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On
The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: [1] A Review Article
Richard Salomon
University of Washington
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/position/salomon.html
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[Originally published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society
115.2 (1995), 271-279. Reproduced by kind permission of the American
Oriental Society .
Copyright © American Oriental Society, 1996.
The
current version has been modified for presentation on the WWW. This
has meant making compromises in the presentation of accented characters,
etc., and may have introduced typographical errors. Finally, the
original article included graphical representations of characters
from Brâhmî, Kharo.s.thî, Aramaic, Greek, etc.,
which have all been reduced here to the placeholder "¤".
Readers
are referred to the published version of this paper in the JAOS
for full accuracy and citation.]
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Several
recent publications have questioned prevailing doctrines and offered
new views on the antiquity of writing in early India and on the
source and early development of the Indian scripts (Brâhmî
and Kharo.s.thî). Most of the new studies agree in assigning
the origin of these scripts to a later period, i.e. the early Mauryan
era (late 4th- mid 3rd centuries BC), than has generally been done
in the past, and in deriving them from prototypes in Semitic or
Semitic-derived scripts. The main works to be evaluated here are
Oskar von Hinüber's Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit
in Indien and Harry Falk's Schrift im alten Indien. Ein Forschungsbericht
mit Anmerkungen . [2] Also discussed are two recent articles on
similar topics, Gérard Fussman's "Les premiers systèmes
d'écriture en Inde" [3] and Kenneth R. Norman's "The
Development of Writing in India and its Effect upon the Pâli
Canon," [4] as well as some other relevant publications. The
authority and significance of this new trend toward assigning a
late date of origin for the Indian scripts is evaluated and placed
in the context of broader historical and cultural issues.
The
development and early history of writing in India of the historical
period (i.e. after the time of the Indus Valley Civilization) has
long been a controversial problem. Basically, arguments turn around
three main issues:
a..
The sources and origins of the Indian scripts of the historical
period, i.e. Kharo.s.thî and especially Brâhmî.
b.. The date at which these scripts, or their prototypes, first
came into use.
c.. The relationship, if any, of the historical scripts to the writing
of the proto-historic Indus Valley Civilization and the explanation
of the long gap between them during which writing appears to have
fallen out of use in India.
The principal reasons that these issues, particularly the second,
are so problematic are:
a..
There are no securely datable specimens of writing from the historical
period earlier than the rock inscriptions of Ashoka from the mid-3rd
century BC. Other early inscriptions which have been proposed by
various authors as examples of pre-Ashokan writing are of uncertain
date at best.
b.. The external testimony from literary and other sources on the
use of writing in pre-Ashokan India is vague and inconclusive. Alleged
evidence of pre-Mauryan writing has in the past been found by various
scholars in such sources as later Vedic literature, the Pali canon,
the early Sanskrit grammatical treatises of Pâ.nini's and
his successors, and the works of European classical historians.
But all of these references are subject in varying degrees to chronological
or interpretive problems.
Until recently, the received opinions on these issues, in the west
at least, have mainly been based on or at least strongly affected
by their explication by Georg Bühler fully one century ago
in his highly influential, if somewhat controversial monograph On
the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet (Indian Studies No.III)
. [5] Bühler argued for an early origin of writing in India
and posited an extensive pre-history, going as far back as the 8th
century BC, for the Brâhmî script, which he derived
from the Phoenician script. Although more recent writers such as
David Diringer [6] have tended to doubt such an early date for Brâhmî
and have looked to the Aramaic rather than the Phoenician script
as its probable source, Bühler's materials and arguments have
continued to guide the discussion long after many of them have become
outdated (Falk, p.11). The arguments of specialists have largely
focussed on evaluations, criticisms, and modifications of Bühler,
while presentations by non-Indologists such as Diringer and Hans
Jensen [7] in their general works on the history of writing have
relied heavily and often uncritically and inaccurately on him (see
e.g. Falk pp.96, 123). In general, some form or other of Bühler's
essential thesis that Brâhmî was developed out of a
Semitic prototype in pre-Mauryan India has been accepted by most
scholars in the west, but rejected by the majority of South Asian
experts, who generally argue for a separate and indigenous origin
for the Indic scripts, often by way of derivation, direct or indirect,
from the Indus script.
But
what virtually all of these voices have in common is a focus, whether
favorable or critical, on the arguments presented by Bühler
a century ago. It is thus appropriate and important that the authors
of the publications under discussion here, in particular Harry Falk,
have finally freed themselves from the shackles of the tired old
arguments and undertaken an entirely new look at these issues in
light of what we know now of Indian chronology, epigraphy, numismatics,
and linguistic and literary history. Although no single decisive
document, such as the long-awaited certifiably pre-Mauryan Brâhmî
inscription, has come to light since Bühler's time, a vast
amount of new material and a far better understanding of what was
previously known are now at our disposal. Major discoveries since
Bühler's day include the Aramaic and Greek inscriptions of
the time of Ashoka from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the very existence
of the Indus Valley civilization. Among the improved analyses of
earlier materials are a better (though still far from complete)
understanding of the chronological development of textual corpora
such as the Veda and the Pali canon, and a clearer and more cautious
methodology for the paleographic dating of inscriptions.
