Indian Palaeography c8.26

c8.26

Their origin is to be found in the cursive forms, which first appear in the addition to the Aśoka edict VI of Dhauli, and in a number of signs of the Kālsī version, and later are found, occasionally or constantly, in some of the Jaina votive inscriptions of the Kuṣāṇa period. Their general type is that of a cursive alphabet with signs reduced at the top to the same height, and made throughout, as much as possible, equal in breadth. As the occurrence of ancient MSS. and various peculiarities of the letters, such as the formation of wedges out of the *serifs* at the ends of the verticals, clearly prove, they were always written with a pen or a brush and ink.¹