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CHAPTER VI
INDIAN BRANCH
(Fig. 153-154) IN DEALING with the Kharoshthi script (p. 301f.), the general problem of Indian scripts was mentioned; all of them, except the Kharoshthi, are considered to be descendants of the Brahmi, which will be examined in the present chapter.
ORIGIN OF INDIAN WRITING
The problems connected with the origin and development of the numerous Indian scripts are so vast and complicated that it is impossible to deal with them in detail.
The early history of Indian writing, like the early history of India, is still imperfectly known, Until recently most historians were disposed to date the beginning of Indian writing in the early centuries of the first millennium B.C., and no serious scholar dated the origin in India earlier than the influx of the first tribes speaking Aryan dialects, which probably took place in the latter half of the second millennium B.C.
wever, the recent discovery of the relics of the Indus Valley civilization (Part 1, Chapter IV), much older than the first Aryan settlements in India, came upon the world as a surprise, and it gave rise to numerous problems including the relationship of the Indus Valley culture to the early Indo-Aryan civilization. Much is being written on this subject, though little of it is of scientific value. For instance, the attempts of Fr. H. Heras, S.J., to equate the most up-to-date South Indian linguistic forms with the undeciphered seals belonging to the third millennium B.C. might put the unwary on the wrong track. Not a single link exists to cover the 2,000-years' gap between the Indus Valley script and the Indian writing, though the possibility of connection between the two scripts cannot be rejected categorically. A satisfactory answer to this problem will be obtained should strata bearing early Indian settlements be discovered, when their relationship to the Indus Valley civilization would be proved. It is useless to discuss the whole problem until sites in the land of origin of the Rig Veda hymns have been sufficiently explored, excavated and studied The whole history of India prior to the middle of the seventh century B.C. is, indeed, still the province of archæology.
Indian scholars who patriotically consider the Brahmi as the descendant of an indigenous pre-historic script, may be reminded of the following facts:
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