Indian Palaeography c15.s4.t2: (i) Horiuzi Palm-leaf MS.
Indian Palaeography c15.s4.t2
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(i) Horiuzi Palm-leaf MS.
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Max Müller notes the following tradition regarding the ownership of the manuscript: 'We have good evidence showing that these leaves were brought to Japan in a.d. 609, and that they came from China. It is further probable that in China they belonged to the monk Yashi, who died in a.d. 577, and before him to Bodhidharma, who emigrated from India to China in a.d. 520’. Relying on this tradition, Bühler adds: ‘Leaving all probabilities aside it is certain that this MS., which evidently has been written by an Indian scribe, cannot date later than the first half of the 6th century a.d.’¹ Later he² remarks: ‘If we had no historical information regarding the age of the Horiuzi palm leaves, every palaeographist, I believe, would draw from the above facts the inference that they belonged to the beginning of the eighth century a.d.’ Finally, he draws the conclusion: ‘They clearly illustrate the truth of the maxim that the inscriptions are not safe guides for the investigation of the history of the Indian alphabet, but that in the development of the letters they lag behind the literary documents.’³ This maxim is probably true when two allied scripts are used—one for the inscriptions and the other for literary purposes or business documents. Examples can be cited of the simultaneous use of Hieratic and Demotic in ancient Egypt, or of Kūfic and Naskh in the Muslim world during the early centuries of the Hijra. Here the two scripts show development in their own ways. But when the same script is employed for inscriptions and literary documents, the difference will be merely stylistic unless a particular archaic form is deliberately preserved; e.g. in India and Pakistan even today only Naskh script is used for the letters of the Holy Qur’ān, though for other purposes Nasta‘liq script is used. This same Nasta‘liq turns into the Shikastā style in ordinary letter writing. But all three styles have been in use in the subcontinent at least from Mughal times. In the case of Indian inscriptions there is no reason to believe that the archaic form was deliberately preserved. On the other hand, the epigraphic writing shows changes that are traceable to the literary style because the new forms seen in the letters are the natural result of the technique of the pen rather than that of the engraver. In consequence of technical improvement new forms were being created, no doubt first in the literary style, but when these forms came into general use they were certainly adopted even in the inscriptions. An exceptional literary document may show one or two new forms, but in the general tenor of writing they must conform to the current system. It is on these grounds that the two manuscripts (*g*) and (*h*) pp. 147–51 have been dated in the same manner as the inscriptions. If we rely on the historical tradition about the Horiuzi MS. and antedate it by two centuries, there is no reason why the above two manuscripts should not also be antedated by a similar period. This will lead us to accept a date for the complicated forms of the Bower MS. even before the appearance of the simple style in the Gupta inscriptions of the fourth century a.d. This is hardly possible. Hence I prefer to rely on the evidence of general palaeography for the date of the Horiuzi MS. In this choice support is derived from the fact that so much importance was attached not only to the text but also to the forms of the letters that as late as the seventeenth century a.d. Ziogon attempted to reproduce an identical copy. It may be that the original copy was made by an Indian scribe at the time referred to by Max Müller, but the present copy could not have been written earlier than about a.d. 700 at the earliest.
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¹ Max Müller, op. cit., p. 64.
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² Ibid., p. 90.
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³ Ibid., p. 93.
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Bühler¹ speaks of five 'general principles visible in the formation of the letters'. The first refers to the Indian habit of writing each letter separately, the second to the triangular head-mark, and the third again to this head-mark, which at this time does not cover the entire breadth of the letter as it does in the later Nāgarī characters. These are the features shared by all the northern styles dealt with in this chapter. The fourth refers to the flattening of the tops of the letters *kha*, *ga*, and *śa*. This practice is known from the fifth century a.d. onwards. The last principle is described as 'the development of right hand verticals, projecting beyond the body of the letters'. In my terminology it can be described as the development of the tails—a feature which develops out of *kuṭila* writing and is seen nowhere in India before the close of the seventh century a.d. The best examples are the Nalanda stone inscription of Yaśovarman² and the proto-Nāgarī inscriptions of the Rāshṭrakūṭas.³ That the Horiuzi MS. also falls in the same chronological sequence is borne out by a detailed analysis of the letters, which are seen not only in the text but also given separately as alphabets in the last line of the second leaf.
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¹ Max Müller, *op. cit.*, p. 68.
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² See above, p. 129.
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³ See below, p. 164.
c15.s4.t2.9
The initial *a* is of the curved type with the curve projecting its two arms beyond the left vertical, a feature of the later period. The long *ā* is formed optionally by adding a curve to the right vertical, as had been the practice since Gupta times, but a new form with a vertical stroke on the right of short *a* is seen as in the Rāshṭrakūṭa inscriptions of the eighth century A.D. The initial *i* has two dots above and a tailed one below. The initial *ī* shows a new form, displacing the one which was in use since the Kushāṇa period. It shows four dots arranged in the form of a rhombus, the lowest one having a tail curved to the left. This form is also seen in Nepalese manuscripts from the tenth century A.D. onwards.¹ The other initial vowels are of the type seen in this period. The medial vowels have all become standardized, as is also seen in the Nalanda stone inscription of Yaśovarman. *Halanta* (a vowelless consonant) is marked by a short stroke attached to the bottom right of the letter. *Ka* is of the looped type. Flat tops are seen in *kha*, *ga*, *ṭa*, *dha*, and *śa*. The development of tails is observable in the right limbs of *ka*, *kha*, *gha*, *tha*, *da*, *dha*, *na*, *pa*, *ma*, *ya*, *la*, *va*, *sha* and *sa*. Remarkable late forms are *ṇa* with an angular right outer arm while the left still falls in a curve, *tha* with an outer loop at the top left, *pha* with an outer curl on the top right, the rounded form of *va* used both for *va* and *ba*, *bha* with a curved right limb and the left showing a notch; this last is an obvious simplification from the triangular foot-mark, though *sa* maintains the triangular loop at the bottom left with the only change that the loop is now filled up. Finally, *ma* has now merged its left tail in the twisted loop, as is also seen in the late inscriptions. On the whole the style is much simplified. The angularity is well marked and the bent verticals have mostly been straightened, leaving a trace in the tails—all these due to the hard pen that was used for writing, as has been rightly observed by Bühler.
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¹ Bendall's *Catalogue*.
Linked texts (1)
- Bower Manuscript — Sanskrit