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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1995.
impeded by the circumstance that the earlier tables of the alphabet neglect to give the form of cha, which comes closest to the Semitic letter, viz., that with the angular head (Col. III.). The tables give only the cha with the semicircular top, though the other form is by no means rare in the Edicts and is used also in the cha (Col. IV.) of the same documents and even survives in the late Kharôshthi inscriptions of the first and second centuries of onr era. If the angular cha is chosen for comparison, it is not difficult to explain how the Kharôshṭhi sign was developed. The Hindus made the top of the Tsade (Col. I. a-b) by itself, separating it from the remainder of the vertical, and omitted in accordance with the principles of their writing, which do not admit more than two strokes at the tops of letters (see above), the small hook on the right of the angle. Next, they placed the lower part of the vertical under the point of the angle and in doing so added a small flourish to the top of this line, which in course of time became an important element of their sign. The Tsales of the Papyri (Col. II.) come very close to the Kharôshthi and the second even shews the small projection on the left, just below the top. Nevertheless, they are only independent analogous developments. For in both, the long line on the left has been made continuons with one stroke of the pen and the hook or curve on the right has been added afterwards. Moreover, in the sign Col. II. b, it is very plain that the small projection on the left of the main line, which makes the letter so very like the Kharoshihi cha, has been caused by a careless continuation of the right hand hook across the vertical.
No. 17. The utilisation of the ancient Qoph for the expression of kha in the Brahma Alphabet suggests the conjecture that the curious Kharôshthi sign for kha may be derived from the corresponding Aramaic character. And in the Serapenm inscription the Qoph (Col. I.) has a form which comes very close to the Kharoshthi Ela. Only the upward stroke on the left is shorter and there is still a small remnant of the original central line of the ancient NorthSemitic character. The smaller Teima inscription15 (Euting, Col. 10) has a Qoph, in which the central pendant has been attached to the lower end of the curve (compare above the case of the Kharôshthi ha). These two forms, it seems to me, furnish sufficient grounds for the assumption, that in the earlier Aramaic writing the component parts of the looped Qoph (Col. II. c) were disconnected and arranged in a manner, which might lead to the still simpler Kharoshthi sign, where the central pendant seems to have been added to the upstroke on the left in order to gain room for the vowel-sigus. To this conclusion points also the first corresponding sign of the Saqqarah inscription (Eating, Col. 11 a) though the top has been less fully developed and the ancient central pendant has been preserved much better. 16
No. 18. Ra (Col. III.) has been recognised as the representative of Resh by all previons writers. But it deserves to be noted that the sign, which comes nearest to the Kharôshthi letter is the character from Saqqarah, given in Col I. b.17 The Papyri offer mostly more advanced forms with top lines sloping downwards towards the right.
No. 19. Regarding Shin (Col. I.) and its Kharôshthi counterpart, the sign for the lingual sibilant sa (Col. III.), see above. I may add that round forms of Shin appear already on the Babylonian Seals and Gems (Euting, Col. 8).
No. 20. The oldest representatives of the Semitic Tar appear in the dental tha (Col. IV. a), which consists of the old Assyrian Aramaic Tar (Col. I. a) of the 8th century B. C.,19 or of a slight modification of the very similar Saqqarah letter (Col. III. 1 b) (turned round from the right to the left) plus the bar of aspiration on the right, about which more will be said below, and in the lingual a (Col. IV. b-c), where the second stroke on the right in and on the left in e denotes the organic difference or, as the Hindus would say, the difference in the varga. In the second form of ta (Col. IV. c) the bar, which originally stood at the side, has been added at the top, and out of such a form the dental ta (Col. III.) appears to have been
15 Compare the end of 1. 1 of the facsimile in M. Ph. Berger's Histoire de l'Écriture, p. 217.
16 Compare also the sign from the Lion of Abydos, Euting, Col. 7. 17 Compare also Euting, Col. 7 b.
1 See Indian Studies, No. III. p. 60.
