Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s3.t7.7

c7.s3.t7.7

Various further modifications arose in varieties of Kharoṣṭhī used to write texts or words of non-Gāndhārī origin. Most important, late Kharoṣṭhī records sometimes added a line or curve at the lower right of a consonant character to indicate a long vowel (e.g., = *kā*). A few sporadic and somewhat uncertain examples of this device are noted in inscriptions from India,¹⁷⁸ but it is much more common in the central Asian documents, especially those in Sanskrit (e.g., KI II nos. 511, 523). In the latter we also find signs for syllabic *r*, the *vṛddhi* vowels *ai* and *au* (formed by combining the ordinary diacritics for *e* and *o* with the long vowel sign), vowelless consonants (see KI III.297), *ṅa*, and *visarga* (the last two being perhaps borrowings from Brāhmī). In the central Asian documents, non-Indic names and loan words were represented with the help of new conjuncts such as *pga*, *cma*, and *jhbo*. Many of the diacritically modified characters mentioned previously were also used for this purpose.