--- In cybalist@..., "Vishal Agarwal" <vishalagarwal@...> wrote:
>I refer to the following note from the reference =
>Coningham, Robin. 1999. Anuradhapura: The British-Sri Lankan
>Excavations at Anuradhapura Salgaha Watta 2, Volume I (The Site).
>BAR International Series 824, Society for South Asian Studies
>Monograph No. 3:Oxford
>p. 2 A further, connected aspect is the evidence at Anuradhapura
>for the development of writing systems within South Asia. The
>earlier prophetic work of Deraniyagala at Anuradhapura suggested
>for the first time that Brahmi, the ancestor of many of South
>Asia's vernacular scripts, occurred a number of centuries earlier
>than had previously been thought (Deraniyagala 1990a).
>It has been generally accepted that the script derived from a
>Semitic script developed in northern India under the Buddhist
>emperor, Asoka, in the third century BC and had spread southwards
>through the peninsula until it reached Sri Lanka....Our own work
>now supports Deraniyagala's earlier hypothesis, and evidence of
>Brahmi script dating to the beginning of the fourth century
>BC is presented in Volume II.
Thanks a bunch for the quote from Coningham report (1999).
Then, we have Brahmi from Sri Lanka from 4th century BCE
and not earlier. This has already been known, For example
Allchins write:
R. & B. Allchin, Origins of a Civilization,
The prehistory and early archaeology of South Asia.
Viking (Penguin Books) 1997, p. 257 [Anuradhapura potshards]
"However, in its final stage, a remarkable discovery
has been made, a number of potshards with crude Brahmi
inscriptions scratched on them (Plate. 71, nos. 1 ans 2).
Datable to c. 360-340 BC these are almost certainly
the earliest dated Brahmi inscriptions from any part
of South Asia."
This 4th century invention of Brahmi, possibly in Sri Lanka
for which trade with the Middle East acted as a catalyst
has nothing to do with the Indus script, There is about
1200 years difference between the two scripts.
I've included the expert Iravatham Mahadevan's words on Brahmi
script and Indus script.
Regards,
N. Ganesan
http://www.harappa.com/script/mahadevantext.html#11
<<<
4. The Indus Script and Brahmi
Q: What do you think the relationship is between the Indus script and
the Brahmi script, since
you know both of them?
A: Several scholars have said that there is a relationship between
the two, that the Indus script survived and slowly became linear and
ultimately lead to the Brahmi script. I do not at all believe
in this theory. The Indus script was in existence not later than at
the most about 1500 B.C. The earliest undisputed examples of the
Brahmi script are only from the days of Ashoka, around 300 B.C. One
might take the origin of the Brahmi script still farther, to the
beginnings of the Indo-Gangetic, Iron Age civilization, in the middle
of the first millennia B.C., since Ashoka does not claim to have
invented the Brahmi script, it is not unlikely that the Brahmi script
was known before his times, and perhaps used by the merchants
commercially as the Allchins have suggested in their recent book. The
absence of such inscriptions by Chandragupta, the illustrious
grandfather of Ashoka could be explained by saying that stone
inscriptions were not in the Indian tradition and they came to us
along with the Persian tradition. This is not unlikely, but
even so there is at least a gap of 1,000 years before the
introduction of the Brahmi script and the complete collapse of the
Indus script.
There is a parallel in the history of writing elsewhere in the
history of the world. Mycenian Linear B script was written in syllabic
script in about the 14th or 15th century B.C. and that has
nothing to do with the later script of the Greeks, which was taken
over from the Phoenicians.There again was a gap of one thousand years.
Personally, I believe that the Indus script was too closely tied up
with the Indus language, whatever it was, and when that language
ceased to be spoken and became dead, the incoming Aryans could not use
that script. Now that again has a parallel in the Egyptian script
which was too closely tied up in the Egyptian language and could
not survive it. The cuneiform scripts were much more adaptable to a
wide variety of languages. So perhaps the logographic Indus script had
a one-to-one relation with the words of the Indus language and could
not be used in another language. What has survived of the Indus script
may be symbols of various kinds, totem signs, royal signs and insignia
on punch marked coins and flags and traditions in our mythology of
gods, attributes, weapons and so on but not as a writing system.
Another reason to say that the Brahmi script is not related to the
Indus script is that the connection between Brahmi and some form of
Semitic script is too strong. Buehler pointed out the relation between
Alif and A, B and Bay, Gameen and Ga, and so on. At least I can see
about 10 of the 22 Semitic characters very closely resemble Brahmi
both in form and sound. Statistically, such a resemblance is
impossible except when there is genetic relationship. I do not say
that Brahmi script itself came from the Semitic script, but some
elements of the Semitic were taken over, others were locally added,
improvements were made, the order of the sounds were changed, the
diacritical marks were locally invented, the aspirates were invented,
the additional vowels were joined, so that Brahmi is a much developed
and transformed script. But the idea of the Brahmi script comes from
the alphabetic, Semitic script and I believe in Buehler's theory. For
these two reasons I do not agree with the scholars, most of them
Indian, who believe that the Brahmi script is a remote descendant of
the Indus script.
>>>
http://www.harappa.com/script/mahadevantext.html#11
<<<
Q: What had you added to that field?
A: Since the cave inscriptions represent the earliest known stratum
of a Dravidian language, their phonology and their grammar are most
important. I have constructed an inscriptional grammar and compared
that with the oldest known grammar in Tamil and oldest Tamil
literature, the Sangam poetry. The oldest stratum of Tamil language
known from literature is not very different from the cave
inscriptions, showing that they were not very far removed in time. At
the same time, the cave inscriptions represent the very beginning of
literacy, so the main contribution coming out of this is in firming up
our ideas of how Tamil was at the very beginning of its literate
period. Of course we have a number of other spin-off benefits. These
caves were all created for Jaina monks, so we come to know about the
early history of Jainism in the Tamil country. Plus the caves were
donated by traders, so we know about a lot of trading, in gold,
pearls, sugar cane, gems, salt and so on. We find the Kings, the
Pandiyas or the Cheras who are mentioned in the oldest Sangam
literature appearing in these inscriptions, giving for the first time
historical veracity to what was so long known only from fables or
ballads.
Paleographically, we now know how the Tamil script originated. There
were many theories, but now we know it came from the Brahmi script and
slowly became rounded because in the south, people wrote on palm
leaves with an iron stylus and the letters got rounded. Each stage of
this transformation can now be documented. The inscriptions I am
studying cover from the time of Asoka, roughly the 3rd century B.C. to
about the 5th century A.D. Thereafter from the 6th or 7th century A.D.
we have hundreds of stone temples in Tamil Nadu with thousands of
inscriptions, so there is no mystery afterwards.
>>>