Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t6.15

c7.s2.t6.15

The second peculiarity of the Bhaṭṭiprōḷu script is its system for notation of the postconsonantal vowels *a* and *ā*. Uniquely among all the early Indic scripts, at Bhaṭṭiprōḷu the inherent vowel system is discarded, and a consonant followed by *a* does have a vowel marker consisting of a short horizontal line at the upper right, similar to the sign for *ā* in standard Brāhmī; e.g., [Figure:] = *ka*. (*ā* in the Bhaṭṭiprōḷu script is marked with a further downward extension of the *a* diacritic, as in [Figure:] = *kā*.) Bühler (OIBA) explained that this device "seems to have been invented in order to avoid the necessity of forming the ligatures, which make the ordinary Brāhma alphabet cumbersome and difficult to read . . . , and in order to express final consonants more conveniently" (82). He evidently assumed that consonantal groups would have been written in this script by putting the prior member(s) in the bare form, without any diacritic, to indicate their vowelless state, thereby obviating the complication of conjunct consonants. But, as noted by Mahalingam (ESIP 120), no such vowelless characters or final consonants actually occur in the Bhaṭṭiprōḷu inscriptions, presumably because they were written in a vernacular Prakrit dialect. Bühler's explanation seems to presuppose that the script was also used for writing Sanskrit or more formal varieties of Prakrit in this period, but there is no evidence that this was the case. Rather, discoveries made subsequently to Bühler's writings, namely the Old Tamil Brāhmī inscriptions discussed later, suggest that this aberrant vowel notation system reflects innovations made in the environment of Dravidian rather than Indo-Aryan languages.