Page:The Origin of the Bengali Script.djvu/20

4 changes have, indeed, been made in the Eastern alphabet from the 12th century A.D. down to the nineteenth. Such changes, as are noticeable, were made during the 15th and 16th centuries, and have been illustrated by the alphabet used in two Mss. written in Bengali:—

(1) Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra, copied in Vikrama Samvat 1492 (1435 A.D.), discovered by Mahāmahopādhyāya Haraprasāda Śāstrī, C. I. E., in Nepal and purchased by him for the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (No. G. 8067.) The complete colophon of this ms. has already been published by me in my monograph on Saptagrāma.

(2) Caṇḍīdāsa's Kṛṣṇa-Kīrttana, a new work discovered by Paṇdit Vasantarañjana Rāya, Vidvadvallabha, the Keeper of the ms. collection of the Vangīya-Sāhitya-Pariṣad. Though the material is paper, the script makes it impossible to assign the ms. to any date later than the 14th century A.D.

The completely developed alphabet has not changed at all during the 17th and 18th centuries A.D. In the 19th century, the vernacular and classical literature received a fresh impetus, as the result of the contact with the West, but the alphabet ceased to change. Its forms were stereotyped by the introduction of the printing press, and it is not likely that in future it will change its forms in each century.

B.The limits of the use of the Eastern Variety.

From the beginning of the Empire of the Mauryas till the downfall of the Imperial Guptas, Allahabad and its immediate neighbourhood formed the western limit of the use of the Gupta alphabet. The western