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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[August 2, 1872.

Greeks and Romans, Now taking into consideration the prevailing winds and currents, sailing ships from the Red Sea would most naturally touch on the Malabar coast below Mount Dilli.[1] Again at a later period we find intercourse through Persia and Baktria by land. Now in the earliest Indian inscriptions we possess—those of Piyadasi (Aśoka), we find two characters used. In the extreme North we find an alphabet evidently derived directly from the Phœnician, 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 possible theory is that it is an importation brought by traders from the Red Sea, and thence from Phœnicia, and is therefore of Egyptian origin eventually.[2] In many respects the old Tamil alphabet resembles that of the Himyaritic inscriptions 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. Whatever may be the origin of the similar peculiarity in the Ethiopic alphabet,[3] 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 ȧ), 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, ṇo. 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 Phœnician 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,[4] though Profr. Benfey considers it most probable.[5] Profr. Westergaard also appears to accept this theory.[6]

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 carefully 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 MATHURÁ.

By F. S. GROWSE, M.A., OXON, B.C.S.

III.-GOBARDHAN.

Gobardhan, i.e., according to the literal meaning of the Sanskrit compound 'the nurse of cattle,' is a considerable town and famous place of Hindu pilgrimage, 15 miles to the west of Mathurá.[7] It occupies a recess in a narrow sand-stone range some 4 or 5 miles in length, and with an average elevation of 100 feet, whichrises abruptly from the alluvial plain, and runs

  1. ↑ It is surprising that it has never been suggested that Ophir was somewhere in Travankor or Malabar, Lassen's Abhíra 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 Nilambùr. And this (or rather 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.
  2. ↑ The Egyptian origin of the Phœnician 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 Phœnician 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 confirmed. vide von Maltzan's letter in Allq. Ztg. March 1st 1871, p. 10-11. Lassen, I. A. K. vol. I (2nd Eun.) repudiates a foreign origin for the Indian alphabets!
  3. ↑ Dillmann thinks it an Ethiopic invention; Weber that it came from India to Ethiopia (Renan).
  4. ↑ Etymol. Forschungen, W. W. II. 2, p. liii.
  5. ↑ Orient und Occident, III, 170.
  6. ↑ Does not the fluctuating and irregular spelling of the Aśoka inscriptions point to the recent introduction of writing? and that the alphabet was borrowed from a Semitic race? In Tamil the difficulty of distinguishing several letters continued till the beginning of the 18th century, when the famous Jesuit Beschi made some improvements; v. Grammaire Fran. Tamoule, p. 5.
  7. ↑ Its position is thus marked with unusual accuracy in the Mathurá Mahȧtmya—

    Asti Govarddhanam náma Kshetram parama-durlabham
    Mathurá-paschime bháge ádurád yojana-dwayem.

    Math. Mahá. xiii.

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