Indian Palaeography c18.s2.14

c18.s2.14

The Kharoshṭhī is a pen style of writing, in which one type of pen remained in use throughout. The manner of its use is easily detected. In the Aśokan inscriptions it leaves behind a foot-mark in the form of an upward slant at the lower end of the verticals on the left. This foot-mark must be attributed to the style of the writer rather than to the engraver, as is proved by its presence in the hand-written documents from Chinese Turkestan (Pl. XXIII. 13). When it is not found on stone or metal, it is partly due to the engraver’s negligence¹ and partly to another style of writing seen in the documents. In this second style the verticals gradually thin out into curves, as is natural to a pen. It is these curves which predominate in the inscriptions of the Kushāṇa period. In such examples the medial *u* assumes the form of a loop. This loop in stone engraving sometimes becomes a triangle. In the ink style of writing seen in some potsherds from Baluchistan² and in the documents from Chinese Turkestan the tendency is to draw the lines and the additional strokes with one sweep of the hand. It is this process which has resulted in the cursive forms of some letters, especially *sa*. However, the writer’s hand may not be faithfully copied by the engraver or the metal worker, and sometimes the latter’s technique or convention produces a different effect; e.g. on metal plates and vases the letters are formed by rows of dots (not shown in our plate), in steatite vases the letters are scratched with a stylus, and in the coins and medals many other superfluous lines or dots are usually seen in the forms of *ma*, *ha*, and *ja*, and rarely in *ga*, *da*, *na*, and *sa*. Percy Gardner¹ took these lines and dots for lengthened vowels, and hence read *māhāraja* for *maharaja*, and *menadrāsa* for *menaṁdrasa*.²