240 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XVII, 
originally sacred emblems have degenerated into mere orna- 
mental designs. The sanctity of the svastika was liable to be 
forgotten soon in areas far away from the locality of its origin. 
It is a significant fact that the symbol has retained its hol 
association longer in India than elsewhere, except perhaps in 
Lapland and Finland. 
€ proposition that the svastika is composed of two 
Brahmi o’s involves the assumption that the Brahmi o could 
exist prior even to the 13th or 14th century B.C. to which date, 
approximately, the Trojan spindle-whorls bearing developed 
forms of the svastika-mark have been assigned.! This assump- 
tion goes against the theory, advocated by Biihler, that the 
Brahmi script was derived about 800 B.C. from a Semitic 
source.” Biihler has, no doubt, succeeded in tracing a remark- 
able resemblance between certain letters of the ancient Semitic 
alphabet and old Brahmi letters of corresponding phonetic 
values, e.g. in the cases of gaand tha. In many cases, however, 
the analogies emphasized by him seem to be too far-fetched, 
fa] 
ile} 
Sell 
=| 
° 
g 
2 
oO 
co 
wR 
= 
o 
= 
co) 
lr] 
oO 
Lay 
@ 
i) 
wn 
a) 
oe] 
® 
Oo 
oO 
i 
cr 
= 
Lar | 
-_ 
ot 
ia) 
= 
t 
advanced are by no means easy to challenge. Mr. Bhandarkar, 
however, has not attempted to explain the few resemblances 
between the Brahmi and the Semitic scripts. Perhaps, for 
that attempt time is not yet. But it does not seem impossible 
that some Brahmi letters are of early indigenous origin, while 
other letters of the alphabet may have been adopted or 
preserved by Alberuni® relates that, during the dark ages 
preceding the Great Civil War, the Hindus had become 
illiterate, and Vyasa, the son of Paragara, rediscovered the 
aksaras by divine inspiration. The alleged rediscovery points 
to a deliberate attempt having been made in early times to 
reconstruct the lost or nearly lost script in India; and it 
! IT am not aware if this dating has been confirmed by the latest 
“ee — researches, 
: tan Studies, III, and Indian P : 
Encycl. Britt., I a 3 eo ere 
Insers. of Asoka, Pl. XXVIII, 
Calcutta Review, Jan. 1920, pp. 21-39. 
India (Sachau), I, pp. 171-2. 
