Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s3.t5.2

c7.s3.t5.2

None of these explanations being particularly convincing, several other suggestions of a non-Indic origin for the name Kharoṣṭ(h)ī have been offered. Albert Ludwig¹⁵⁶ proposed a derivation from an unattested Aramaic **ḥarūttā* predicted on the basis of the root *ḤRŠ* (Hebrew)/ *ḤRT* (Aramaic) ‘engrave’, and Bühler (OIBA 114 n. 1) seemed willing to accept this as an alternative to the traditional etymology. Others have looked for Iranian or semi-Iranian etymologies, most persuasive among which is Jean Przyluski’s suggestion¹⁵⁷ connecting the name with that of *Kharaposta*, given in the *Mahāmāyūrī* as one of the *yakṣas* of northwestern India and rendered into Chinese as ‘hide of donkey’ (<*khara* ‘donkey’ + Iranian *post* ‘hide’). *Kharoṣṭha*/*Kharoṣṭhī*, and so on, would evidently result from an incorrect Sanskritization of the Prakrit form of the word in question. According to Przyluski, the application of the name to the script can be attributed to the practice (actually attested in some of the central Asian Kharoṣṭhī documents) of writing on the hides of donkeys and other animals.¹⁵⁸ He also suggested a connection of the name Kharaposta with that of king Kharaosta, known from coins and from the Mathurā lion capital inscriptions. This suggestion was taken up by H. Humbach,¹⁵⁹ who proposed that the script was named directly after King Kharaosta, with whom its importation into India proper may have been associated. Humbach’s explanation is endorsed by Falk (SAI 90). More recently, H. W. Bailey¹⁶⁰ has proposed several possible Iranian etymologies for *Kharoṣṭhī*, of which the most compelling is **xšaθra-pištra* ‘royal writing’.