Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s1.t5: E. The Old and Modern Telugu-Canarese Alphabets

Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s1.t5

Language: English

E. The Old and Modern Telugu-Canarese Alphabets

The next stage in the development of the northern Dravidian alphabets is the Haḷakannaḍa and old Telugu, between which it is impossible at present to establish any distinction. This alphabet dates from the end of the thirteenth century, and the distinction between it and the character I have termed transitional consists merely: 1) in the disuse of the few remaining older forms which I have described in the last section as being found in that alphabet, and the exclusive use of the new forms; 2) in the absence of distinction between **ḍ** and **ḍh**, **p** and **ph** and some other aspirates; 3) in the absence of marks to distinguish **i** and **ī**[^2). Between this alphabet and the modern forms the differences are but trivial.

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As will be easily understood in the case of an alphabet like this which was in use from the Canara coast to the mouths of the Kṛshṇā and Godāvarī, there were several slight varieties or hands, but it would take far too much space to notice here more than a few points, even though such details are of interest as partly subsisting up to the present time.

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The earliest important variation, I have noticed, is in the form of **t**. About 1300 this letter appears in inscriptions on the west (or Canara) coast with a double loop [char: Telugu/Canarese letter], that to the left is only partly closed, whereas on the east coast and the central territory between the two, the form [char: Telugu/Canarese letter] with a single loop is preferred[^3). In the modern Telugu and Canarese alphabets, this is exactly reversed. In the inscriptions in the Canarese country visarga is represented by a circle large enough to occupy the same space as the other letters, in the eastern country a very small circle only was in general use. Again the

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[^1): This poet (?) was named Tikkaṇṇa; he died in 1198 A.D. (Brown's “Cyclic Tables,” Madras edition, p. 58). Nāgavarma, the author of the Canarese Prosody, was also a Telugu from Veṅgi; his date is, however, uncertain. (Mr. Kittel's ed. p. xxv.) [^2): See Mr. Fleet's remarks on an inscription of A.D. 1510. *Indian Antiquary*, v. p. 73. [^3): For the Canarese forms I use an inscription on stone at Mangalore, d. ç. 1225 = 1303-4. I have an excellent photograph (by Messrs. Orr & Barton of Bangalore) from an estampage-impression by Mr. Kittel, and have examined the original; Mr. Kittel has also kindly given me a transcript.

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Canarese form of **k** (ಕ) was originally the most general one¹), whereas the modern Telugu ళ was confined in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the northern part of the present Nellore district, where a very *round* hand has always prevailed. Owing to that part of the Telugu country having been one of the earliest British possessions in Southern India, this hand was adopted as the model, on the introduction of Telugu printing in the beginning of this century at Madras. At present, the Canarese is especially distinguished from the Telugu alphabet by the method of marking the long vowels **ī**, **ē** and **ō**, by the addition of a separate sign (—ೕ) following the consonant with the usual short vowel affixed; this is entirely wanting in Telugu. The earliest instance I have noticed is in a palm-leaf ᴍs. of the first half of the sixteenth century A. D., but it does not occur in any old Sanskrit ᴍss. in the Canarese character at all, nor commonly in Canarese ᴍss. till much later. The Telugu method of marking the short and long **e** and **o** does not appear till the seventeenth century. About this period apparently owing to the revival of Sanskrit studies for a time, the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated letters becomes again usual, and has continued up to the present, though really alien to the Dravidian languages. It began much earlier in Telugu than in Canarese, and even in the Sanskrit ᴍss. on grammar written in the latter character, it is but seldom made; a fact, which, by itself, proves the prevalence of oral teaching²).

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¹ See pl. xxxi.

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² Cfr. the alphabet given in pl. ix. I have already given a facsimile of a Canarese Sanskrit MS. of about 1600 A. D. in my edition of the Vamçabrāhmaṇa. The difference between the writing of MSS. of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is very slight; the body of the letters in the latter is not so large, or so round and close together.

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From the earliest inscriptions down to the latest, the gradual extension of the use of the bindu (o) is very remarkable, and appears a tolerably safe test of the age of a document. I shall therefore give briefly the results I have gathered.

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In the early inscriptions the Cera bindu is *above* the line, the Cālukya *on the line*³): but after the twelfth or thirteenth century it is always, and in all S. Indian characters, written *on* the line. This is even the case in the Nandi-nāgarī, though here, it, by being in this position, renders the writing unsightly.

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³ Irregularities however are found; see Mr. Fleet's remarks in *Indian Antiquary*, iv. p. 85.

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As regards the employment of the *bindu*, the broad rule is: the later the inscription, the more incorrect and indiscriminate is its use. In the earlier inscriptions it is seldom used for **ṅ**, **ñ**, **n**, and **m** before a consonant of the same class *in* a word; but it is used for all these nasals except **ṇ**, by the fifteenth century; and from that time to the present one occasionally finds **mḍ**. The common practice of using the bindu to express all the nasals, even including a final **m**, which some editors in Europe have copied from the more modern MSS. from N. India, is, therefore, a very old practice in the South, though it is most certainly erroneous according to the chief grammarians, and, therefore, as Profr. Whitney contends, is to be rejected, though convenient in practice¹. It is hardly necessary to remark that the *bindu* is properly the sign of the unmodified nasal or anusvāra.

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¹ Profr. Max Müller (Hitopadeça, p. viii. and S. Gr. pp. 6-7) allows it as a convenient way of writing.

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I have not noticed in any inscription the nasalized semi-vowel; it sometimes occurs in Telugu Vedic MSS. and then has the form of ఁ. Nor have I met with the ardhānusvāra to which some Telugu grammarians allude². The ఱ (ṟ) of the Telugu inscriptions is now disused³.

