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INDIAN ANTIQUARY, VOL. XXXIII, 1904; APPENDIX.
[§ 36, B & C.
In the MSS., the lines always run horizontally, and from the top to the bottom; and this is also the case in most inscriptions. But there are a few inscriptions which have to be read from below.1
88
Vertical lines sometimes occur on coins, especially on those of the Kusanas and the Guptas.* The cause of the latter arrangement of the letters was probably the want of space.
B. The grouping of words.
[84] In addition to the still usual method of writing the words continuously without a break, up to the end of a line, of a verse, half-verse or other division, we find already in some of the oldest documents, such as certain Aśoka edicts, instances of the separation of single words, or of groups of words which belong together, either according to their sense or according to the clerks' manner of reading. A similar grouping of the words occurs also in some prose inscriptions of the Andhras and the Western Ksatrapas at Näsik; compare Nos. 5, 11 A, B, and 13. In the carefully written metrical inscriptions of the later times, the Padas or the half-verses occasionally are separated by blank spaces, and each line contains a half verse or a verse."
Similarly, in the Kharosthi Dhammapada from Khotan, each line contains one Gatha, and the Pādas are divided off by blanks. In other old MSS., as the Bower MS., single words and groups of words are often written separately, apparently without any certain principle.
In inscriptions, the Mangala, especially when it is the word siddham, often stands by itself on the margin.
C. Interpunctuation."
Signs of interpunctuation are not found in the Kharosthi inscriptions. But the Dhammapada from Khotan offers at the end of each verse a circular mark, often made negligently, but resembling the modern cipher. At the end of a Vagga appears a sign, which is found at the end of various inscriptions, e. g., F.GI (CII. 3), No. 71, plate 41 A, and which probably is intended to represent a lotus.
In connection with the Brahmi, signs of interpunctuation occur since the earliest times, and the signs employed are the following:
(1) A single vertical stroke (danda) is used (irregularly and sometimes wrongly) in some Aśoka edicts for the separation of single words or of groups. In later times it serves to separate prose from verse,10 or occurs at the end of portions of sentences, 11 of sentences,12 of half-verses13 or verses, and occasionally even marks the end of documents.15 In the inscriptions of the Eastern Calukyasle the danda has occasionally a small horizontal top-bar; thus, T.
1 WZKM. 5, 230 f.; add a lately discovered Kharosthi insoription from Swat.
2 J.RAS. 1889, pl. 1; Num. Chron., 1893, pls. 8-10.
3 Thus in the pillar edicts (excepting Allahabad), and in Kalsi ediots I-XI (see facsimiles EI. 2, 524), and in Nigliva and Paderia.
Compare, e. g., facsimiles, F.GI (CII. 3), No. 50, pl. 31 B; Ajanta No. 4; Ghatotkaca inscription; &o. Compare, e. g., facsimiles, F.GI (CII. 3), Nos. 1, 2, 6, pl. 4 A, and 10, pl. 5.
Compare, e. g., facsimiles, F.GI (CII. 3), Nos. 6, pl. 4 A, and 15, pl. 9 A.
Compare, B.ESIP, 82, § 3.
Compare facsimile in S. v. OLDENBURG'S Predvaritelnaë zamjetkao Buddhiiskoi rukopisi, napisannoi pismenami Kharosthi, St. Petersburg, 1897.
Kälsi edicts XII, XIII, 1; Sahasram.
11 See, e. g., facsimile, F. GI (CII. 8), No. 80, pl. 44.
18 See, e. g., facsimile, F.GI (CII. 8), No. 42, pl. 28. 14 See, e. g., facsimile, F.GI (CII. 8), No. 88, pl. 24, line 35.
16 See, e. g., facsimile, F.GI (CII. 3), No. 19, pl. 12 A.
10 See, e. g., facsimile, F.GI (CII. 3), No. 21, line 16. 12 See the same facsimile.
16 See, e. g., facsimiles, IA. 12, 92; 13, 218.
