North Indian Inscriptions

INTRODUCTION

II. THE LANGUAGE

   The Bhārhut inscriptions, which belong to the central group of early Brāhmī inscriptions, are written in a Prakrit showing predominantly Western dialectal characteristics, e.g. the nom. sg. mas. in –o (§ 25) and the preservation of r, initially and medially, as opposed to the eastern –e and –l. Barua, Barua, Barh. I, p. 48, calls the language “a monumental Prakrit with a marked tendency to conform to Pāli diction”. Regarding the inscriptions describing the sculptural representations he is of te opinion “that the scriptural source of the Barhut artist was not in all cases the Pali but of mixed character, with the predominance of the Pali elements”.

   The following inventory brings out some dialectal mixture, for instance in the representation of the Sk. cluster ksh (§ 13), which is sometimes assimilated to (k)kh and sometimes palatalised to (ch)chh, and in the cerebralisation of n, occuring in the Toraṇa inscriptions A1 and A2 only, whereas all other inscriptions avoid the cerebralisation of n, and even show the cerebral nasal ṇ changed to dental n [cf. § 12(c)]. The latter fact is rightly observed by Barua l.c.; but it is a distortion, when he notes such an essential difference between the orthography of the inscriptions on the gateway pillars and the main bulk of inscriptions, as to say “in the former the dental nasal (n) is replaced by the cerebral (ṇ), and in the latter the cerebral is replaced by the dental.” As a glance at the inscriptions will show, A1 and A2 contain dental nasals ; the point of difference is no more than that cerebralisation takes place in the two Toraṇa inscription^[1].

a. Phonology

   § 1. Treatment of the Sk. vowel ṛi: The vowel, as usual, shows the threefold treatment viz. that it is changed to a, i, and u. However, it is possible to say that the change to a is predominant, for the change to i occurs only in the illustration isi, and in animal names like sigāla and miga, while the change to u is restricted to the words of human relationship.

(I) Change Sk. ṛi>a:
Sk. kṛita->kata-
A 112, A 129. Sk. kṛishṇa->kanhila-
A 63. Sk. gṛihapati->gahapati-
A 21. Sk. Saprāvṛisha-> Supāvasa- B 7. (Here ordinarily we should have expected Supāvusa- in combination with v).
(II) Change Sk. ṛi>i:
Sk. ṛishi->isi-in Isirakhitā- A 50, A 53, A 87. ^[2] Isidata- A 86 ; Isipālita-A 59.
Sk. mṛiga->miga-^[3] B 47, B 48, B 68. Sk. śṛigāla->sigāla-^[4] B 64. Perhaps also in

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^[1] A 129, the very fragmentary third Toraṇa inscription, has again only the dental n.
^[2] According to H. Berger. ɀwei Probleme der mittelindischen Lautlehre, München, 1955, p. 30 ṛi becomes i as a rule, when the following syllable contains i ; cf. kimi
^[3] The change ṛi>i in this case is explained by H. Berger (p. 40) as due to the influence of the oft-occurring fem. mṛigi>migi.
^[4] According to H. Berger (p. 25 f.) sigāla belongs to the class of words which denote specific Indian things and are therefore most probably of non-Aryan origin. This is supported by the occurrence of the suffix¬─ālaḷ-āra which is frequent in words which are etymologically unclear.