________________
268
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1882.
ON THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN ALPHABET 1. that the Maurya is not the parent of the AND NUMERALS.
Andhra sign. It may either be itself a developMEMORANDUM BY PROF. G. BUHLER,
ment of the Andhra sign (by & change of the PE.D., C.I.E.
curves into angles), or an older alphabet may have The Southern Indian Alphabet, the oldest form had both the angular and curved signs. But, howof which we possess in the Maurya and Andhra
ever that may be, the South Vindhyan PAli (Nénaghết and Nasik Karlê and Amaravatt in. alphabet is not a daughter of the North Vindhyan soriptions), no doubt comes before us as a fully
alphabet. The bearing of this point on the age developed system about 300 B.C., and is accompani. of the South Vindhyan alphabet is clear. ed both in certain Maurya and in certain Andhra 4. The fact that the Brahmanical grammarians inscriptions, by an equally developed system
have developed the Maurya and Andhra alphabets, of numeral figures, which are clearly syllables.
aud brought them into the shape in which we first As far as I can see, there can be no doubt that find them. This point is proved by the following this alphabet was an old institution in India circumstances :about 300 B.C., and that it owed its development to (a) Nobody but a native grammarian (who, inthe grammatical schools of the Brahmane. deed, wanted the distinctions for his school lore)
The arguments proving its great age are would have invented ve or six separate signs to
1. The enormous extent of territory over which indicate various shades of the nasal sounds. We it occurs, from Kathiâvåd to Orissa and the East- have in the Maurya inscriptions 1. I h, 8, as ern Coast, and from the Himalayas down to the a numeral C, and the same signs occur again in the Sahyadris.
Andhra inscriptions. There is a clear tendency 2. The fact that it must have been generally to have separate signs for the nasal of each of the known among the higher classes and even the five Vargas, or classes of the consonants as lower classes) of this enormous territory: ne arranged by the grammarians: gutturals, palatals, is shown-(a) By the circumstance that Asoka linguals, dentals; and there is besides the ", which could hope to improve the morals of his subjeots is used both as a conjunct nasal for all classes by official placards; (b) by the exquisite execu- and the curious nasal g sound at the end of tion of the inscriptions, which excels (e.g. on words, which corresponds to the French final n. the Dehli and AllahAbad pillars) all the best Now there is no other alphabet in the world work of the Roman and Greek stonemasons ; which has developed such & number of signs for (c) by the fact that the stonemasons, a low nasals; most alphabets have only two; some, caste in India, used as Cunningham has lately like the Greek, three. If the Indian alphabet discovered) the letters (e.g. at Buddha Gaya) to is derived from a Semitic source, these nasals mark the pillars, and that the order in which must be mostly an Indian invention. It is also they gave the letters reveals the existence of a quite clear from the forms, that three at least Bard Khadi, or table of the alphabet, which are only differentiations of one fundamental closely resembles that still in use in our indigenous form. Nobody has ever doubted that the I is schools, and proves that the system of instruction
derived from the 1; it seems to be also highly now followed was already elaborated 2000 years ago.
probable that the h goes back to the same type, 3. The fact that both the Maurya and the An.
for there is another rare form of the I in the dhra alphabets are sister-alphabets derived from a
Andhra inscriptions L, looking very much like common source. It is wrong to say that the An.
the Maurya - L. The h arose out of this by dhra is derived from the Maurya alphabet; a comparison of the two alphabets, for example, in
the introduction below of two bands h, and the Burgess's tables, shows the contrary.
addition of the top horizontal stroke, or we might Take the da and dha; in the Maurya alphabet we also say that the h was derived from the I in haveda, dha; in the Andhra da and 6 dha. ita Andhra form, viz. Z, by prolonging verti
There cannot be any doubt that the dha was cally the two ends of the lower horizontal line. developed from da by the addition of a little hook Now who would have fallen on such a cum. or curve added at the right of the da, just as in brous system of nasals (which by the way in the d cha and b chha, 1 pa and 6 pha. Now it is Prakrit inscriptions serves no useful purpose, utterly impossible to derive the of the Maurya because at least I and I are used promiscu. alphabet from the ; but its connection with the ously) P Certainly not a merchant, for a merchant andhra & is very clear. Hence, I say, it is pro- would only care for brevity, not for phonetic bable that the latter sign is the older one, and accuracy, and as a matter of fact the merchants.
From a paper by Sir B. Clive Bayley in Jour. R. Anlat. Soc. N. 8. vol. XIV, pp. 839-846.
