Indian Antiquary Vol 33

SR No.: 032525
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 514
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 432

20
INDIAN ANTIQUARY, VOL. XXXIII, 1904 ; APPENDIX.
[$ 9, A.
not only in the offices of the satraps, but also in the royal secretariate at Susa. The ultimate cause for the official use of the Aramaic script and language during the Akhaemenian period was, no doubt, that numerous Aramaeans held appointments as clerks, accountants, mint-masters and so forth in the Persian Civil Service. [21] When the Persian empire was rapidly built up on the ruins of more ancient monarchies, its rulers must have found the employment of the trained subalterns of the former governments, among whom the Aramaeans were foremost, not only convenient, but absolutely unavoidable. In these circumstances, it is but natural to assume that, after the full organisation of the administration by Darins, the Persian satraps introduced Aramaean subordinates into the Indian provinces, and thereby forced their Indian subjects, especially the clerks of the native princes and of the heads of towns and villages, to learn Aramaic. At first, the intercourse between the Persian and the Indian offices probably led to the use of the Aramaio letters for the north-western Präkrit, and later to modifications of this alphabet, which were made according to the principles of the older Indian Brāhmi, and through which the Kharostbi finally arose. The adoption of the Arabic alphabet, during the middle ages and in modern times, for writing a number of Indian dialects, is somewhat analogous, as it likewise happened under foreign pressure, and as its characters were and are used either without or with modifications. (6) With these last conjectures agrees the general character of the Kharorthi, which is clearly intended for clerks and men of business; see above, 7. (6) Finally, they are confirmed by the circumstance that the majority of the Kharoşthi signs can be most easily derived from the Aramaic types of the fifth century B. C. which appear in the Saqqarah and Teima inscriptions of B.C. 482 and of about B. C. 500, while a few letters agree with somewhat earlier forms on the later Assyrian weights and the Babylonian seals and gems, and two or three are more closely allied to the later signs of the Lesser Teima inscription, the Stele Vaticana, and the Libation-table from the Serapeum. The whole ductus of the Kharosthi, with its long-drawn and long-tailed letters, is that of the characters on the Mesopotamian weights, seals and cameos, which re-occurs in the inscriptions of Saqqarab, Teims and the Serapeum. Others have compared the writing of the Aramaic papyri from Egypt, which partly at least, like the Taurinensis, belong to the Akhaemenian period. But it does not suit so well. Many of its signs are so very cursive that they cannot be considered as the prototypes of the Kharoşthi letters, and its duotus is that of a minute current handwriting. Some special resemblances appear to be, on a closer investigation, the results of analogous developments. Taking all these points together, the Kharoşthi appears to have been elaborated in the fifth century B.O.
9.- Details of the derivation. The subjoined comparative table illustrates the details of the derivation. The signs in col. I. have been taken (with the exception of No. 10, col, I. a) from EUTING's Tabula Soripturae Aramaicae, 1892, cols. 6, 8, 9, 11 and 12; those in col. II, from the same work, cols. 18, 14, 15, 17, 19, and those in cols, III, IV, from plate 1 of this mandal; and all have been reproduced by photolithography
A. - Borrowed signs.3 Preliminary remarks, -The changes of the Aramaic signs have been caused chiefly by the following principles : (1) by a decided predilection for long-tailed signs with appendages at the upper end, the foot being left free for the addition of u, ra and the Anusvära, and by an aversion to appendages at the foot alone; (2) by an aversion to signs with heads containing
1 WEBER, Ind. Skizzen, 144 f. ; E. THOMAB, P.IA. 2,148 ; C.CAI. 88; and below, $ 9, B, 4.
* J. HALÉVY, JA, 1885, 2, 243-267, believes the Kharogthi to have been derived about B. O. 880 from 16 signs of the papyri and of a Cilician coin, and, Revue Sémitique, 1895, 872 ff., from the script of the papyri and of the ostraka from Egypt.
: B.IS. 1119, 90 48.; compare the more or low differing attempts of E, THOMAS, P.IA, , 147; I. TAYLOR, The Alphabet, 2, plate at p. 236 ff.; J. HALEYY, JA, 1886, 2, 252 ff., Revue Sémitique, 1895, 372 f.