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$ 4.]
INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY.
together with transcripts in Kharoşthi. These coins are certainly not later than the third century B. C. Perhaps they even date, as CUNNINGHAM thinks, from a much earlier time about B. O. 400. Some of them have been struck by negamā or guilds, those of the Dojaka or Dujaka, of the Talimata and of the Atakalaka (?), and one with the inscription Vaļasvaka probably was issued by a section of the tribe of the Agvak 18 Assakenoi), named after the ratatree, the Ficus religiosa. These finds decidedly establish the popular use of the Brühmi in the Pañjāb, side by side with the Kharoghi, at least for the third century B. O. Mr. RAPBON'S discovery of Persian sigloi with letters in Kharosthi and in Brāhmi proves that both alphabets were used together much earlier. For, in all probability these sigloi were carrent during the rule of the Akhaemenians over North-Western India, or before B. 0. 331.
Secondly, DR. TAYLOR's view regarding the origin of the Kharoşthi has become more and more probable, and it must now be admitted that this alphabet was developed out of the later Aramaic characters after the conquest of the Pañjāb by Darius, wbich happened about B. 0. 500.3 And it becomes more and more difficult to refuse credence to the conjecture of A. WEBER, E. TEOMAS and A. CUNNINGHAM, according to which the principles raling the already developed Brāhmi bave been utilised in the formation of the Kharoşthi. According to our present information, the Kbaroşthi is the only alphabet, besides the Brähmi, to which the Buddhists possibly could refer. But as it was only & secondary script even in Gandhāra, and as it was developed only in the fifth century, the possibility suggested becomes improbable, and the Brāhmi alone has a claim to be considered as the alphabet known to the authors of the Ceylonese canon.
4.- The origin of the Brāhms alphabet. [10] Among the numerous greatly differing proposals to explain the origin of the Brāhmi, there are five for which complete demonstrations have been attempted : -(1) A. CUNNINGHAM'S derivation from indigenous Indian hieroglyphies ;? (2) A. WEBER's derivation from the most ancient Phoenician characters ;8 (3) W. DEECEE's derivation from the Assyrian cuneiform characters, through an ancient South-Semitic alphabet which is also the parent of the Sabaean or Himyaritic script ;' (4) I. TAYLOR's derivation from a lost South-Arabian alphabet, the predecessor of the Sabaean;10 (5) J. HALÉVY's derivation from a mixture of Aramaic, Kbarogthi and Greek letters of the last quarter of the fourth century B. 0.11
CUNNINGHAM's opinion, which was formerly shared by some eminent scholars, presupposes the use of Indian hieroglyphic pictares, of which hitherto no trace has been found. On the other hand, the legend of the Eran coin, which runs from the right to the left, and the letters seemingly turned round in the opposite direction which appear rarely in the Asoka edicts and more frequently in the Bhatsiprolu inscriptions, point to the correctness of the view taken as granted in all the other attempts at explanation, viz., that Semitic signs are the prototypes of the Brāhma letters.
Among the remaining four proposals, J. HALÉVY's a priori improbable theory may be at once eliminated, as it does not agree with the literary and paleographic evidence just discussed, which makes it more than probable that the Brāhmi was used several centuries before the beginning of the Maurya period, and had had a long history at the time to which the earliest indian inscriptions belong. It is more difficult to make a choice between A. WEBER's derivation from the oldest North-Semitic alphabet, and the view of W. DEECKE and I. TAYLOR, who derive the Brāhmi from an ancient South-Semitic script. Neither the one nor the other derivation can be declared to be a priori impossible ; for, the results of modern researches make
10.CAI, pl. 2, 3. WZKM. 9, 65; B.IS. III, 113. See below, 18. See below, 9 9, B, 4. B.IS. II, 53-92. R. N. Cust, Ling and Or. Essays, 2nd Ser., 27-32.
O.IA (CII, 1), 52 ff. $ ZDMG. 20, 889 ff. ; Iud. Skizzen 125 ff.
ZDMG. 31, 598 .10 The Alphabet, 2, 814 ff. ; Tostated with some modifications by F. MÖLLER, Mélanges Harlez 218.ff. 11 JA. 1885, 268 ff. ; Revue Sém. 1895, 923 ff.
