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AUGUST, 1882.]
MISCELLANEA.
239
Dr. Burgess asserts positively that, after care. ful examination, he cannot find amongst those remains a trace of anything which would prove them to be Buddhist. So far as it goes this is unanswerable; but the question presents itself whether it is entirely possible to determine the creed of the people who cut, for instance, a broad flight of steps on the eastern hill leading to the summit. If there is nothing Buddhist about these, can it be asserted that there is anything distinctively Brahmanical P And similarly with regard to some of the remains on the western hill P If Dr. Burgess, who has had more practical experience in these matters than any man living, can positively declare that none of the rock-work could possibly be of Buddhist origin, then it follows that we have not yet hit on the true site of the two monasteries, and that they must be looked for elsewhere. But even then, I must be permitted, for the present, to adhere to my belief that they were not situated in an open plain, and consequently cannot be located at Amaravati.
R. SEWELL
A third distinct alphabet was early used by the Tamil people in South India in the early centuries A.D. This has almost disappeared, and, except, perhaps, in Malabar, has left no traces in India proper. For reasons that it would be tedious to give here, though this third alphabet has the same method of marking the vowels in the middle of words as the other two alphabets, which, in some ways, recals the Semitic way of effecting the same object, it is impossible to trace its origin to either of the other alphabets, or vice versa. It is, how. ever, impossible to doubt that all three are from the same original source, though derived, probably, at different periods.
That we can read these alphabets is due to most illustrious names-the second was deciphered by Prinsep; the first by Edwin Norris; and the third by F. W. Ellis. Mr. Edward Thomas has chiefly created the history of the first, and has shown what may probably be done in the future. But many differences of opinion have arisen.
The discovery of Prof. Sayoe has now put the key-stone to the arch that has been so long waiting its completion. It is as follows:-As many will know, there are some Babylonian contract tablets in the British Museum ; one of these has a docket by one of the contracting parties in a hitherto unknown character. This person is called Urmanū (Prof. Sayce informs me) in the cuneiform part of the document. This had, nu doubt, been seen by others, but to Prof. Sayce is due the suggestion that it might be an Aramaic character subsequently imported into India. With this discovery, he most kindly sent me a specimen in March last; which, directly I examined it, disclosed a character closely resembling the South Asoka alphabet, with vowels marked as was done in the Indian alphabets. Here at last, then, was the long-wished for original of these Indian al. phabets that had puzzled Orientalists for so many years! I could at once, besides the vowel signs, identify several letters, k,, r, s, &c., but the language does not in any way seem to be Sanskritic or Indian. At the end is what Prof. Sayee identified as a signature, and this appears to me to be Urmanū, which the cuneiform part shows is the writer's name. The document is dated in the
THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN
ALPHABETS. Many readers of the Academy will, no doubt, be glad to hear of a most important discovery, due to Prof. A. H. Sayce, by which new and complete light will be thrown on the difficult question of the origin of the Indian alphabets.
To show the importance of this discovery it is necessary to state, briefly, how the question stands at present.
The numerous alphabets that have been used, or are now in use, in India can all be traced back to two, which may be termed the North and South Aboka alphabets. The first, of undoubted Phoenician origin, has disappeared, without leav.
any successors or developments. To the second can be traced all the alphabets now in use in India, and some in use in other parts of the East. The origin of this alphabet has never been clearly settled, though several hypotheses have been put forward. It is impossible to trace these alphabeta farther back than about 250 B... or to put their introduction into India earlier than about 300 B.C.
I go even further and assert that they are distinctly Brahmanical: no one familiar with the remains of the two sects is likely to mistake & Bauddha ove for & Brahmanical or vice versa. In this case there are considerable remains of caves beside the steps.-J. B.
Dr. 'Burgons elludes to two marblo statues of Buddha which I found just under the western hill at Bezaveda, on the western side of it. He thinks it improbable that these should have come from the east side of the hill. But is it so improbable? They were lying flat, covered with débris from the hill above, and quite at its base. Those are unmistakably Buddhist.
end of the scarp than that they had been brought from some Buddhist place of worship at & much greater distance. There might have been other marble sculptures, too, at Bozavida. For, judging from the absolute disappearance within the last century of hundreds of Reulptured marbles at Amaravati, I think it may be readily understood how every fragment of sculptured marble might, in the course of 12 centuries, have been burned for lime, and otherwise destroyed at Beza v&da.
I think I have been sufficiently emphatio on the char: acter of the rook-Oxcavations in the paper Mr. Sewell is criticising, see ante, p. 96.-J. B.
The Academy, June 17, 1882, p. 433.
had been carried a few hundred yards round the
