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332
THE ALPHABET
IV, 7), and the career of lekhaka ("writer") is considered a very good one: "he will dwell at ease and in comfort" (Vin. I, 77; IV, 28); many other words, such as phalaka (wood tablet for teaching to write), lekham chindati ("scratches a writing"), and so forth, also presuppose the use of writing for public and private affairs.
We may thus assume that in the fifth century B.C., and probably also in the sixth century B.C., knowledge of writing was widespread, known to adults and children of both sexes. The Lalita Vistara, a life of the Buddha, relates that the Buddha studied writing in his childhood (that is, in the first half of the sixth century B.C.). Dr. L. D. Barnett reminds me that Panini (see below) in his grammar, III, ii, 21, which may be of the fifth century B.C., mentions lipi ("writing"), which is in origin a Persian word (information from Professor Bailey).
UNECAILLISTU
KALORIFERNIN RACLINICHIE
T
K DJ 8 dha pa
2
4 J
Ja
AT SET ANSI 4 14 2 2 4 Jala SELLERIES C SENIORSAKL Seler+GIN COLO
Fig. 155
1, The Sohgaura copper plate (fourth century B.C.). 2, The inscription of the Eran coin (fourth-third century B.C.). 3, The Mahasthan inscription (fourth-third century B.C.)
(6) Although no Indo-Aryan inscription can be attributed to a period earlier than the third or fourth century B.C., on epigraphic grounds alone it is supposed that the Brahmi script existed at least in the sixth century B.C. Professor Rhys Davids and other scholars considered at one time that the oldest inscription was the dedication of the relics from the Buddha's funeral pyre in the Sakiya Tope at Piprava, believed to date from about 450 B.C., but more recent criticism has thrown doubt upon that theory. At present, the oldest extant inscription seems to be the Sohgaura copper plate from the Gorakhpur district (Fig. 155, 1), belonging probably to the second half of the fourth century B.C.
A coin found at the village of Eran in the Saugar District of the Central Provinces, with an inscription from right to left (Fig. 155, 2). belongs to much the same period. The legend reads Rano Dhamapalasa,
