I have a question about the Brahmi alphabet (the one used on the famous
Ashoka's stone).
I understand that consonant letters had an "implicit" vowel: [a]. It also
add a set of "diacritics" to be added to base consonants to indicate vowels
different from [a].
So far so good, as this is consistent with the modern Indian alphabets that
derived from Brahmi.
But how did it indicate a consonant *not* followed by *any* vowel?
Modern Indian alphabets either use a sign called virama (or halant) or use
"consonant conjuncts" (ligatures formed by pieces of the regular consonant
letters). But I could find nothing like that for Brahmi (I just tried on the
"Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems" by F. Coulmas).
I hope the question is clear; sorry if I have messed up with terminology.