Indian Palaeography c15.s1.28

c15.s1.28

(i) *Technical*. Two different types of tools were used for writing and these had a marked influence on the shape of the letters. As we have seen, the pen was used throughout North India. The use of the pen gave three important characteristics to the letter-forms: (*a*) a definite head-mark to the letters of the north. It assumed the shape of a solid triangle, called by earlier palaeographers 'wedge' or 'nail-head'. (*b*) From the fifth century A.D. onwards the pen leaves behind a blot at the foot of the verticals, which gradually begins to grow and, as shown in Fig. 11, new forms of the letters are evolved. In some cases this blot develops a tail as in *da* and *ra*, and in some, as in *bha* and *sa*, it grows into a triangle and later opens its mouth. This blot will be henceforward referred to as the foot-mark. (*c*) From the sixth century there is noticeable a peculiar twist of the pen which makes an interplay of thick and thin lines in the ornate medial vowels (Fig. 12). The same tendency led to the origin of the *kuṭila* letters (Fig. 13). The use of the pen in the north was mainly responsible for the new shapes which so fundamentally differed from the southern characters.¹