Indian Antiquary Vol 40

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 63

FEBRUARY, 1911.]
THE ASOKA NUMERALS
57
But the akshara theory could hardly explain why, in three separate Asoka inscriptions, three separate symbols should be used for 200. Bühler, however, informs us that the Rūpnāth symbol is sū with a prolongation of the vertical of sa instead of the usual horizontal bar, and that the Sahasrām symbol (A) is su (and that the coin symbol is ka), and that the cause of the uncooth appearance of the # in A is the desire to distinguish, by the form of the syllables, the cases where they have numerical values, from those where they have an etyrological value as parts of numerals.'
No mention of the akshara theory is made in connection with the symbol G (Table I) for very obvious reasons, but the very strangeness of this symbol almost serves Bübler for a new discovery : "The first numeral sign i.e., G, Table I),” he says, "is indeed, as Mr. Rice states, partly different from those found in the Sahasram and Rūpnāth versions, and the difference furnishes further proof for the assertion that local varieties of the southern alphabet existed in the time of Asoka, etc." The symbol J is supposed to rosemble G, but it is too mutilated to bs of any value as evidence.
III. A comparison of the Asoka symbols with others found in India need not lead to any definite result, for the great majority of the available examples are of much later date ; but such a comparison shows that the supposed resemblance of some of the Asoka symbols to these others is very faint indeed.
TABLE II. [As, Ab, Ac, Ad, are Aéoka symbols ; Ba, Bb, Nānaghāt, Pali and old Sanskrit Inscriptions, Pl. 265; Be, Näsik, Ep. Ind., VIII, 59; Cb, Ce, Western Kshatrapa coins, Rapson's Cataluque; cd, Fleet's Gupta Inscriptions ; Da, ib. Pl. tri; Db, ib. Pl. racis A; Do, ib. Pl. ald; Da, Baroda A.D. 526-7, Ep. Ind. iii, 319; E and F from the tables of Bühler and Indraji ; Gb, Go, Cunningham's Mathura examples, Arch. Survey, III, Pl. svi; Gd, Cunningham's copy of Aa Asoka Edicts and Ind. Ant. VI, 155).
For example, Gd is Cunningham's transcript of Aa, and Gb is his Mathară example, which he recognised at once as identical with An. Of the other examples, the two main types are Ba from the Nānågha inscriptions, and Cb. Of these, the former is like Cunningham's copy of Aa and the latter is as unlike it as possible. But the table, like all such tables, is somewhat misleading, for it does not show that ninety-nine per cent. of all the well-authenticated examples are of the type Cb, and that there is no well authenticated example other than the Nänäghåt cases of the type Ba. Farther it is very do ubtful wbether As was intended to be of the same type as Ba. The resemblance may be said to be slight, but we may leave this an open question. Ab and Ac have J.R.A.8., XIV, 8, p. 9; Indian Palæography, 81.
Ep Ind., 111, 185.