Indian Palaeography c18.s2.9

c18.s2.9

As Bühler has shown, the Kharoshṭhī script has been found (i) in stone inscriptions, (2) on metal plates and vases, (3) on coins, (4) on cameos, and (5) on a small piece of birch-bark from a stūpa in Afghanistan and on the *bhūrja* MS. of the *Dhammapada* from Khotan.¹ To this list must be added the documents on wood, leather or paper discovered by Stein in Chinese Turkestan. In all these writings Kharoshṭhī maintains its unified character. Hardly any evolution is seen in the forms of the letters. The main variation is in the manner in which a given form is reproduced on a material, the change in the latter affecting the form. The particular manner followed in a period or on one material became a convention. This convention did not develop into different schools of writing as it was controlled by a common technical process. It is the recognition of the conventionalized strokes, or the way of writing followed in the different materials, that roughly enables us to place the different inscriptions in chronological order. The invention of the diacritic strokes for new sounds is most important in Kharoshṭhī. As this script has been used to express sounds needed in different languages, it was necessary to devise ways by which a given alphabet might be adopted to the particular need. But despite these additional strokes the main forms of the nucleus letters hardly show any evolution. The Kharoshṭhī script has only one type, but it has complete power to express any sound of Sanskrit or foreign origin. The view propounded by Bühler² that it was a popular writing as opposed to the Brāhmī, which he thought to be literary, has been rightly corrected by Rapson³ on the evidence of the Niya documents, and he has conclusively shown that Kharoshṭhī could be used for writing correct Sanskrit. But the example of classical Sanskrit quoted by him is limited to only four verses. On the other hand, some form of the local Prakrit is the chief medium through which Kharoshṭhī is now known, and it seems that it was originally created to express this language. For while the nucleus letters and even the medial short vowels have separate signs for themselves, the additional letters are formed by a common diacritic stroke (an oblique stroke added to the foot of the vertical on the right), and a uniform procedure of adding a sloping stroke at the right bottom of the letters is adopted for the long vowels. This regularity suggests a later adaptation.