Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t3.33

c7.s2.t3.33

⁷⁶ By way of illustration, Ojhā shows how by such arbitrary alterations of forms one could formulate a pseudoderivation of Brāhmī from modern Roman script (26). But while it is true that several of Bühler's derivations did involve seemingly arbitrary alterations of the originals, Ojhā's criticisms are exaggerated and hence only partially justified, since, as we have seen, at least half of Bühler's derivations are reasonably cogent. Thus when Ojhā emphasizes (21) that only one Brāhmī letter (*ga*) agrees exactly with Phoenician, he hardly does justice to Bühler's carefully argued, if not invariably satisfactory, formulation; insisting on exact identity between prototype and derivative is just as unreasonable as arbitrarily concocting resemblances between dissimilar characters.