________________
70
INDIAN ANTIQUARY, VOL. XXXIII, 1904; APPENDIX.
[$ 31, A.
FLEBT, at least two, but sometimes three or four forms. The majority of the signs belong to the southern Nägari. But Old-Kanarese and late Grantha signs likewise occur. In Vajrahasta's grant there are, according to KIELBORN's calonlation, 820 Nāgari letters and 410 southern ones of different types, and each lotter again has at least two and sometimes [68] four or more forms. KIELHORN points out that the writer has shown a certain art in the gronping of the variants; and he is no doubt right in hinting that the mixture is due to the Vanity of royal scribes, who wished to show that they were acquainted with a number of alphabete. For the same reason, the writer of the Cicacole plates of the Gängeye year 183 has used three different systems of numeral notation in expressing the date (see below, 34). The kingdom of the Gangas of Kalinga lay between the districts in which the Nagari and the Kanarese-Telugu scripts were used, and it was not far from the territory of the Grantha. Its population was probably mized, and used all these soripts, 88 well as, in earlier times, those employed in the older western and Central Indian inscriptions. The professional clerks and writers of course, had to master all the alphabets.
81. - The Granthe alphabet; Plates VII, and VIII.
A. -The archaic variety. For the history of the Sanskrit alphabets in the Tamil districts during the period after A, D. 850, we have only the Sanskrit inseriptions of the Pallavas, Colas and Pandyas from the eastern coast, among whieh only those of the first-named dynasty can lay claim to a higher antiquity. Corresponding inscriptions from the western coast are hitherto wanting. For this reason, and because only a small number of the eastern documents have been published with good facsimiles, it is as yet impossible to give a complete view of the gradual development of the letters.
The most archaic forms of the Sanskrit scripts of the Tamil districts, which usually are olassed as “Grantha," are found on the copper-plates of the Pallava kings of Palakkada and (Por) Dasanapura (plate VIL, ools. XX, XXI) from the 5th or the 6th century (f), with which the ancient inscriptions, Nos. 1 to 16, of the Dharmarājaratha (plate VII, col. XXII) closely agree. These inscriptions, together with a few others, exbibit what may be called the archaic Grantha, the latest example of which occurs in the Bādāmi inscription, incised, according to Flert's newest researches, by the Pallava Narasimha I., during his -expedition against the Calukya Palakesin II. (A. D: 609 and about 642) in the second quarter of the 7th century; and it seems to have gone out soon after, as the Kuram plates of Narasimha's son Parameávara I. show letters of a much more advanced type: It is met with also in the stone insoription from Jambu in Java; see IA. 4, 356.
The characters of the arohaid Grantha in general agree with those of the archaic KanareseTeluga (see above, $ 29, A), but shew a few peculiarities which remain constant in the later varieties: thus :
(1) The tha, the contral dot of which is converted into a loop, attached to the right side (plate VII, 23, XXI); compare the tha of col. XX, where the straight stroke of the KanareseTelugu script appears.
The rae of northern characters is proved by the Bagada plates, EI. 3, 41; compare slao B.ESIP. 58, and plato 22b.
#IA, 6, 50, 154; compare B.ESIP. 36, note 2.
Lowo the facsimiles of this inscription and of those used for pl. VII, col. XXIV, and pl. VIII, col. XII, to HULTECH's kindness; see now his SII, 2, part 3.
• IA. 9, 100, No. 82, 102, No. 85; 18, 48 ; EI. 1,897.
Dynasties of the Kanarose Districts, Bombay Gasetteer, vol. 1, part 2, p. 328.
