Indian Palaeography c8.29

c8.29

As this conception is not to be found in the palaeographic writings of that time, the terms used in them remained undefined. One can, however, usually infer the sense in which they were used. Such terms as 'wedges', 'serifs', or 'block-heads', generally implied only outward shapes, with no intimate relation to the actual forms of the letters. It was this wrong conception which misled Bühler into seeing the existence of the serif in some letters of the Aśokan edicts.¹ On the other hand, Ojha seems to have attached no importance at all to the occurrence of these block-heads, wedges, serifs, &c. It appears that the terms were borrowed from outside, and without any due consideration were applied to Indian palaeography. One such new term used by Dr. Vimalananda in his thesis is 'uncial', borrowed directly from Greek palaeography and made the basis of classification over and above the cursive forms in his introduction, but he himself hardly applied it in his main description of the characters.