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² *v.* App. A.

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³ This letter is etymologically of significance; and, therefore, cannot be neglected.

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The use of visarga is generally incorrect in the inscriptions; it is seldom converted according to rule. In S. India the alternative allowed by the grammarians of assimilating visarga to a following sibilant is almost universally accepted, and the reduplication of the sibilant then omitted. This is a common source of error in reading S. Indian inscriptions and MSS. The separation of the superscript **r** from the following consonant (as pronounced) above which it is written, begins about 1300 A.D. After 1350 it is always on the right hand, *e. g.* **rka** is written ౯క (kr). By 1550-1600 A.D. the modern secondary form of **e** is always used, *e. g.* **ve** is written వె. (For the older form see Pl. viii.) In the fifteenth century both forms co-exist; in the fourteenth the modern form begins to appear.

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Allusions to the current alphabets are almost as rare in the S. Indian mediæval works as in the Sanskrit. Ātharvaṇācārya (who cannot be earlier than the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century) describes the transitional alphabet just as it was changing into the earliest modern form ("*Kārikāḥ*" 29-32)⁴:

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⁴ I follow a transcript of the unique and very incorrect MS. in Mr. Brown's collection at Madras.

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29. *b.* pañćavargādayo varṇāḥ çaṅkha-(a ఱ)çārṅgā-(g ౯)disamnibhāḥ ||
30. tiryagrekhāyujaç čo 'rdhvam daṇḍarekhānvitā adhaḥ (✓ *and* |) |
ta eva ca dvitīyā(ḥ) syur ūrdhvam rekhādviranvitāḥ (*sic*) ||
31. prathamās tu tṛitīyā(ḥ) syus tṛitīyānte čaturthakāḥ |
rekhādvayādhodanḍena yuktā(ḥ) syur anunāsikāḥ ||
32. miladdaṇḍadvayopetāḥ prathamā paya\*smṛitāḥ |
pūrṇendusadṛiçaḥ pūrņas tv ardhas tv ardhendusannibhaḥ ||

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There is much here very unintelligible, but the description of some of the letters clearly points to about 1200 A.D. The Canarese "Basavapurāṇa" (of 1369 A.D.)

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mentions the Telugu, Canarese, Grantha, Tamiḷ (Drāviḷa), Lāḷa (*i. e.* Lāṭa or Gujarat) and Persian alphabets¹, and this would seem to indicate that there was then a greater distinction between the Canarese and Telugu alphabets than we actually find.

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¹ I owe this reference to Mr. Kittel; it occurs in ch. v.

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Nor is it quite clear what letters the mediæval grammarians considered to belong to the alphabet. Al-Bīrūnī of Khwārizm (who lived from 970-1039 A. D.)² puts the number of Sanskrit (Nāgarī) letters at fifty³; Nannaya Bhaṭṭa, in his Telugu Grammar (and of the twelfth century), also puts the Sanskrit letters at fifty, the Prakrit at forty, the Telugu at thirty-six⁴. The commentators are, however, not agreed as to whether both **x** (ksh) and **ḻ** are intended to be included among the Sanskrit letters⁵. Lassen (“Indische Alterthumskunde” iv. p. 796) takes the Ṛigveda **ḻ** to be the fiftieth letter of Al-Bīrūnī; it may reasonably be doubted if that was the view held in India. The Canarese Grammar includes both **x** and **ḻ**⁶.

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² Elliot, “Muhammedan Historians of India” (by Dowson) I. p. 42. ii., pp. 1-9.

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³ Reinaud, “Mémoire,” p. 297.

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⁴ “Āndhraçabdacintāmaṇi”, I. 14. ādyāyāḥ pañcāçad varṇāḥ. 15. Prakṛites tu te daçonāḥ syuḥ. 16. Shattriṁçad atra te. 17. Anye cā 'nupraviçanti çabdayogavaçāt. (*i. e.* in Sanskrit or Prakrit words used in Telugu).

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⁵ Ahobala (18th century) says in his C. on the first of the Sūtras quoted in the last note: “Atra kecid a, ā . . . . . . . . xaḷavarṇasahitā ūshmāṇaç ca hala ity ucyante | militvā pañcāçad varṇā bhavanti 'ti vadanti | . . . . . keshāñcin mate . . . . . ḷavarṇasya 'grāhaṇam ca sammatam ||” (MS.)

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⁶ “Çabdamaṇidarpaṇa” (by Mr. Kittel) p. 11. See Appendix A.

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The Vajrākṛiti and Gajakumbhākṛiti of Vopadeva (*i. e.* **h** before **k** and **kh**, and before **p** and **ph**) very rarely occur in modern mss.; they have the form of ☲ and oo. The last occurs as in only one old inscription, so far as I know. (Pl. i.) The northern form (≍) is also used in mss. sometimes. The Vajrākṛiti has been identified by Mr. Fleet in the same inscription (Pl. i. See above p. 16). He has also found an instance of avagraha (*s*)⁷, and of a new form of the sign for virāma⁸ much like a subscript **u**. This is the N. Indian form as we find in Nāgarī; the S. Indian virāma is written *above* the letter.

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⁷ *Ind. Antiquary*, ii., p. 299.

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⁸ Do. vi., pp. 136-7.

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The chief general differences between the modern Telugu and Canarese characters and the older ones is, that in the former the vowels attached to consonants are, relatively, of but small size compared with the body of the consonants; in the later character they are so much larger, as almost to be out of proportion⁹.

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⁹ A good specimen of Canarese writing of the end of the 16th century exists at Kārkal (S. Canara) in a stela with a grant to the Jain temple there, *d. ç.* 1508=1587 A. D.

Cites (1)

Basavapurāṇa — Sanskrit