User:سائغ/page5

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Megasthenes' observations[edit]

Megasthenes, a Greek ambassador to the Mauryan court in Northeastern India only a quarter century before Ashoka, noted "… and this among a people who have no written laws, who are ignorant even of writing, and regulate everything by memory."[1] This has been variously and contentiously interpreted by many authors. Ludo Rocher almost entirely dismisses Megasthenes as unreliable, questioning the wording used by Megasthenes' informant and Megasthenes' interpretation of them.[2] Timmer considers it to reflect a misunderstanding that the Mauryans were illiterate "based upon the fact that Megasthenes rightly observed that the laws were unwritten and that oral tradition played such an important part in India."[3]

Some proponents of the indigenous origin theories[who?] question the reliability and interpretation of comments made by Megasthenes (as quoted by Strabo in the Geographica XV.i.53). For one, the observation may only apply in the context of the kingdom of "Sandrakottos" (Chandragupta). Elsewhere in Strabo (Strab. XV.i.39), Megasthenes is said to have noted that it was a regular custom in India for the "philosopher" caste (presumably Brahmins) to submit "anything useful which they have committed to writing" to kings,[4] but this detail does not appear in parallel extracts of Megasthenes found in Arrian and Diodorus Siculus.[5][6] The implication of writing per se is also not totally clear in the original Greek as the term "συντάξῃ" (source of the English word "syntax") can be read as a generic "composition" or "arrangement", rather than a written composition in particular. Nearchus, a contemporary of Megasthenes, noted, a few decades prior, the use of cotton fabric for writing in Northern India. Indologists have variously speculated that this might have been Kharoṣṭhī or the Aramaic alphabet. Salomon regards the evidence from Greek sources to be inconclusive.[7] Strabo himself notes this inconsistency regarding reports on the use of writing in India (XV.i.67).

Debate on time depth[edit]

Connections between Phoenician (4th column) and Brahmi (5th column). Note that 6th-to-4th-century BCE Aramaic (not shown) is in many cases intermediate in form between the two.

Kenneth Norman (2005) suggests that Brahmi was devised over a longer period of time predating Ashoka's rule:[8]

"Support for this idea of pre-Ashokan development has been given very recently by the discovery of sherds at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, inscribed with small numbers of characters which seem to be Brāhmī. These sherds have been dated, by both Carbon 14 and Thermo-luminescence dating, to pre-Ashokan times, perhaps as much as much as two centuries before Ashoka."[9]

He also notes that the variations seen in the Asokan edicts would be unlikely to have emerged so quickly if Brahmi had a single origin in the chancelleries of the Mauryan Empire.[10] He suggests a date of not later than the end of the 4th Century for the development of Brahmi script in the form represented in the inscriptions, with earlier possible antecedents.[10]

Jack Goody (1987) had similarly suggested that ancient India likely had a "very old culture of writing" along with its oral tradition of composing and transmitting knowledge, because the Vedic literature is too vast, consistent and complex to have been entirely created, memorized, accurately preserved and spread without a written system.[11][12]

Opinions on this point, the possibility that there may not have been any writing scripts including Brahmi during the Vedic age, given the quantity and quality of the Vedic literature, are divided. While Falk (1993) disagrees with Goody,[13] while Walter Ong and John Hartley (2012) concur,[14] not so much based on the difficulty of orally preserving the Vedic hymns, but on the basis that it is highly unlikely that Panini's grammar was composed. Johannes Bronkhorst (2002) takes the intermediate position that the oral transmission of the Vedic hymns may well have been achieved orally, but that the development of Panini's grammar presupposes writing (consistent with a development of Indian writing in c. the 4th century BCE).[15]

Origin of the name[edit]

