476 Analysis of the Ldt alphabet, No. 1. [June, 



We might perhaps on contemplation of these forms go yet farther 

 into speculation on their origin. Thus the g may be supposed to be 

 formed of the two strokes of the k, differently disposed : the j, of the 

 two half curves of the ch superposed : the two d's* are the same 

 letter turned right and left respectively ; and this principle, it may be 

 remarked, is to be met with in other scions of the Indian alphabet. 

 Thus in the Tibetan the z^,a sound unknown to the Sanskrit, is 

 made by inverting the j F ; the cerebral » f>, by inverting the den- 

 tal *) : — and the cerebral t, th, or 3, fo, by inversion of the dental t, th, 



The analogy between the ( and \ is not so great in this alphabet 

 as in what we have imagined to be its successor, in which the essen- 

 tial part of the t, (x) is the ( placed downwards, '"V In the same 

 manner the connection of the labials,^? and b, is more visible in the old 

 Ceylonese, the Canouji, and even the Tibetan alphabets ; the b *J, 

 being merely the p t^, closed at the top : and in square Pali [J and Q. 



Thus when we come to examine the matter critically, we are insen- 

 sibly led to the reduction of the written characters to a comparatively 

 small number of elements, as -{-, <-] , ( , r 1 > _j_. \j, ^ , | , ^ and f{j ; 

 besides the vowels \\, [>, |_. Or perhaps, in lieu of this arrangement, 

 it may be preferable to adopt one element as representative of each of 

 the seven classes of letters. We shall thus come to the very position 

 long ago advanced by Jambulus the traveller. 



Jambulus was antecedent, says Dr. Vincent, to Diodorus ; and 

 Diodorus was contemporary with Augustus. He made, or pretended 

 to have made, a voyage to Ceylon, and to have lived there seven years. 

 Nine facts mentioned by him as characteristic of the people of that 

 country, though doubted much in former days, have been confirmed 

 by later experience : a tenth fact the learned author of the Periplus 

 was obliged to leave for future inquiry, — namely, " whether the parti- 

 culars of the alphabet of Ceylon may not have some allusion to truth : 

 for he says, ' the characters are originally only seven, but by four 

 varying forms or combinations they become twenty-eightf.' " 



It would be difficult to describe the conditions of the Indian alpha- 

 betical system more accurately than Jambulus has done in this short 

 summary, which proves to be not only true in the general sense, of 

 the classification of the letters, but exact as to the origin and forma- 



* It is worth observation that the dental d of the inscriptions corresponds in 

 form to the modern cerebral, and vice versa. 

 t Vincent's Periplus of the Erythrean Sea. 



