Book Title: Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind
Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications
View full book text
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THE ALPHABET (see p. 360). According to Burnell, this character was introduced into southern India by the Maratha conquest of Tanjore in the latter part of the seventeenth century A.D., and was chiefly used in Tanjore, where it is still used among the descendants of the Deccan Brahmans. Burnell's theory regarding the introduction of the Balbodh has been proved inconsistent: as a matter of fact, the earliest Balbodh documents extant belong to the thirteenth century A.D. (personal information from Mr. A. Master)
The Modi or "twisted" character (Fig. 169) is considered to be the running hand of the Balbodh. It seems to be related to the Mahajani and like it is used for private correspondence and for commercial purposes.
It is, however, also used in Government offices, and the London School of Oriental Studies has many documents in it. It is employed for Marathi, the souther language of the Indo-Aryan group, spoken by about 19 million people in the Bombay presidency, in Berar, and in the Central Provinces. Marathi has about forty dialects or sub-dialects. Deva-nagari is its literary and now also its main administrative script. (Fig. 181, 2).
The Modi character is said to have been invented by Balaji Avaji,
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Fig. 169-Specimen of Modi script
Secretary to Sivaji, who lived from 1627 to 1680, but is certainly much earlier, as there is a document extant, dated 1429 Saka era, corresponding to A.D. 1507 (information from Mr. Master).
Konkani, one of the most important Marathi forms of speech, used by over one and a half million people in the Konkan, in the Portuguese colony of Goa, and the neighbouring territories, is now rarely written in the Deva-nagari, more often in the Kanarese (see below, and Fig. 175), and mainly in the Roman alphabet adapted by the Portuguese priests, who introduced some additions and other modifications,
Modern North-Western Scripts The Sarada character, already mentioned, is employed for Kashmiri. There are three other main varieties of scripts used in north-western India: the Takri, the Landa, and the Gurmukhi (Fig. 170). According to Grierson, the Sarada, the Takri and the Landa are sister-scripts, that is characters descended from a common source, whilst Buehler, who did not mention the Landa character, considered the Takri or Takkari. as he termed it, to be a descendant of the Sarada.