Several divergent accounts of the origin of the name "Brahmi" (ब्राह्मी) appear in history. Some Buddhist sutras such as the Lalitavistara Sūtra (possibly 4th century CE), list Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭī as some of the sixty-four scripts the Buddha knew as a child.[16] Several Sutras of Jainism such as the Vyakhya Pragyapti Sutra, the Samvayanga Sutra and the Pragyapna Sutra of the Jain Agamas include a list of 18 writing scripts known to teachers before the Mahavira was born, the first one being Bambhi (बाम्भी) in the original Prakrit, which has been interpreted as "Bramhi".[16] The Brahmi script is missing from the 18 script list in the surviving versions of two later Jaina Sutras, namely the Vishesha Avashyaka and the Kalpa Sutra. Jain legend recounts that 18 writing scripts were taught by their first Tirthankara Rishabhanatha to his daughter Bambhi (बाम्भी), she emphasized बाम्भी as the main script as she taught others, and therefore the name Brahmi for the script comes after her name.[17] There is no early epigraphic proof for the expression "Brahmi script". Ashoka himself when he created the first known inscriptions in the new script in the 3rd century BCE, used the expression Dhaṃma Lipi (Prakrit in the Brahmi script: 𑀥𑀁𑀫𑀮𑀺𑀧𑀺, "Inscriptions of the Dharma") but this is not to describe the script of his own Edicts.[18]

A Chinese Buddhist account of the 6th century CE attributes its creation to the god Brahma, though Monier Monier-Williams, Sylvain Lévi and others thought it was more likely to have been given the name because it was moulded by the Brahmins.[19][20]

The term Brahmi (बाम्भी in original) appears in Indian texts in different contexts. According to the rules of the Sanskrit language, it is a feminine word which literally means "of Brahma" or "the female energy of the Brahman".[21] In other texts such as the Mahabharata, it appears in the sense of a goddess, particularly for Saraswati as the goddess of speech and elsewhere as "personified Shakti (energy) of Brahma".[22]

History[edit]

The Prakrit word "Dha-ṃ-ma" (Dharma) in the Brahmi script, as inscribed by Ashoka in his Edicts. Topra Kalan pillar, now in New Delhi (3rd century BCE).

The earliest known full inscriptions of Brahmi are in Prakrit, dated to be from the 3rd to 1st centuries BCE, particularly the Edicts of Ashoka, c. 250 BCE.[23] Prakrit records predominate the epigraphic records discovered in the Indian subcontinent through about the 1st century CE.[23] The earliest known Brahmi inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the few discovered in Ayodhya, Ghosundi and Hathibada (both near Chittorgarh).[24][note 1] Ancient inscriptions have also been discovered in many North and Central Indian sites, occasionally in South India as well, that are in hybrid Sanskrit-Prakrit language called "Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit".[note 2] These are dated by modern techniques to between the 1st and 4th centuries CE.[27][28] Surviving ancient records of the Brahmi script are found as engravings on pillars, temple walls, metal plates, terracotta, coins, crystals and manuscripts.[29][28]

One of the most important recent developments regarding the origin of Brahmi has been the discovery of Brahmi characters inscribed on fragments of pottery from the trading town of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, which have been dated between the sixth to early fourth century BCE.[30] Coningham et al. in 1996,[31] stated that the script on the Anuradhapura inscriptions is Brahmi, but stated that the language was a Prakrit rather than a Dravidian language. The historical sequence of the specimens was interpreted to indicate an evolution in the level of stylistic refinement over several centuries, and they concluded that the Brahmi script may have arisen out of "mercantile involvement" and that the growth of trade networks in Sri Lanka was correlated with its first appearance in the area.[31] Salomon in his 1998 review states that the Anuradhapura inscriptions support the theory that Brahmi existed in South Asia before the Mauryan times, with studies favoring the 4th century BCE, but some doubts remain whether the inscriptions might be intrusive into the potsherds from a later date.[30] Indologist Harry Falk has argued that the Edicts of Ashoka represent an older stage of Brahmi, whereas certain paleographic features of even the earliest Anuradhapura inscriptions are likely to be later, and so these potsherds may date from after 250 BCE.[32]

