243c Substitution of the Roman [No. 8, new series. 



written in a character called Grantham, a character from which 

 the ordinary Tamil character is an off shoot. It is an error, though 

 a popular error, and one which was recently repeated in the Friend 

 of India, that the Deva-nagari is the parent of all the Indian cha- 

 racters now in use. The various characters that are used in South- 

 ern India and Ceylon have only a distant family relation to the 

 Deva-nagari ; being derived, by the process of incessant change, 

 from the characters (preserved in king Asoka's inscriptions) which 

 were in use in ancient India three centuries before the Christian 

 era, and out of which the Deva-nagari was developed in the 

 North, and the Telugu, the Grantham (or Tamil), the Singhalese, 

 kc. in the South. It is clear, therefore, that the Deva-nagari 

 cannot make out a claim to be more generally used than it is at 

 present. 



On the other hand, the Roman character, though introduced by 

 foreigners, is already more widely known, if it is not used by a 

 larger number of persons, than any other character in India. It 

 is known where the Tamil has never been heard of, and where the 

 Deva-Nagari has never penetrated. It is used in the administra- 

 tion of justice and in all Government proceedings in every corner 

 of British India, together with Ceylon and Pegu, and in the capi- 

 tals, at least, of all Protected States. In addition to its great in- 

 trinsic merits, it has the advantage of being used by those nations 

 that stand at the head of the world's civilisation. It is the only 

 vehicle in the present age of a liberal education, and the extent to 

 which it is used in any district in India is a measure of the degree 

 in which society has made progress in that district. It is evident, 

 therefore, that as soon as it becomes a practical question whether 

 some one character might not be advantageously substituted for 

 the many that are now in use, it must be admitted that the only 

 character which possesses any claim to this distinction is the 

 Roman. 



e. It may be added, though it is only a matter of archaiologi- 

 cal interest, that the Roman character is the best existing re- 

 presentative of that primitive written character which was 

 used in the West by the ancient Phenicians and Greeks, and 

 in the East by the Buddhists of Behar, and which was probably 



