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txxiv
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[CHAPTER III
:!
In the Gupta script, as seen in the epigraphic records of India the initial i is made in s great variety of forms. These are shown in
Fig. 16. Fig. 16. The four forms (a-d) are peculiar to
Bonth
Best the southern area of that script. The two forms (e and f) and the four forms (g-k) prevail mainly in the eastern and Western
West portions respectively of the northern area, Finally the form (l) has no definite habitat: it is found in the inscriptions at Nirmand in the north-west (Lat. 31° 25', Long. 77° 38'), in
Forms of the initial vowel i. Pahladpur in the north-east (Lat. 25° 26', Long. 3° 31'), and at Junagadh in the south-west (Lat. 21° 31', Long. 70° 36'). Moreover in the Nirmand inscription it occurs side by side with the proper western form (i); and in the Palladpur record it alternates with the form (g). Considering that the record at Nirmand comprises only sixteen lines, and that at Pahladpur even only a single line, the suspicion obtrudes itself that the reversal of the position of the apicular dot in the form (1) may be a mere error of writing. Whether or not its occurrence in Parts IV of the Bower Manuscript is due to a scribal error, it is not possible to say with certainty, seeing that the initial (1) occurs only once in that Part; but the possibility of its being due to a mere error cannot be
Fig. 17. disregarded, and it is this possibility which detracts from its evidential value. For the purpose of further comparison there are added in Fig. 17 the forms of initial i in the Horiuzi (a) and Sarada (6) scripts, as well as in the Kuchari script of the upright (c) and slanting (d) varieties. In order to bring out more clearly the marked distinction between the two varieties (c) and (d) of the Letters of the Horluzi, Sarada, and Kuchari seript, the forms of n and tk are added in the
Kuchari scripts. second and third lines.
In the third place, the general appearance of the writing in Part IV conveys the suggestion that it was done with a brush rather than a stylus or reed-pen, Thus the curious flourish, or jerk, at the bottom of the right limb of the letters g and t, and of both limbs of ó (see Table 1), suggests the brush. The apparently similar curves, to be seen in the letters 8, 1, 1, $ in Parts V-VII, are obviously due to a different cause, vis., to the tendency towards continuity in cursive writing.67 The stylus, or reed-pen was the usual instrument of the Indian scribe, and with it undoubtedly Parts I-III and V-VII are written. The brush was peculiar to the Chinese scribe, and hence would naturally be the instrument used in the Chinese province of Eastern Turkestan. And though an Indian immigrant into Kuchar might conceivably abandon his accustomed instrument and take to that of his adopted country, it is-on the assumption that Part IV was really written with a brush-practically certain that it must have been written by a native of Eastern Turkestan, or perhaps by a Chinese Buddhist monk, resident in the monastery of the Ming-oi of Qum Turâ,
61 An instructive example of an exactly similarly written cursive may be seen in the Toraroapa stone inscription at Kura, in the word mahfia in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. I, p. 240,4 12.
