The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c10.6

c10.6

¹ J. Kennedy, ‘The Early Commerce of India with Babylon; 700-330 B.C.’ (*J. R. A. S.*, 1898, pp. 241-88); Bühler, ‘Indische Palaeographie (*Grundriss Indo-Ar. Phil. und Alt.*, Strassburg, 1898); transl. as Appendix to *Ind. Ant.*, vol. xxxiii (1904); ‘On the Origin of the Brāhma and Kharoṣṭhī Alphabets’ (two papers, in *Sitzb. Akad. Wiss. Wien*, 1895); Hoernle, ‘An Epigraphical Note on Palm-leaf, Paper, and Birchbark’ (*J. A. S. B.*, vol. lxix, part 1, 1900). I have not seen a Dutch work by Holle, *Oud-en Nieuw-Indische Alphabetten*, Batavia, 1882, cited in *J. R. A. S.*, 1911, p. 370. The art of writing may have been introduced by merchants on the south-western coast as early as the eighth century B. C., or even before that time. The knowledge of the art seems to have gradually spread to the north, where probably it became widely known during the seventh century. But, of course, no data exist for accurate chronology. So much is clear, that writing must have been known long before the appearance of the earliest extant inscriptions in the fourth or fifth century B. C.