The Similarity of the Tibetan to the Kashgar-Brahmi Alphabet. 



(With 5 plates.) 

 By the Rev. A. H. Francke. 



[Read 3rd May, 1905.] 



Although it has never been doubted that Tibst received her alphabet from India, 

 scholars have been at variance with regard to the question, which of the various Indian 

 scripts may be regarded as the mother of the Tibetan characters ? According to H. A. 

 Jaschke, the Tibetan alphabet was derived from the Lanthsa alphabet, and according to 

 Sarat Chandra Das, from the Wartu characters. Although the Lanthsa, as well as the 

 Wartu, shows many similarities to the Tibetan alphabet, both these alphabets are surpass 

 ed in this respect by the Kashgar-Brahmi characters. 



I am offering for comparison five plates of alphabets in seven columns. In the first 

 column the ordinary Tibetan 'headed' characters are given ; the ' headless' characters 

 of the second column are those which are used for ordinary letter-writing and every other 

 kind of secular writing ; the ancient dbu-med (or headless) characters of the third column 

 were collected from the ancient rock-inscriptions of Ladakh ; the Kashgar-Brahmi 

 characters of the fourth column were copied from Dr. A. F. R. Hcernle's Plate IV. of 

 his Weber MSS., J.A.S.B. Part I. No. 1, 1893, and from Professor E. Leumann's ' Eine 

 von den unbekannten Litteratursprachen Mittelasiens,' Memoir cs dc ? Academic, Vol. IV. 

 No. 8, St. Petersburg ; the Wartu and Lanthsa characters of the fifth and sixth columns 

 were copied from Sarat Chandra Das' ' Sacred and Ornamental Characters of Tibet,' 

 J.A.S.B., Vol. LVII. Part I ; in the seventh column we find the ordinary Indian Devanagari 

 characters. 



From the plates we learn at the first glance that the following Tibetan and Kashgar- 

 Brahmi characters are of a striking similarity^: K, Kh, g, L ng, c, ch, j, ny, t, th, d, p 

 ph, b, y, r, 1, sh, s, h. 



Properly speaking, there are only two characters in the whole alphabet which it is 

 difficult to reconcile in their Tibetan and Kashgar-Brahmi forms : m and n. But it is 

 not at all impossible that in the Kashgar-Brahmi MSS. new forms of m and n will be dis- 

 covered which exhibit a closer relationship to the Tibetan characters than the forms 

 known to me at present. 



Individual Tibetan Characters. — There are several characters in the Tibetan alphabet 

 which do not occur in the Indian alphabet. Besides the palatals c, ch, j, the Tibetan 

 possesses the sounds ts, ths, and dz, the characters of which are distinguished from the 

 characters of the palatals by an additional stroke. Although the pronunciation of the 

 Indian palatals was ts, ths, dz, instead of c, ch, j, in the north-western districts of India, 

 it was not the Tibetan forms of ts, ths, and dz, which were directly derived from the 

 Indian characters, but the Tibetan palatals. The Tibetan w is a combination of / and b ; 

 we may say : it is a b with a prefixed /. Also b with other prefixes may become a w, or 



' The dot of the Brahmi g became a noose in the Tibetan g. 

 Mem ...S.B. 21 = 10=05. 