More recently in 2013, Rajan and Yatheeskumar published excavations at Porunthal and Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu, where numerous both Tamil-Brahmi and "Prakrit-Brahmi" inscriptions and fragments have been found.[33] Their stratigraphic analysis combined with radiocarbon dates of paddy grains and charcoal samples indicated that inscription contexts date to as far back as the 6th and perhaps 7th centuries BCE.[34] As these were published very recently, they have as yet not been commented on extensively in the literature. Indologist Harry Falk has criticized Rajan's claims as "particularly ill-informed"; Falk argues that some of the earliest supposed inscriptions are not Brahmi letters at all, but merely misinterpreted non-linguistic Megalithic graffiti symbols, which were used in South India for several centuries during the pre-literate era.[35]

Decipherment[edit]

Classification of Brahmi characters by James Prinsep in March 1834. The structure of Brahmi (consonantal characters with vocalic "inflections") was properly identified, but the individual values of characters remained undetermined, except for four of the vocalic inflections. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Volume 3 (March 1834).[36]
Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen used the bilingual Greek-Brahmi coinage of Indo-Greek king Agathocles to correctly achieve in 1836 the first secure decipherement of several letters of the Brahmi script, which was later completed by James Prinsep.[37][38]
Consonants of the Brahmi script, and evolution down to modern Devanagari, according to James Prinsep, as published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in March 1838. All the letters are correctly deciphered, except for two missing on the right: 𑀰(ś) and 𑀱(ṣ).[39] Vowels and compounds here. All scripts derived from Brahmi are gathered under the term "Brahmic scripts".

Besides a few inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic (which were only discovered in the 20th century), the Edicts of Ashoka were written in the Brahmi script and sometimes in the Kharoshthi script in the northwest, which had both become extinct around the 4th century CE, and were yet undeciphered at the time the Edicts were discovered and investigated in the 19th century.[40][41]

Inscriptions of the 6th century CE in late Brahmi were already deciphered in 1785 by Charles Wilkins, who published an essentially correct translation of the Gopika Cave Inscription written by the Maukhari king Anantavarman.[42] Wilkins seems to have relied essentially on the similarities with later Brahmic scripts, such as the script of the Pala period and early forms of Devanagari.[42]

Early Brahmi however remained unreadable.[42] Progress resumed in 1834 with the publication of proper facsimiles of the inscriptions on the Allahabad pillar of Ashoka, notably containing Edicts of Ashoka as well as inscriptions by the Gupta Empire ruler Samudragupta.[37]

James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the East India Company, started to analyse the inscriptions and made deductions on the general characteristics of the early Brahmi script essentially relying on statistical methods.[37] This method, published in March 1834, allowed him to classify the characters found in inscriptions, and to clarify the structure of Brahmi as being composed of consonantal characters with vocalic "inflections". He was able to correctly guess four out of five vocalic inflections, but the value of consonants remained unknown.

