Indian Palaeography c16.s1.21

c16.s1.21

Inscriptions included under category no. 4 may be compared with the writing seen in the records of the Sātavāhana ruler Vāśishṭhīputra Puḷumāvī (Pl. IX. 3). Here the lower ends of the verticals in *a*, *ka*, *ra*, and the vertical type of the medial *u* are curved to the left. The initial *a* now copies two Sātavāhana forms—the first has its two left curves meeting the right vertical at the same point, and the second has its upper left curve broadened and the lower one appended from the left side of the former curve. The medial *i* is a tall curve either going to the left or bending to the right, as seen in the Mathura Kshatrapa inscriptions.¹ Identical Sātavāhana forms can also be seen in the consonantal types used in these inscriptions. The notable examples are *cha* with a beaked loop below a stem; both *ḍa* and *da* with rounded backs and their mouths open to the right; *ta* with a broad curve added to the right of a vertical; *dha* with its left arc rounded or pointed; the slightly bent left sides of *pa*, *ba* and *ha*; *bha* of the broad type; *ma* with a triangular looped base; *ya* round- or flat-based; the right vertical of *la* inclined to the right; and *va* as a triangle without an upper stem. Henceforward *śa* and *sha* are not used in the Ceylonese inscriptions, except in the Sanskrit records of much later date. Another local peculiarity is the reduction of the horizontal lines in *ṇa* and *na*—a practice which henceforward becomes typical of Ceylon. On the evidence of this analysis these inscriptions may be placed in the later half of the second century A.D.