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BUDDHIST INDIA
rally less—harmonised. Other scholars have made siinilar, but not such satisfactory, comparisons between the Indian letters and those of the Southern forms of the Semitic alphabet. And the conclusion hitherto drawn has been either, with Weber and Bühler, that the Indian alphabet is derived from the Northern Semites; or, with Dr. Deecke, Isaac Tay. lor, and others, that it is derived from that of the Southern Semites, in South Arabia.
Now direct intercourse, at the requisite date, was possible, but not probable, along the coast, between India and South Arabia, where the resemblance is least. No one contends that the Indians had any direct communication with the men who, on the borders of Palestine, inscribed the Mesa stone, where the resemblance is greater. I venture to think, therefore, that the only hypothesis harmonising these discoveries is that the Indian letters were derived, neither from the alphabet of the Northern, nor from that of the Southern Semites, but from that source from which these, in their turn, had been derived — from the pre-Semitic form of writing used in the Euphrates Valley.
As to the date, the derivation must have taken place at a time when the resemblance between the forms of the letters is greatest. It must have been, therefore, in the seventh century B.C. or earlier; for a comparison of later Babylonian or Semitic forms shows no sufficient agreement. And it is to be supposed that the origin of the Indian alphabet is previous to the time when the parent script was written from right to left. For the Indian, like our
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
