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$ 31, BJ
INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY.
(2) The la with the cross-bar converted into & curve or loop and attached to the right side (plate VII, 36, XX-XXII, 45, XXII); compare also the oursive sa of the western soript, mentioned above, $ 28, A, 7.
(3) The pa with the cross-bar treated similarly (plate VII, 37, XX); compare the sa of col. XXI, which shows the older form.
The charnoters of plate VII, cole. XX, XXI, show no closer connection with those of the Prikrit ineeriptions of the Pallavas, discussed above in g 20, D.
B. -The middle variety. The earliest inscription of the much more advanced forms of the second variety or the middle Grantha, is found on the Kuram copper-plates (plate VII, col. XXIV) of the reign of Parameśvara I., the adversary of the Western Calakya Vikramaditya I. (A. D. 655-680). [69] Compared with this document, which appears to offer a real clerk's script, the monumental inscription of the Kailasanatha temple (plate VII, sol. XXIII), built according to FLEET by Narasimha II., the son of Paramesvara I., is retrograde, and shows more archaic forms for several paleographically important letters. On the other hand, the Kasākuļi copperplates (plate VILI, col. XIII), incised in the time of Nandivarman who succeeded Mahendra III., the second son of Narasimha II., and warred with the Western Calakya Vikramaditya II. (A. D. 783-749)agree more closely with the Kuram platos, and offer, besider some archaic forms, also much more advanced ones.
The most important innovations, either constantly or occasionally observable in this second variety of the Grantha, are :
. (1) The development of a second vertical in A, 7, ka and ra (plate VII, 1, 2, 8, 33, XXIII, XXIV; plate VIII, 1, 2, 11, 86, XIII), as well as in medial # and # (plate VII, 31, 38, XXIV; plate VIII, 34, 40, XIII), out of the ancient book; compare the transitional forms in the facsimiles at IA. 9, 100, 102.
() The connection of one of the dots of I with the upper curved line (plate VII, 3, XXIII, XXIV; plate VIII, S, XIII, a, 6).
(3) The opening of the top of E (plate VII, 5, XXIV), which however shows closed up forms in col. XXIII, and in plate VIII, 8, XIBL.
(4). The development of a loop to the left of the foot of kha, and the opening up of the right side of the letter (plate VII, 9, XXIII), as in the Kanarsse-Teluga script (see above, $ 29, B, 2).
(5). The upward turn of the Serif at the left-hand lines of ga and ba (plate VII, 10, 86, XXIV; plate VIII, 13, 89, XIII; not in plato VII, col. XXIII).
(6) The opening up of the loops of cha (plate VIII, 17, XIII), and perhaps also in the indistinct cha of the Kuram plates, i, line 5.
(7) The transposition of the vertical of ja to the right end of the top-bar, and the conversion of the central bar into a loop connected with the lowest bar (plate VII, 15, XXIV; plate VIII, 18, XIII; not in plate VII, col. XXIII)
(8) The incipient opening up of the tops of dha and tha (plate VII, 23, 25, XXIII, XXIV; plate VIII, 26, 28, XIII).
(9) The opening up of the top of ba, and the transposition of the original top-line to the left of the left-hand vertical (plato VII, 29, XXIV; plate VIII, 32, XIII; not in plate VII, col. XXIII).
*HOLTZCH, SII. 1, 144 1.; Flere, op. ait. (prooeding nobe), 838 1.
FLET, op. cit., 339 f.
. Fuat, op. cit., 893 4.
