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INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY.
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and lekhaka, "a writer," are mentioned in the Bhikkha-Pacittya 2, 2, and in the BhikkhaniPacittiya 49, 2; and the former work praises writing as a branch of knowledge that is honoured in all countries. The Jātakas repeatedly speak of privatel and officiale letters. They also know of royal proclamations, of which Mahāvagga 1, 48 likewise mentions an instance; and they narrate that important family affairs or moral and political maxims wero engraved on gold plates. Twice we hear of debtor's bonds (inapanna), and twice even of MSS. (potthaka). A game called akkharika is mentioned repeatedly in the Vinayapitaka and the Nikāyas;? according to Buddhaghona, its main feature was that letters were read in the sky. The Pärājika section of the Vinayapițaka (3, 4, 4) declares that Buddhist monks shall not "incise" (chind) the rules which show how men may gain heaven, or riches and fame in the next life, through particular modes of suicide. From this passage it follows (1) that the ascetics of pre-Buddhistic times used to give their lay-disciples rules, incised on bamboo or wooden tablets, concerning religions suicide, which the ancient Brahmans and the Jainas strongly recommended, and (2) that the knowledge of the alphabet was widely spread among the people.
Finally, Jātaka No. 125, and Mahāvagga 1, 49,* bear witness to the existence of elementary schools, in which the method of teaching and the matter taught were about the same as in the indigenous schools of modern India. The Jātaka mentions the wooden writing-board (phalaka), known as well as the varnaka or wooden pen) also to the Lalitavistara and to Berūni,10 and still used in Indian elementary schools. The passage of the Mahāvagga gives the curriculum of the schools, lekhā, ganana and rüpa, which three subjects, according to the Häthigumpha inscription of the year 165 of the Maurya era, 11 king Khâravela of Kalinga learnt in his childhood. Lekha, of course, means " writing," and ganana, "arithmetic," i.e., addition, substraction and the multiplication-table formerly called anka and now ask, while rüpa, literally " forms," corresponds to applied arithmetic, the calculations with coins, of interest and wages, and to elementary mensuration. These three subjects are still " the three R's" taught in the indigenous schools called gampf nišal, pathsala, lehfad or toll.
These very plain statements of the Ceylonese canon refer certainly to the actualities of the period between B. 0. 500—400, possibly even of the sixth century. Their antiquity is proved also by the fact that all the terms for writing, letters, writers, - chindati, likhati, lekha, lekhaka, akkhara, -as well as nearly all the writing materials, wood or bamboo, panna or leaves, and suvannapata or gold plates, point to the oldest method of writing, the incision of the signs in hard materials. All traces of the use of ink are wanting, though the statements of Nearchos and Q. Curtius regarding the writing materials used at the time of Alexander's invasion (see below under C) make it very probable that ink was known in the fourth century B.C., and though an ink-inscription of the third or second century B. C. is found on the inner side of the lid of the relic vessel from Stūpa No. III. at Andher.13 Moreover, the Ceylonese books are not acquainted with the words lipi, libi, dipi, dipati, dipapati, lipikara and lilikara for "writing," " to write," and "writer," of which the first six are found in the [6] Asoka edicts and the last two, as stated above, in Pāṇini's grammar. Dipi and lipi are probably derived from the Old Persian dipi, which cannot have reached India before the conquest of the Pañjāb by Darius about B. C. 500, and which later became lipi.14
B.IS. III, 7 f. * B.IS. III, 81., 120.
B.IS. 111, 10, 18. * B.IS, III", 10 f.
8 B.IS. III, 10, 120.
B.19. 1119, 120. - B.IS. III, 16.
• B.IS. III, 13 ff. .
Sanak, text, 143; comp. BOR, 1, 59. 10 India 1, 182 (SACRAU).
11 Sixth Oriental Congress, 8, 2, 154. 11 B.IS. III, 13 ff.; OLDENBERG, Vinayapitaka 1, XXXIV 1.; M. MÜLLER, SBE, 10, XXIX ft. 13 CUNNINGHAM, Bhilsa Topes, p. 849, pl. 80, 6. 14 B.IS. III, 21 f.; WESTERGAARD, Zwei Abhandl. 38. -
