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$ 22, B.)
INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY.
The western variety of the Gupta alphabet again appears in two forms, a corsive roundhand and an angalar, monumental, type. The second form, which shews very characteristic thick top-lines and a hooked ru (33), is represented in plate IV, col. IV, by the alphabet of the Bilsad Prasasti of A. D. 415. Another fine example is found in Fleet's No. 32, from the Meharauli iron pillar near Delhi. Specimens of the earsive form are given in col. VII. from the Indor copper-plate of A. D. 465, in col. VIII. from Toramāņa's Kurs inscription, probably of the second half of the 5th century, and in col. IX. from the Kārīta lai copper-plate of Jayanātha of Uccakalpa, dated the year 174 or probably A. D. 423.2 The same type is found in FLEET'S Nos. 4, 13, 16, 19, 22-31, 36, 61, 63, 66, 67, 69, 74, 76, and in the Jaina votive inscriptions from Mathurā, new series, Nos. 38, 39,3 It deserves to be noted that Fleer's No. 13 from Bhitari is found in a district where one would expect the eastern variety. FLEET's No. 61, the Jaina inscription from Udayagiri in Mālva, shows a mixture of the northern characters with southern ones, as it offers throughout A, A, with a curve, and once a southern s. Perhaps the same may be said of FLEET's No. 59, the Bijayagadh inscription from Bhartpur in Rājputāna, where ra shows a curve at the end and medial i and i resemble those in plate III, col. XVI. The characters on the Gupta coins are frequently retrograde, and offer, e. 9., the angular ma of the Kuşana period.
B. - Characteristics of the epigraphie Gupta alphabet. The following particularly important or characteristic peculiarities of the Gapta inscriptions deserve to be noticed in detail:
(1) The lower parts of the right-hand verticals of A, Ā, ga, da, ta, bha and éa are so much elongated, and those of ka and ra remain so long, that these eight signs have about double the length of those without verticals. This is particularly visible in the older stone inscriptions ; on the copper-plates they are often shortened.
(2) The right-hand portion of gha, pa, pha, sa and so ws an angle, whereby later the development of tails or verticals on the right of these signs has been cansel.
(3) Since the middle of the 5th century, the lower portion of the left limb of 4 (1, IX, XI) shows the curve, open to the left, which appears in all the later forms of the letter; the sign of the length of A (2, VII-IX) [48] is attached to the foot of the right vertical
(4) In addition to the I of the Kuşana period (3, T, V), there occur, owing to the predilection for letters flattened at the top, the also later frequent I with two dots above (3, VII), and that consisting of short horizontal line with two dots below (3, IX), which latter is the parent of the later southern I (plates VII, VIII, and § 28 below) and of that of the Nāgari (below, $ 24, A, 4).
(5) The rudimentary curves at the left end of U, and 0 are more fully developed in the 5th cen ary; compare above, $ 19, B, 4.
(6) The guttural na begins to appear instead of the Anusvāra before sa and ha (11, VII), perhaps in consequerice of the faulty pronunciation, blamed in the Siksus.
(7) The third horizontal line of ja (14, I-III, VII, VIIF) begins to slant downwards, and occasionally shows a curve at the end, whereby later the new forms of cols. XXI-XXIII. are caused. IIA. 18, 225.
According to FLEET, IA. 19, 227 f., the kings of Ucoakalpa probably dated according to the Cedi or Kalaouri era of A. D. 949. SEI. 2,210.
JASB. 58, pl. 24; J.RAS., 1889, p. 1–4, and p. 84 f., and 1863, pl. 2. HAUG, Wedischer Accent, 64.
