58 Annual Address. [Feb. 



the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for ISO?.'^^ All inscriptions in 

 the Gupta character, known up to the year J888, have been collected by 

 Dr. J. F. Fleet and published by him, with facsimiles, in the third 

 volume of the Corpus Inscriptioniim Indicarum, in the introduction to 

 which he has also finally settled the hitherto much disputed epoch of the 

 celebrated Gupta era to be the year 319-20 A.D.^i 



For long the prevalent opinion has been that the introduction of 

 the art of writing into India took place in the third century B.C., during 

 the rule of the Maurya dynasty. This opinion was based on the fact 

 that the earh'est specimens of writing, though incised in places as widely 

 ;apart as Orissa and Gujarat, appeared on the first view to show no local 

 ^varieties in the shape of their letters. ]\Iore accurately made facsimiles 

 and a more thorough and minute examination of these facsimiles, such as 

 Hofrath Prof. Biihler and Mr. E. Senart have latterly made and published 

 in the Journals of the German and French Asiatic Societies, have now 

 brought to light the fact that smaller local varieties are by no means 

 absent. The most striking evidence, however, of the existence of a 

 well-marked local variety has been afforded by the inscriptions on the 

 i-elic-casket, found in J 891 in the Bbattiprolu stupa in the Kistna 

 District of the Madras Presidency. These inscriptions, as Hofrath 

 Piof. Biihler has discovered,^^ show a system of writing which in some 

 respects is radically different fi'om that preva^'ling in the more Northern 

 inscriptions of A9oka. Thus, to mention only one point, the Bbattiprolu 

 alphabet contains one new letter ( I) and five new forms of other letters 

 (gh, j, m, e, s). It is obvious that this discovery throws a new light on 

 the question of the age of the art of writing in India. Such a marked 

 variation cannot have sprung up in a short time, but must have had a 

 long history before the time of A^oka. With this new light, and with 

 the help of accurate facsimiles now available, Hofrath Prof. Biihler sub- 

 jected the question of the age and origin of the Brahmi script to a fresh 

 searching investigation. 23 Their result is to render two facts extremely 

 probable : first that the Brahmi script is directly derived from the 

 oldest Phenician alphabet, and secondly that it was in common use in 



80 See Articles I, II and XXIX in that Journal. 



81 The title of this volume is Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings and their 

 Successors. On the epoch see also Dr. Fleet's paper in the Journal of the Bombay 

 Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XVIII, for 1891, p. 71. 



22 Published in the Academy for May 1892, Vienna Oriental Journal, Vol. VI, 

 p. 148, and Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II, p. 323. 



23 Published in the Transactions of the Vienna Imperial Academy of Sciences, 

 Vol. CXXXIl, under the title : Indian Studies, No. Ill, on the " Origin of the Indian 

 Brahma Alphabet." A very useful abstract of Hofrath Prof. Biihler's ai-gument is 



^iven by Br. G. A. Grierson in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XXIV, p. 246. 



