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XXXI. The Lingual ḷa in the Northern Brāhmī Script
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
It is generally supposed that the lingual ḷa is a very rare letter in the inscriptions north of the Narmadā before the time of the Guptas. From the Sānchi inscriptions BÜuhler quotes one instance only: Vāḷīvahanikāyā in B; 344 (EI., ii, 378, No. 199): the ḷī is reproduced in Bühler'sIndische Palaeographie, table ii, 41, xviii: the form of the letter is practically the same as that appearing in the Allahabad Praśasti. The second instance is furnished by the word Āḷikāyāṁ in the inscription B, 43 (JBBRAS., xx, 269 f.), the find-place of which is unknown, but which must come from Northern India: there is no reproduction of this inscription. A third la is found in, kālavāḷasa in the archaic Mathurā inscription B, 94 (EI., i, 396, No. 33). According to the reproduction of this inscription in the Ep. Ind. there seems to be a great difference between the Sānchi and the Mathurā signs. But this is actually not the case. Two beautiful impressions before me clearly show that the sign in the plate has been “corrected”. In reality the long line slanting upwards, which in the reproduction forms the tail of the ḷa, is not connected with it, but is the i-stroke of the ti of the mutilated word prati[ṣṭhāpito] in the next line. The whole difference of the two signs thus consists in the greater cursiveness of the Sānchi sign.
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References
page 1081 note 1 EI., ii, 368.
page 1081 note 2 B refers to my “List of Brāhmi Inscriptions from the earliest times to about a. d. 400” in the Ep. Ind., vol. x, appendix, where further references may be looked up.
page 1081 note 3 See p. 33, n. 1.
page 1081 note 4 The sign given in Bühler's, Palaeographie, table ii, 41, xxGoogle Scholar, has been taken from the reproduction in the Ep. Ind.
page 1082 note 1 Not kuṃṭūbinīye, as Bühler read.
page 1082 note 2 More probable than knṭuṃbiniye, as Bühler read.
page 1082 note 3 The lower part of the ṭi is mutilated.
page 1083 note 1 Not Kuṭubiniye, as Bühler read.
page 1083 note 2 The ṭṭa, of Jayabhaṭṭasya in B, 32 (EI., i, 384, No. 5) is quite indistinct and uncertain. There is only one inscription at Mathurā where the ṭa is supposed to have quite a different form. In B, 118(EI., ii, 208, No. 33), which in several respects is an abnormal inscription, Bühler read in the first line Vardhamānapaṭimā, in the second line kuṭībini. Here the two letters supposed to be ṭi and ṭī do not show the semicircular form occurring in all other inscriptions, and both of them have a serif at the top. There can be little doubt that the second word really is kuḍīvini or kudivini, the third letter being quite peculiar. It is true there occurs a less cursive form of ḍa in this inscription in baḍima°, but anybody familiar with the Mathurā records knows how often different forms of the same letter are found side by side in these inscriptions. The first word may be °padima or °paḍima, though on comparing the letter with the di in Dināye the former alternative would seem to be the more plausible one.
page 1084 note 1 It is often very difficult to distinguish between the signs for medial i and e in these inscriptions, but in some cases the e seems to be certain.
page 1085 note 1 According to the photolithograph only the upper portion of Koḷi is preserved.
page 1085 note 2 The true value of the sign in B, 16 seems to have been recognized later by Bühler himself; in his Indische Palaeographie, table iii, 39, iii, he gave a ḷa that is apparently the sign occurring in B, 16.
page 1086 note 1 The reproduction in the Ep. Ind. is inaccurate.
page 1086 note 1 In the kha also we find often only a thickening of the end of the vertical instead of the dot, at any rate in the plate; see e.g. the second nīlakhitaviye, v, 11; paṭicekhāmi, vi, 15, etc.
page 1088 note 1 BruchstÜcke buddhistischer Dramen, Preuss. Turfan-Expeditionen. Kleinere Sanskrit-Texte, Heft i.