Previous
discussions have also been hampered by a chronic lack of communication
and understanding between Indologists on the one hand and Semiticists
and other scholars of the history of writing on the other. The former,
for the most part, had little or no knowledge of the relevant branches
of Semitic epigraphy, while the latter typically had even less awareness
of matters Indian (whence their often uncritical reliance, alluded
to above, on Bühler). Here too a major step forward has been
achieved in that our new authors, and once again Falk in particular,
have taken the trouble to familiarize themselves with Semitic scripts,
especially Aramaic, in such a way that the possible connections
can at last be discussed in an intelligent and objective manner.
The
major conclusion shared by the studies of Fussman, von Hinüber,
and Falk is that at least the Brâhmî script, and possibly
also Kharo.s.thî, originated in the Mauryan period and not
earlier. Although they disagree in specifics, especially with regard
to the date of the development of Brâhmî, all three
agree that Kharo.s.thî, which was a regional script of the
far northwest, was older than the pan-Indian Brâhmî
and influenced its formation. The three authors share a sharp skepticism
about alleged literary evidence for writing in pre-Ashokan India,
and are inclined to interpret the situation empirically, on the
grounds of what we definitely know, rather than speculating on what
might have been. They are inclined to take the absence of incontrovertible
evidence for early writing as an indication that it did not exist,
rather than, as have earlier writers, adding up the bits of inconclusive
hints and theoretical possibilities to reconstruct a hypothetical
pre-history for the early scripts.
Among
the four studies discussed here, only Kenneth R. Norman's article
on "The Development of Writing in India and its Effect upon
the Pâli Canon" follows a more traditional path. He analyzes
certain patterns of textual variation in Pali texts (e.g. hatthivattika
/ hattivatika , pp.239--40, and samaya / samâja , p.241) which
seem to reflect an early redaction in a script which did not represent
geminate consonants or differentiate vowel length, and identifies
this script as an early prototype of Brâhmî used in
Magadha in pre-Mauryan times (p.243). Norman finds it "difficult
to accept that Brâhmî was devised as a single complete
writing system at one and the same time during the reign of Candragupta"
(p.245), [8] and considers it "even less likely that Brâhmî
was invented at the time of Ashoka for the specific purpose of writing
his inscriptions" (p.246). His objections to what may be referred
to as the "invention theory" of the origin of Brâhmî
mainly concern the irregularities and inconsistencies of the graphic
system, for instance inconsistencies in the formation of the graphs
for aspirate consonants, some of which are clearly based on the
corresponding non-aspirates (e.g. ¤ .ta and ¤ .tha
) while others (e.g. ¤ ta and ¤ tha [not cited by
Norman]) are not so derivable. Such patterns lead Norman to conclude
that Brâhmî " evolved [my emphasis] in a haphazard
way, with some of its ak.sara s being borrowed from some other source"
(p.245).
But
von Hinüber in Der Beginn der Schrift... interprets the patterns
of textual variation in Pali which underlie Norman's theory quite
differently, noting that geminate consonants were still not regularly
noted in Indian inscriptions of the 1st century BC when the Pali
texts were presumably first written down (p.64), and that long â
was often left unindicated in early Brâhmî inscriptions
from Sri Lanka (p.66). Von Hinüber's arguments are persuasive
if we can assume that the orthographic standards of early inscriptions
also prevailed in contemporary (i.e. pre-Christian era) religious
or literary texts in manuscript form. However, although we do not
have any manuscripts this old, it is not impossible that stricter
orthographic standards, including the notation of geminates, might
have applied in them, in contrast to the standards of inscriptions
which at this period were often still treated quite casually in
terms of orthography and layout. Nonetheless, it must be conceded
that Norman's arguments rest on a largely hypothetical basis and
that underlying orthographic inconsistencies reflected in much later
manuscripts of the Pali canon are hardly cogent grounds for the
reconstruction of a proto-Brâhmî of the pre-Mauryan
era. Norman's position is essentially an affirmation of the more
moderate version of the old school of thought, which places the
origin of Brâhmî in or around the 5th century BC. But
his arguments for such a position, like the those of others to be
discussed below, are cast into doubt by the three other new studies.
