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INDIAN ANTIQUARY, VOL. XXXIII, 1904; APPENDIX.
[$ 31, C.
(10) The adoption of the later northern bha (see above, $ 24, A, 24), or the development of an exactly similar sign (plate VII, 30, XXIV; plate VIII, 33, XIII; not in plate VII, col. XXIII).
(11) The combination of the left-hand wertical of sa with the left end of the old sidelimb, and of the right end of the side-limb with the base-stroke (plate VII, 38, XXIV; a transitional form in col. XXII, and a different cursive form in plate VIII, 41, XIII).
(12) The frequent separation of medial a, e, ai, o, au, from the Mätkä (constant in plate VIII, col. XIII), as well as the use of the à standing above the line, as in the northern alphabet of this period and in the Central Indian script (compare plate VII, 17, 19, 21, 31-33, XXIII; 8, 24, XXIV).
(13) The expression of the Virama (as in the Kanarese-Telugu script) by a vertical stroke above, or in the Kaśākūdi plate also to the right of, the final consonant (plate VII, 41, XXIII; plate VIII, 47, XIII; and compare the facsimiles).
(14) The transposition of the Anusvāra to the right of the Mātkā (plate VII, 38, XXIV) below the level of the top-line, as in the Kanarese-Telugu script.
(15) The occasional development of small angles, open above, at the tops of the verticals, for the left part of which a dot usually appears in plate VIII, col. XIII.
The fully-developed and very constant characteristics of the alphabet of the Kuram plates make it probable that they have not arisen within the period of twenty to thirty years, which lies between the issue of the Kuram grant and the incision of the much more archaic Bādāmi inscription of Narasimha I. (see above, under 4). Very likely the Kūram alphabet had a longer history.
0.-The transitional Grantha. The series of the published datable Pallava inscriptions of the 8th century ende for the present with the Kasākuļi plates; and facsimiles of documents of the next following centaries [70] are not accessible to me. I am, therefore, unable to exactly fix the time when the third or transitional variety of the Grantha, BURNELL's Cola or middle Grantha, came into nge, which is found in the inscriptions from the reign of the Bāņa king Vikramadityal about A. D. 1150 (plate VIII, col. XIV) and of Sundara-Pāndya, A. D. 1250 (plate VIII, col. XV), as well as in other documents. It would however appear, both from the Grantha signs occurring in the Ganga inscriptions (plate VIII, cols. XI, XII) and from BURNELL's Cola-Grantha alphabet of A. D. 1080, that the new developments originated partly towards the end of the 8th century and partly in the 9th and 10th, about the same time when the Old-Kanarese script (above, g 29, C) was formed.
The most important changes, which the transitional Grantha shows, are as follows:
(1) The suppression of the last remaining dot of 1 (plate VIII, 3, XIV, XV; compare 3, XIII, a).
(2) The formation of a still more cursive E (8, XIV) ont of the Kuram letter (plate VII, 6, XXIV).
(3) The formation of & still more carsiye kha (plate VIII, 12, XIV, XV), closely resembling the later Kanarese-Telaga sign (plate VIII, 12, III, f.), out of the letter of plate VII, 9, XXIII.
1 EI, 3, 75.
EI. 3, 8. Compare facsimiles at IA, 6, 142; 8, 274, 9, 48 (EI. 3,79 f.); EI. 8,228; Ep. Carn. 3, 166; Sul. 2, pl. 2; the last ineoription and the last but two are older than the 11th oentury.
* B.ESIP. plate 18.
