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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(OCTOBER, 1995
of Taxila ho has shewn that the Kharoshthi held always, during the whole period for which epigraphie evidence is available, ouly a secondary position by the side of the Brahma Alphabet even in North-Western India. It is rather curious that the reminder regarding the essentially Indian character of the alphabet should have been necessary, as even a superficial considera. tion of its letters teaches that lesson. Its full system of palatals and linguals cannot be designed for any other laugaago than Sanskrit or an ancient Prakrit, the only forms of speech which possess five sounds of each of the two classes mentioned. If this has been sometimes forgotten and even Bactria has been considered as the cracle of the Kharoshthi, the cause is no doubt the loose way in which it used to be called the "Bactrian, Bactro-Pali or IndoBactrian" Alphabet, which appellations are due to its occurrence on the coins of Greek kinys, who, originally ruling over Bactria, conquered portions of North-Western India. Sir A. Cunningham very properly points out, op. cit. p. 35, that not a single Kharoshthi inscription Las been found north of the Hindu Kush, and that in Bactria a different alphabet seeins to have been used. He further proposes to substitute for “ Indo-Bactrian" the Indian term "Gaudharian," which would have been suitable in every way, if in the meantime the old native name had not been found. The districts, in which the largest number of Kharðshthi inscriptions have been found, are situated roughly speaking between 69° -73', 30' E. L. and 33° - 35° N. L., while single inscriptions have turned up south-west near Multan, south at Mathura and east at Kangrî, and single letters or single words even at Bharahut, in Ujjain and in Maisúr. This tract, to which the Kbaroshthi inscriptions of the third century B. C. are exclusively coufined, corresponds to the Gandhara country of ancient India, the chief towns of which were Pushkalavati-Hashtnagar to the west of the Indus and Taxila-Shah Deri to the east of the river. And it is here, of course, that the Kharoshthi Alphabet must have originated.
In addition, Sir A. Cunningham has shewn that the Kharoshtht held always a secondary position and was used even in the earliest times side by side with the Brahmi. This is proved by the evidence of his coins from Taxila, several of which bear only Brühma inscriptions, or Kharoshthi and Brühma inscriptions, with letters of the type of Asoka's Edicts. The analysis of the legends, which I have given in my Indian Studies, No. III. p. 468., shews that those of four types have been issued by traders' guilds, and that one is probably a tribal coin, belonging to a subdivision of the Asvakas or Assakenoi, who occupied portions of the western bank of the Indus at the time of Alexander's invasion. This result considerably strengthens Sir A. Cunningham's position, as it indicates a popular use of the Brahma Alphabet in the very home of the Klarôshthi.
The next step, which is required, is to find the class of alphabets, to which the prototypes of the Kharðshthi belonged. This problem is settled, as Mr. Thomas has first pointed out, by the close resemblauce of the signs for ila, na, ba, va and ra to, or identity with, the Daleth, Nun, Beth, Waw and Resh of the transitional Aramaic Alphabet, and requires no further discussion.
Then comes the question, how the Hindus of North-Western India can have become acquainted with the Aramaio characters and which circumstances may have induced them to utilise these signs for the formation of a new alphabet. Dr. Taylor, The Alphabet, Vol. II. p. 261f., answers this by the suggestion that the Akhæmenian conquest of NorthWestern India, which occurred about 500 B. C. and led to a prolonged occupation, probably carried the Aramaic or, as he calls it, the Iranian, Persian or Bactrian, Alphabet into the Pañjab and caused its naturalisation in that province. Though it seems to me, just as to Sir A. Cunninghamn, impossible to accept Dr. Taylor's reasoning in all its details, I believe with Sir A. Cunningham that he has found the trae solution of this part of the problem,
One argument in his favour is the occurrence of the Old Persian word dipi “writing, edict" in the North-Western versions of the Edicts, and of its derivatives dipati " he writes" and dipapati " Le causes to write," which are not found in any other Indian language. Dipi
