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Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c7: Chapter IV. Accents and Signs of Punctuation

Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c7

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Chapter IV. Accents and Signs of Punctuation

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THERE is very little to be said about the method of accentuating Vedic MSS. in S. India, as this is but seldom done at all, and the accented MSS. hardly deserve mention here as they are rarely above a century old.

§ 1. Ṛig and Yajur Vedas

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In the oldest MSS. only the udātta is marked. In the Telugu MSS. this is generally done by a circle o; in the Grantha MSS. the letter u or a circle is written above the syllable, thus: உ, o. In this respect MSS. of the Saṃhitā and Padapāṭha agree¹. In the last the words are separated by a perpendicular stroke: | The avagraha is seldom marked, but when it is done a zigzag line is used: ⎨

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¹ As I have repeatedly stated elsewhere, the Atharva Veda is unknown to the S. Indian Brahmans. In Weber's "Indische Studien" (xiii., 118) there is an account of the accentuation of a Nandināgarī MS. of the Ṛig Veda.

§ 2. The Sāma-Veda

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The accentuation of the Sāma Veda, as used in South-India, is a subject beset with difficulties, of which it is impossible here to give more than a very brief notice, for not only do the MSS. of different Çākhās present different systems, but the MSS. of the text followed by one and the same Çākhā often present essential variations². MSS. of the Ārcika parts of this Veda are seldom accented, as being of little importance, for the gānas really constitute the Veda. Occasionally one finds the udātta marked by a circle. The musical notation of the gānas as practised in S. India is very complicated, and is explained in a separate paribhāshā³. It appears to be on much the same principle as the musical notation of the ancient Greeks, and consists in using combinations of a consonant with a vowel to express a group of notes. This old system (as it is termed) which was used by Sāyaṇa, has been nearly superseded by the N. Indian notation by numbers, which was introduced from Gujarat into Tanjore during the last century at the earliest. Even now, it is excessively hard to find a Sāma-Vedī who can give any explanation at all of these notes, and in a few years the only guides will be the treatises on the formation of the gānas which indeed are, probably, the only safe ones at present.

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² See my "Catalogue of a Collection of Sanskrit MSS.," pt. i., pp. 48, 49; "Ārsheyabrāhmaṇa", pp. xli-xlvii.; "Classified Index to the Tanjore MSS.," p. 10.

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³ I have already given specimens, with an account of the Paribhāshā in my "Catalogue" pp. 44-5. The Jaiminīya çākhā has a different notation and paribhāshā.

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Palæographically, the notation of the Vedic accents is a subject almost devoid of interest. The different methods used for the different Vedas are all of very recent origin, comparatively; and have arisen in different parts of India much about the same time, and in consequence of the decay of the old way of learning the Vedas by heart. In S. India there is no pretence of a complete or even uniform system, and ᴍss. with accents do not appear to occur before the middle of the sixteenth century. The multitude of treatises on Vedic phonetics still existing in S. India must always have made the want of accented ᴍss. but little felt, and all the old Vedic Brahmans that I have met with, never attached the least value to them.

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As the S. Indian alphabets have no system of accents at all agreeing with those in use in the North of India, it follows that in the early centuries A. D. the accents were not marked at all.

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It is thus quite certain that the endless varieties of accent-marks are merely individual and more or less perfect attempts to accentuate the Vedic texts according to the teaching of the Prātiçākhyas.

§ 3. Punctuation

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The edicts of Açoka cannot be said to have any marks to indicate the close of a sentence, and the perpendicular stroke | is not much used in the inscriptions of the early centuries after the Christian era. In later ones single | and double || stroke both occur with precisely the same significations (either to mark the division in a verse, or to indicate the end of a sentence or paragraph) as in the northern documents.

§ 4. Ornaments to MSS.

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The oldest ᴍss. on palm-leaves contain merely the text, and that continuous from the beginning to the end; even the end of a section being marked by a | only. After the 15th century this awkward custom was generally given up, and the divisions of a text plainly marked by ornamental flourishes which are various forms of the word ‘Çrī’. About the same period were written the earliest examples of ᴍss. with diagrams or illustrative pictures¹. The later inscriptions have commonly at the commencement very rude representations of sacred emblems, *e. g.* the trident and drum of Çiva¹); the conch of Vishṇu; the sun and moon; the liṅga with a worshipper etc.²); the Jains put an elephant.

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¹ See an example in Hunter's "Orissa" i., p. 168. The Kārkal MS. of the 'Trilokasāra' is the best I have seen.

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¹ *Cfr.* Ellis “On Mirasi Right”, p. 67.

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² See *Indian Antiquary*, vol. v. plate opp. p. 362.

§ 5. Corrections, etc.

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Erasures are generally made by a line above or below the erroneous letter or word, and occasionally (in çāsanas on metal plates) the erroneous letter or word is beaten out.

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Omissions are marked by a small cross (kākapāda or haṁsapāda) over the place, and the letter or words that are wanting are then written underneath the line³), or in the margin. If there are several such corrections on the same leaf, it is often difficult to make out the place to which each belongs, and this is a frequent cause of error in the transcripts of MSS. Copyists in India will always insert any marginal note they may see, in the text⁴), but are quite indifferent where they insert it.

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³ There is an example in the Mercara plates of this.

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⁴ See Bühler’s “Āpastamba-Dharmasūtra”, i., p. 7.

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Where a word or letter is to be transferred this is done by writing numbers above corresponding to the required order.

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In S. Indian MSS. of commentaries on texts, the words of the original are very seldom given in full, but the first two or three syllables are quoted, a cross is then put, and then the last word or syllable of the sentence which is to be explained is then given. Thus: “athāto darça+vyākhyāsyāmaḥ”.

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The use of the bindu (o) in S. Indian Prakrit MSS. is very peculiar; it is put before a consonant to show that it is doubled (*e. g.* sa°go=saggo), and this is done even if the consonant it precedes is aspirated (*e. g.* cho°thi=choththi for chotthi)⁵). This practice may be a survival of a similar system used in the Cave inscriptions in Prakrit, as Profr. Kern has shown. The sign ° is also used to express *jj* or *yy*; *e. g.* a°o=ajjo or ayyo⁶).

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⁵ See Pischel, ‘Urvaçī’ in “Monatsber. d. Berliner Acad.” 1875, p. 616.

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⁶ Do: pp. 614-5. Also E. Müller, “Beiträge zur Grammatik des Jainaprākrit”, p. 12.

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In a Tamiḻ grant (Pallava) of the eleventh century some words which are several times repeated are given in an abbreviated form, *e. g.* ‘go:’ for ‘gotra’. It is, perhaps, remarkable that abbrevations should occur so seldom, for the ‘bījāxara’ system has long been held in esteem in India.

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