Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s3.4

c9.s3.4

Like the literary style of Eastern India named after Gauḍa, the East Indian alphabet was named after the same country. Bühler says, "Towards the end of the 11th century, the Nāgarī inscriptions of Eastern India shew such distinct traces of changes leading up to the modern Bengali writing and these changes become so numerous in the 12th century that it is possible to class their alphabets as Proto-Bengali. Only a few among the Proto-Bengali letters are new local formations. The great majority occur already in other older scripts, be it in exactly the same or in similar shape."¹ Bendall and Bühler also noticed the influence of this script on the alphabet used in the Nepalese manuscripts of the period between the 12th and 15th centuries.² Now, in coining the name Proto-Bengali for the script in question, Bühler seems to have ignored several factors. In the first place, 'the eastern variety of the Nāgarī alphabet' found in 'the Nāgarī inscriptions of Eastern India', out of which Proto-Bengali developed in the twelfth century, should better have been distinguished from the 'Nāgarī' found in the inscriptions discovered in other parts of India by applying a more specific name to it. Secondly, when, even earlier than the eleventh century A.D.,³ the same script was used in Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Orissa and when even now Bengal and Assam use practically the same alphabet while the Maithili and Oriya alphabets are nearly the same, the name Proto-Bengali can hardly be regarded as quite appropriate, in spite of the fact that, along with its literature, Bengal's alphabet has come to occupy a more important position. Thirdly, as early as the first half of the eleventh century, the same East Indian script was named after Gauḍa. Al-Birūnī, who wrote his work on India about 1030 A.D., speaks of the following alphabets : (1) Siddhamātṛkā used in the Kashmir, Banāras and Kanauj regions, (2) Nāgara used in Mālava (3-5) Ardhanāgarī, Malwārī and Saindhava, used in Sindh, (6-9) Karṇāṭa, Āndhrī, Drāviḍī and Lārī used respectively in the Kannaḍa, Andhra, Drāviḍa and Lāṭa countries, (10) Gauḍī used in Pūrva-deśa, *i.e.* the eastern country, and (11) Bhaikṣukī which was the writing of the Buddha (*i.e.* the Buddhists) used in Udunpur (possibly Uddaṇḍapura, *i.e.* modern Biharsharif in the Patna District) in Pūrva-deśa.¹ This shows that the East Indian script, called Proto-Bengali by Bühler, was named after Gauḍa at least by the beginning of the eleventh century. Many of the names found in the list of sixty-four alphabets in the *Lalitavistara* (translated into Chinese in 308 A.D.) are apparently imaginary and doubtful ; but the separate mention of the Aṅga-lipi, Vaṅga-lipi, Magadha-lipi, Drāviḍa-lipi, Kanāri-lipi, Dakṣiṇa-lipi, Apara-Gauḍ-ādi-lipi, etc.,² seems to suggest that the tendency towards the growth of special characteristics in the alphabets of Southern and Eastern India was noticed even in an earlier age.