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OCTOBER, 1908.]
THE ORIGIN OF THE DEVANAGARI ALPHABET.
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pole star drawn for the purpose of worship. Whether star-worship was Aryan or aborginal in its origin is a point which I leave for others to decide. So far as its observance among the Aryans is concerned, the phrases tárukopadesa, initiation in the mystery of star-worship, and tdrakabrahmopadeśa, initiation in the mystery of the worship of Star-Brahma, are, I think, sufficient proofs. It may be urged that the word tdra, does not, when applied as a name of the letter under consideration, mean a star, but a resonant, and that the word dhruva is applied as a name to the letter for the reason that sound is considered as a kind of manifestation of Brahma. But it has been seen how the words Káma, Indrani, &c., do, as the names of ka, i, &c., establish their hieroglyphic origin and how it is impossible to find out a more reasonable explanation for the origin of those names than the one pointed out. It is not, therefore, unreasonable to hold that, like the names of other letters, the names of the letter om must also point out to the hieroglyphic picture of some natural and visible object connected with religious worship, and that ultimately the symbol representing 'star' was chosen to stand for the complex sound om.
It has been shown how the lindu, male or female creative principle, is described as the source not only of the world, but also of the alphabetic hieroglyphics which represent the world. Hence, it is more than likely that, when the hieroglyphics were selected to represent specific alphabetic sounds, the bindu dot was taken to represent the nasal sound in which all specific sounds are regarded as being merged.
It has already been seen bow a white circular dot, together with a red circular dot, is taken to represent the male and femalo principics of creation. These two bindus, written one above the other, for the facility of entrance of the white into the red, are called by the name visarga, emission, and were, of course, taken to represent the visarga sound exclusively peculiar to the Sanskrit language. The credit due to the Brâhman pandit who invented, or, to speak strictly, selected from the Tantric hicroglyphics, this symbol to represent the visarga must be admitted on all hands. For, where else, if not in the Tantric symbols, can the inventor, or the formulator, to speak strictly in accordance with facts, of the Devanagari Alphabet find such a suitable symbol for the di sarga. If he is to be given credit for selecting this symbol from the Tantric hieroglyphics, there is no reason to say with Prof. Bühler that the originator of the Devanagari Alphabet borrowed twenty-two letters from the North Sensitic and derived the rest from his own imagination.
The conception of the Universe, as made up of the sky, the air, the fire, the region of clouds or water, and the earth, and as identical with the pindanda, individual human body, has already been dealt with. In the ninth stanza of the Saundaryalahari the goddess Sakti is thus described :• Thou art playing in the thousand-petaled lotus flower with thy consort in seclusion, having gone up by the path of kula, spinal cord, after breaking through the earth, situated in múládhára, prime support; the water in Manipura, the waist bound by a zone of jewels of various colours ; the fire in the navel, the air in the chest, the mind in the centre of the brows, and the sky above all these.'
Slightly different in meaning from the above are some passages in the Mantramahodadhi, which are quite interesting, inasmuch as they give the alphabetic letters which are derived from these five divisions of the human frame :
अपादादि जानुपर्वन्तंचर सवचकम् ।
भूबीजं च स्वर्णवर्ण स्मरेदवनिमण्डलम् ।। जान्वायानानि चन्द्रार्धनिभं पदयाङ्कितम् । वंबीयुक्तं श्वेताभमम्भसां मण्डलं स्मरेत् ।
85 Compare p. 105, Sivarchanachandrika; and p. 224, Kulaprakasatantra ; and p. 85, Siddhanta-sdrdvali.
