Vol. VII, No. 6.] The Evidence of the Faridpur Grants. 295 
[N.S.] 
with the transformation of this letter when used as a sub- 
script.!. Dr. Hoernle’s labours on the later transformation 
of this letter hardly cen any room for further work with the 
ata at present in hand. The presence of the acute angle is 
also another important feature in the Sete iniation of the 
characteristics of the alphabet. On this point Dr Bihler 
a 
ie “ About the beginning of the 6th sige d we find in the 
Northern Inscriptions both of Eastern and Western India 
(Plate IV, ie X-XIT) sae Dianne of a new develop- 
ment which first leads to the forms of the Gaya Inscription 
of A.D 588-89 fake IV, Cols. XV, XVI). Thei i 
characteristic is that the letters slope from the right to the 
left, and show acute angles at the lower or at the right ends, 
as well as that the tops of the vertical or slanting lines invari- 
ably bear small wedges, and their ends either show the same 
ornaments or protuberances on the right. These peculiarities 
are observable in a large number of inscriptions of the next 
alphabet.’’* So the presence of the acute angle though a 
determining factor is at the same time not a very clear indica- 
tive of the age of an inscription: but in the earlier period of 
the acute-angled alphabet, 7.e., when the transformation of 
right-angled letters into acute-angled ones take place, the 
acute angle has justly been regarded as a determinant of the 
date of an REO In the following centuries the acute 
angle ceases to be of any value in the determination of the 
date of an inscription. In the Eastern variety of the Northern 
ar ee the latest use of the right-angled characters seem to be 
n the MundeSvari Inscription of Udayasena.* 
The acute angle is more or less present in the speraces 
of the first grant: thus we have it very distinctly in sa, 
Ya, Gha, Dha, Ha (of the 6th century form) and Ma. It is 
conspicuous by its absence in the case of certain letters such 
a, Pa, and Va. In the second grant we 
angles in Ya, Sa, Sa and Gha. It is absent in La, Pa and 
some other letters. In the third grant the acute ‘angle is 
_ present in Ya, both bipartite and tripartite, Ha, $a, Sa and Ma. 
it is absent in La, Va , Pa, Dha, etc. In the fourth grant the 
acute angle is present in Sa, Pa, Ya, Dha and Ma. It is 
absent in Sa, Ha Ja, etc. Thus we find that in these 
the acute angle is a in oo letters and absent. in 
others. This alone would point out the date of these inscrip- 
tions and place them i in un last ‘half of the 6th peeeesy. or first 
1 Ind. A »~p 
: Bublor's Indioke Paigographie (Eng. Ed.), p 49. 
mm. Ind., vol. ix, p. 2 
