Indian Palaeography c17.3

c17.3

As early as 1877 K. F. Holle produced his *Tabel van Oud- en Nieuw-Indische Alphabetten* illustrating the different forms of writing, past and present, known from South-east Asia. His object was mainly to acquaint his readers with the scripts, but he had realized the significance of studying the writings of this vast area in relation to Indian palaeography. For this purpose he used not only Prinsep's tables¹ but also A. C. Burnell's *Elements of South Indian Palaeography*. However, not much advance could be made at this time because of the paucity of accurate reproductions of the inscriptions. Naturally the letter-forms given by him appear to be much affected by retouching. This point was brought out by H. Kern² in his review of the book. The real advance in the comparative study of these scripts was made with the publication of Bühler's *Indische Palaeographie*. Barth, Bergaigne, and Coedès discussed the problem in their editions of the inscriptions from Indo-China and Siam, Vogel contributed on the early Sanskrit inscriptions from Java and Borneo, and Blagden commented on the inscriptions from Burma. The late E. H. Johnston edited some Sanskrit inscriptions from Arakan. Early inscriptions from Malaya are published in the *Malayan Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society*,³ and those of Sumatra are in volume xxx of *B.E.F.E.O.* Some inscriptions have been re-examined by Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra in his thesis, ‘Expansion of the Indo-Aryan Culture’.⁴ All these materials are utilized here, and in this chapter an attempt is made to trace the origin and development of the different scripts of South-east Asia to the end of the seventh century A.D., stopping at a point when the proto-regional scripts had almost taken the field in the different areas. Accordingly I shall include all the early Sanskrit records as well as the earliest Cham, Mon, and Pyu inscriptions.