Indian Palaeography c14.4

c14.4

Recently an attempt has been made by Dr. Van Lohuizen De Leeuw¹ to study the development of the ‘Kushāṇa’ script at Mathura on the basis of a few letters. She takes the forms of the vowel *u*, the medial *u* in *ku*, the subscript *ya*, and the consonant *ya*, and tries to arrange the inscriptions in chronological order, as the base of *u* becomes more and more crooked, or as the length of the subscript *ya* increases, or as the middle vertical of *ya* becomes inclined and its left vertical has or has not a loop. This study of a gradual development is not a new method. It is similar to the old idea of the gradual reduction of the verticals from Aśokan Brāhmī onwards—a conception which was based on misunderstanding and hence was rejected in the last chapter. Similarly, Dr. Lohuizen’s assumption fails miserably when applied to a wider horizon and tested by comparative materials from the other regions. This wider perspective demands a new approach to the problem.