Indian Palaeography c15.s4.t2.5

c15.s4.t2.5

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.