230
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Greeks and Romans, Now taking into consider ation the prevailing winds and currents, sailing ships from the Red Sea would most naturally touch on the Malabar coast below Mount Dilli.”
Again at a later period we find intercourse through Persia and Bak tria by land. Now in the earliest Indian inscriptions we possess—those of Piyadasi
(Asoka), we find two characters used. In the extreme North we find an alphabet evidently derived directly from the Phoenician, but with
peculiar vowel marks added.
In the other parts
of India we find a perfectly distinct alphabet used for the Aśoka edicts, but which has the
vowels marked according to a regular system, and which the Northern alphabet has copied. It must therefore be the older of the two.
Now
if the Aśoka alphabet be compared with that given in the plate, it is evidently nothing more than an extension of this last, though derived from a slightly different, because older,
form. The origin of this Tamil alphabet will perhaps never be conclusively proved by older inscriptions being discovered, but the only pos sible theory is that it is an importation brought by traders from the Red Sea, and thence from
Phoenicia, and is therefºre of Egyptian origin eventually.f. In many respects the old Tamil alphabet resembles that of the Himyaritic inscrip tions found in Yemen. In one respect it differs remarkably from that (Himyaritic) alphabet, but agrees with the Ethiopic, in that the consonants are modified by the addition of the vowels.
[AUGUST 2, 1872.
Whatever may be the origin of the similar pecu liarity in the Ethiopic alphabet, f it is scarcely possible to doubt that in the old Tamil alphabet this is not a relic of a syllabic system of writing but has arisen from a practice of writing the character for the following vowel on that of the
preceding consonant (except perhaps with a), and that the resulting combinations have been in the course of time abridged. This becomes very plain if the characters for e and o be compared with those for ke, ko, no. The existence of a distinct character for cerebral letters may also point to a
Semitic origin. Such sounds certainly existed in Egyptian and Hebrew, but not originally in Sanskrit.
A Phoenician origin of the Indian alphabets has already been suggested by Lepsius and Weber, but I have not been able to see their articles; Profr.
Pott, is however unwilling to admit it, § though Profr. Benfey considers it most probable." Profr. Westergaard also appears to accept this theory."
I have taken the letters given in the plate chiefly from C, as the more extensive and better preserved of the two older inscriptions. Those marked with * are from B, which is not so care
fully written as the others. I have given every letter which clearly occurs in the inscriptions, and besides the indifferent lithographs in the Madras Literary Society's Journal, vol. xiii, I have been able to use reverse impressions of C and
part of B.
SKETCHES OF MATHURA. By F. S. GROWSE, M.A., OXON, B.C.S. III.-GOBARD HAN.
GoBARDHAN, i.e., according to the literal meaning of the Sanskrit compound ‘the nurse of
Mathurá.” It occupies a recess in a narrow sand-stone range some 4 or 5 miles in length, and
cattle, is a considerable town and famous place
with an average elevation of 100 feet, which
of Hindu pilgrimage, 15 miles to the west of rises abruptly from the alluvial plain, and runs
- It is surprising that it has never been suggested that Ophir
was somewhere in Travankor or Malabar, Lassen's Abhira at the mouth of the Indus is most improbable in every way. On the other hand, Dr. Caldwell has proved that the Hebrew name for peacock is a purely Tamil word, and that it cannot be derived from the Sanskrit s'ikhin.
In Malabar we find
all the products Solomon imported, for gold is yet found at Nilambúr. And this (or |. Mysor) is the only part where sandal grows, if algum really have that meaning ; but it is impossible to believe that such small trunks as the sandal has, and so useless for everything but perfumery, could have been used for pillars. The wood is too brittle and not even handsome enough for such a purpose, could it be had in sufficient size.
f The Egyptian origin of the Phoenician alphabet has been almost conclusively proved by the Vte. de Rougé, but Ewald, Geschichte des, Volkes Israel, I. p. 79, doubts it. Renan appears to accept the Phoenician origin of the Sabean
alphabet (Histoire Générale des langues Semitiques, pp. 210 and 329). The difficulty about the direction of the writing no longer exists since Armand's discovery of
Boustrophedon Himyaritic inscriptions now amply con firmed. vide von Maltzan's letter in Allq. Złg. March 1st 1871, p. 10-11. Lassen, J. A. K. vol. I (2nd Eun.) repudiates a foreign origin for the Indian alphabets 1 l)illmann thinks it an Ethiopic invention; Weber that it came from India to Ethiopia (Renan).
§ Etymol. Forschungen, W. W. II. 2, p. liii. | Orient und Occident, III, 170.
Does not the fluctuating and irregular spelling of the Asoka inscriptions point to the recent introduction of writing 2 and that the alphabet was borrowed
Semitic race
from a
In Tamil the difficulty of distinguishing
several letters continued till the beginning of the 18th century, when the famous Jesuit Beschi made some im
provements; v. Grammaire Fran. Tamoule, p. 5.
- Its position is thus marked with unusual accuracy in the
Mathurá Mahatmya—Asti Govarddhanam néma Kshetram parama-durlabham
Mathurá-paschime bhage àdurad yojana-dway; m. Math. Mahdi. xiii.
