Early South Indian Palaeography c8.s2.11

c8.s2.11

" However, picture-writing even in its elementary stage is more than a picture. It differs from picturing, which is the beginning of pure pictorial representation or art, from the fact that it is the utilitarian beginning of written language, aiming to convey to the mind not the pure representation of an event, but a narrative of the event, each notion, or idea being expressed by a little picture or sketch, which we term *pictograph*. The distinction is important, for the change from embryo-writing to picture writing implies an immense progress in the art of perpetuating or transmitting thought ''.³⁵ The change must have come about very early considering the pace of development from the Aurignasian cave drawings (of 20,000 to 30,000 years ago) which clearly show that people had acquired the mental trick of isolating the element of shape, and later those of colour, number etc. from their general impressions of animals.³⁶