Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 424

FURTHER INDIAN BRANCH
423 where the Indian culture survived until the present day; and the isolated district of the Badoejs, who live in a remote corner of Banten or Bantam, in the extreme north-western end of Java: an utterly primitive tribe, of a few hundred souls, who have managed to resist all attempts at "conversion" and "civilization" (Ponder).
Old Javanese or Kavi Character (Fig. 193, 1, i-ii)
Origin
The Dinaya inscription is the earliest extant written document in the Old Javanese or Kawi or Kavi character (Kavi is an abbreviation of Basa Kavi, "the language of poetry"). It was found at Dinaya, situated to the east of central Java, and is dated in the Saka year 682, that is 760 A.D. The inscription was first mentioned in 1904 by Dr. Brandes, who since 1887 suggested that the Kavi script was introduced in the eighth century A.D. into Java, by immigrants from Gujarat. But Professor Krom stated in his Hindu-Javanese history (published in 1926) that the supposed similarity between the Kavi script and the Girnar character disappears on closer investigation. According to Krom, the Kavi character was not a new borrowing, but a local and later development of the South Indian script in use in Java since the fifth century A.D. It is now generally accepted that the early colonists who brought the Indo-Aryan civilization (including the script) to Java, must have come from southern India, and most probably from the Coromandel coast. A Javanese tradition, quoted in the Aji Saka, attributes the introduction of writing into Java to a Brahman called Tritresta, who is a half-mythical person.
Until quite recently, there has been no agreement among scholars regarding the term to be applied to the peculiar script of the early Sanskrit inscriptions of the Malay Archipelago. Professor Kern adopted the term "Vengi character," but Professor Vogel proved that it is advisable to discard it, and he substituted the name "Pallava character." Dr. Burnell used the term "Eastern Chera." Neither of these terms is appropriate,
As has been already mentioned (see p. 381), Dr. Buehler applied the term "Grantha" to the character used by the Pallava rulers of Kanchi in southern India in writing Sanskrit. The script employed in the afore-mentioned Purnavarman inscriptions of Java is almost identical, but slightly later than that of the Sanskrit inscriptions found at Kutai in eastern Borneo (see above), and similar to the script employed in early Champa (see p. 403).
It is now accepted by the most authoritative scholars that this early Javanese script originated from the early Grantha, although the extant written documents of the lithic early Grantha found in southern India, the place of its origin, belong to a later period than the early inscriptions found in Borneo, Java and Champa. It is thus in the distant lands of the Malay Archipelago and of the coasts of Indo-China that we find the prototypes of the lithic Grantha character..