  1. ^ Strabo (1903). Hamilton, H.C.; Falconer, W. (eds.). The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London: George Bell and Sons. p. 15.1.53.
  2. ^ Rocher 2014.
  3. ^ Timmer 1930, p. 245.
  4. ^ Strabo (1903). Hamilton, H.C.; Falconer, W. (eds.). The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London: George Bell and Sons. p. 15.1.39.
  5. ^ Sterling, Gregory E. (1992). Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography. Brill. p. 95.
  6. ^ McCrindle, J.W. (1877). Ancient India As Described By Megasthenes And Arrian. London: Trübner and Co. pp. 40, 209. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
  7. ^ Salomon 1998, p. 11.
  8. ^ Oskar von Hinüber (1989). Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. pp. 241–245. ISBN 9783515056274. OCLC 22195130.
  9. ^ Kenneth Roy Norman (2005). Buddhist Forum Volume V: Philological Approach to Buddhism. Routledge. pp. 67, 56–57, 65–73. ISBN 978-1-135-75154-8.
  10. ^ a b Norman, Kenneth R. “THE DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING IN INDIA AND ITS EFFECT UPON THE PĀLI CANON.” Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Südasiens / Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 36, 1992, pp. 239–249. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24010823. Accessed 11 May 2020.
  11. ^ Jack Goody (1987). The Interface Between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge University Press. pp. 110–124. ISBN 978-0-521-33794-6.
  12. ^ Jack Goody (2010). Myth, Ritual and the Oral. Cambridge University Press. pp. 42–47, 65–81. ISBN 978-1-139-49303-1.
  13. ^ Annette Wilke & Oliver Moebus 2011, pp. 182–183.
  14. ^ Walter J. Ong; John Hartley (2012). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Routledge. pp. 64–69. ISBN 978-0-415-53837-4.
  15. ^ "Falk goes too far. It is fair to expect that we believe that Vedic memorisation — though without parallel in any other human society — has been able to preserve very long texts for many centuries without losing a syllable. (...) However, the oral composition of a work as complex as Pāṇini's grammar is not only without parallel in other human cultures, it is without parallel in India itself. (...) It just will not do to state that our difficulty in conceiving any such thing is our problem." Bronkhorst, Johannes (2002). "Literacy and Rationality in Ancient India". Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques. 56 (4): 803–804, 797–831.
  16. ^ a b Salomon 1998, pp. 8–9
  17. ^ Nagrajji, Acharya Shri (2003). Āgama Aura Tripiṭaka, Eka Anuśilana: Language and literature. New Delhi: Concept Publishing. pp. 223–224.
  18. ^ Singh, Upinder (2008). A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Pearson Education India. p. 351. ISBN 9788131711200.
  19. ^ Levi, Silvain (1906), "The Kharostra Country and the Kharostri Writing", The Indian Antiquary, XXXV: 9
  20. ^ Monier Monier-Williams (1970). Sanskrit-English dictionary. Motilal Banarsidass (Reprint of Oxford Claredon). p. xxvi with footnotes. ISBN 978-5-458-25035-1.
  21. ^ Arthur Anthony Macdonell (2004). Sanskrit English Dictionary (Practical Hand Book). Asian Educational Services. p. 200. ISBN 978-81-206-1779-7.
  22. ^ Monier Monier Willians (1899), Brahmi, Oxford University Press, page 742
  23. ^ a b Salomon 1998, pp. 72–81.
  24. ^ Salomon 1998, pp. 86–87.
  25. ^ Salomon 1998, pp. 87–89.
  26. ^ Salomon 1998, p. 82.
  27. ^ Salomon 1998, pp. 81–84.
  28. ^ a b Salomon 1996, p. 377.
  29. ^ Salomon 1998, pp. 122–123, 129–131, 262–307.
  30. ^ a b Salomon 1998, pp. 12–13.
  31. ^ a b Coningham, R.A.E.; Allchin, F.R.; Batt, C.M.; Lucy, D. (22 December 2008). "Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 6 (1): 73. doi:10.1017/S0959774300001608.
  32. ^ Falk, H. (2014). "Owner's graffiti on pottery from Tissamaharama", in Zeitchriftfür Archäeologie Aussereuropäischer Kulturen. 6. pp.45–47.
  33. ^ Rajan prefers the term "Prakrit-Brahmi" to distinguish Prakrit-language Brahmi inscriptions.
  34. ^ Rajan, K.; Yatheeskumar, V.P. (2013). "New evidences on scientific dates for Brāhmī Script as revealed from Porunthal and Kodumanal Excavations" (PDF). Prāgdhārā. 21–22: 280–295. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 October 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2016.
  35. ^ Falk, H. (2014), p.46, with footnote 2
  36. ^ Salomon 1998, pp. 204–208 Equally impressive was Prinsep's arrangement, presented in plate V of JASB 3, of the unknown alphabet, wherein he gave each of the consonantal characters, whose phonetic values were still entirely unknown, with its "five principal inflections", that is, the vowel diacritics. Not only is this table almost perfectly correct in its arrangement, but the phonetic value of the vowels is correctly identified in four out of five cases (plus anusvard); only the vowel sign for i was incorrectly interpreted as o.
  37. ^ a b c Salomon 1998, pp. 204–208
  38. ^ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol V 1836. p. 723.
  39. ^ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Calcutta : Printed at the Baptist Mission Press [etc.] 1838.
  40. ^ Salomon 1998, pp. 204–206.
  41. ^ Cite error: The named reference RHP was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  42. ^ a b c Salomon 1998, pp. 206–207


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