Indian Palaeography c18.s3.9

c18.s3.9

As we have seen, Kharoshṭhī follows the principles of Brāhmī as far as the language demands. It was the necessity of grammar that brought it closer to Brāhmī and helped in the evolution of similar vowel notation and an equal number of consonants. The conjuncts are also formed in similar ways. But the main difference is seen in the vowels. While Brāhmī has three basic forms of vowels, *a*, *i* and *u*, Kharoshṭhī has only one, the forms of the remaining vowels being obtained by the addition of diacritic strokes. In this respect Kharoshṭhī is nearer to Aramaic, but while Aramaic does not need to express the medial vowels, Kharoshṭhī has to do it according to the needs of the grammar. Kharoshṭhī also differs from Brāhmī in the application of the signs for *dīrgha*, *guṇa* and *vṛiddhi*. As shown in Fig. 19, in Kharoshṭhī an extra stroke is added to the right bottom of the letters, but Brāhmī usually doubles the stroke.¹ This difference suggests that the indication of long vowels in the Kharoshṭhī script is of later origin, as it appears only in the documents from Chinese Turkestan, where it is mainly used in Sanskrit words.