Page:The Origin of the Bengali Script.djvu/103

Rh the Bādāl pillar and Viṣṇupād temple inscriptions of the time of Nārāyaṇapāla. The examination of the characters of the Dighwā-Dubhauli grant of the Pratīhāra Emperor Mahendrapāla have been included in this paper though it was issued from Mahodaya or Kanauj, because in the first place, the land granted was situated in the maṇḍala and bhūkti of Śrāvasti, in the second place because it was found in the village Dighwā-Dubhauli in the Sub-Division of Gopālganj, in the district of Saran of the Tirhut Sub-division of Bihār, and in the third place because there are many Eastern variety forms in the alphabet used in it:―

1. The narrow Ca.

2. The cursive Ja.

3. The later Ṭa of the Bhāgalpur grant.

4. The Proto-Bengali Tha.

5. The looped Ma.

6. The transitional Śa in which the loop nestles close to the vertical straight line.

7. The late Ṣa in which the cross bar slants downwards.

The exceptional forms are those of:―

(1) A, (2) Kha, (3) Gha, (4) Ta, (5) Ṇa, (6) Na.

We have to admit then that the Dighwā-Dubhauli grant shows the use of an alphabet which is a mixture of the Eastern and Western, a fact not to be wondered at the land was situated on a border. In the Ram-Gayā inscription of Mahendrapāla (regnal year 8= C.898 A.D.) we have a similar mixture:―

1. Śa is of the transitional form and shows a triangle instead of a wedge at the lower extremity of the left limb.

2. Ja shows the downward slanting of the central bar and extreme cursiveness of the lower one.

3. Pa still retains an acute angle.