become a distinct sign².

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² In the inscriptions from the Telugu country we find Coḷa always written Coḍa, but the Telugu ḍ = ḷ is probably a late degeneration; ḷ seems to be a primitive Dravidian sound.

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The Telugu and Canarese languages also required an additional sign for **ṛ**, this is represented by ఱ or ಱ. The origin of this sign is not clearly ascertained; it occurs in early inscriptions in Canarese but later in Telugu.

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There is also the form ೞ which represents the S. Dravidian **ḻ** (ழ) and which does not occur in Telugu. The origin of this is also unknown; it is used often to express the Sanskrit **sh** before **p**, *e. g.* in pushpa, and may be intended for ≍ and to suit the vulgar pronunciation pufpa.

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It seems likely that these additional signs were the invention of people from N. India—the first Jain or Brahman pioneers in the South—whose attention would at once be attracted by these strange sounds; for though the Canarese-Telugu alphabets are mere adaptations from the Sanskrit, they were not complete and wanted signs for **ĕ** and **ŏ**. Now to this day, the people of N. India cannot distinguish or pronounce properly the Dravidian **ĕ**, **ē**, **ŏ** and **ō**, and it, therefore, follows that the adaptation was by northern people.

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The transitional stage continued till the end of the thirteenth century A. D., and includes a period of great literary activity not only as regards the Telugu and Canarese languages, but also in Sanskrit. The reforms of the Vedāntist Rāmānuja belonged to the twelfth century, and he obtained great influence in Mysore where he converted the sovereign (a Yādava of the southern dynasty of Dwārasamudra) from the Jain persuasion. This king appears to have encouraged Telugu literature (because, no doubt, it was thoroughly brahmanical and orthodox), as much as his immediate predecessors had encouraged the Canarese³; and Nannaya Bhaṭṭa (a native of the east coast) composed under his patronage (about 1180 A. D.) a Telugu Grammar in Sanskrit, and began a translation of the Rāmāyaṇa which was finished by another Brahman, also a native of the east coast, a little later[^1). These events are nearly contemporaneous with the final ruin of the Western Cālukya dynasty which fell in 1182, and then the Yādavas became independent both in the North (Devagiri) and South, and thus shared the greater part of the old Cera and Cālukya kingdoms.

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³ See Mr. Kittel's preface to his edition of Keçirāja's Canarese Grammar.

Cites (2)