Though
developed most cogently and completely in these three new publications,
the theory of a relatively late (i.e. Mauryan) date for Brâhmî
and Kharo.s.thî and the postulation of the former as an "invention"
under the stimulus of one or the other of the Mauryan emperors is
by no means entirely new. For instance, as noted by Falk (p.163),
Max Muller in 1892 (before Bühler!) opined that Brâhmî
was probably "das Werk einer Kommission von Gelehrten, die,
wahrscheinlich im Auftrage des Königs [Ashoka], aus fremden
Quellen ein Alphabet entwarfen,...die Laute der gesprochenen Sprache
auszudrücken." The old invention theory, which had largely
fallen out of favor after Bühler, were revived by S.R. Goyal
in 1979 in his essay "Brâhmî- An Invention of the
Early Mauryan Period," [9] who argued "that the Brâhmî
script was invented in the first half of the third century B.C.,
and that the Indians of the Vedic and early Buddhist periods were
illiterate" (p.4), and that "in all probability Brâhmî
was invented in the age of Ashoka and the idea...of writing came
from the west" (p.17). Though not entirely original, the data
and arguments invoked by Goyal-- the persistent failure of efforts
to find and identify actual specimens of pre-Ashokan writing, the
testimony of Greek authors (especially Megasthenes) to the absence
of writing in India in the early Mauryan period, the evident influence
of Indian phonetic and grammatical theory on the structure of the
early scripts, and the primitive and uniform appearance of Ashokan
Brâhmî-- prefigure the postions developed at greater
length in the newer works. Goyal's essay seems to have served as
a stimulus to the recent re-thinking of and revival of interest
in these questions, and his essay should be (re-)read in conjunction
with those being reviewed here.
Turning
now to these new publications, in chronological order: Gérard
Fussman in "Les premiers systèmes d'écriture
en Inde" briefly [10] argues (pp.513--4) that the Kharo.s.thî
script developed in the northwest before the Mauryan empire and
provided both the model and inspiration for the development of Brâhmî.
This creation was undertaken, probably during the time of Candragupta
Maurya, in order to serve administrative needs in Magadha, and was
carried out by "pandits qui furent chargés de créer
une écriture pur une région de l'Inde qui ne la connaissait
pas" (p.514). Fussman's grounds for this chronological reconstruction
are principally the testimony of the Greek historians; for while
there are references to writing, presumably Kharo.s.thî, in
the northwest at the time of Alexander the Great, Megasthenes, who
lived in Pâ.taliputra late in the fourth century BC, declared
the Indians to have no writing at all. Fussman admits the "faiblesse
intrinsèque" of these sources, but declares that they
"se combine pourtant de fa,con à former un faisceau
de présomptions acceptables" (p.513). Brâhmî,
he concludes, is "héritière de l'Iran pour l'idée,
tributaire des premiers modèles araméens et araméo-indiens
pour sa technique, purement indienne en ce qui concerne sa lisibilité
et son adéquation à la langue" (p.514).
In
his view of Brâhmî as an artifical conglomerate of Iranian,
Semitic, and Indian elements Fussman is in general agreement with
von Hinüber and Falk, although his chronology differs, particularly
with respect to the time of its development, which they are inclined
to attribute to Ashoka rather than to Candragupta. In his monograph
on Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien
, von Hinüber carefully re-examines the principal sources which
have been invoked by earlier scholars in their efforts to prove
the existence of writing in pre-Mauryan India, and finds that none
of them stand the test: "Fremde Beobachtungen sprechen also
in Übereinstimmung mit den Zeugnissen aus Epigraphik und Numismatik
eindeutig dafür, daß es in Indien vor Ashoka keine Schrift
gegeben hat, wenn man von den indischen Provinzen des Achämenidenreiches
absieht" (p.22; cf. also p.72). For example, his analysis of
Megasthenes' alleged references to Indian writing (Ch.4) leads him
to the conclusion (p.20) that the only authentic one is his statement
that they have none (["oude gar grammata eidenai autous"
in Greek characters]). This he interprets as a blanket denial, rejecting
the interpretation of J.D.M. Derrett and others that it refers only
to written documents in connection with legal procedures, which
are the immediate context of Megasthenes' discussion. As for the
reference by Nearchos, quoted by Strabo, to the Indians' practice
of writing letters ([" epistolas " in Greek characters]
on cloth, he considers it "sehr wohl möglich, daß
Nearch iranische, d.h. wohl aramäische Briefe meint, wenn er
'indischen' spricht, weil er sie eben in Indien gesehen hat"
(p.21). Similarly, he suggests that the lipi mentioned by Pâ.nini
(3.2.21), if it really refers to a 'script' at all, must be either
"eine sehr frühe Form der Kharo.s.thîSchrift,"
or Aramaic (p.58); but he also suggests that the word lipi here
may not refer to writing at all, but rather to painting or the like
(p.57).
However,
the main focus, comprising 6 of 15 short chapters, of von Hinüber's
discussion is the references, real or apparent, to writing in the
Pali canon, especially in the Vinaya-pi.taka. Here he explains at
some length (including several highly technical excursuses) that
terms such the verb likh and its derivatives either do not actually
refer to writing, or, if they do, are attributable to later strata
of the Vinaya literature (pp.36--40), which in any case reflects
on the whole a later stage of development than the Sutta-pi.taka
(pp.46--54).
Thus
von Hinüber finds no cogent evidence whatsoever for any kind
of writing in the Indian heartland in the early Buddhist era or
at any other time in the pre-Mauryan period. The creation of Brâhmî
thus evidently took place during the Mauryan era, with the erstwhile
Achaemenian model of Old Persian Cuneiform as the inspiration for
the creation a new "imperial" script, and with Kharo.s.thî
as a systemic model: "Die Zentralverwaltung des Maurya-Reiches
könnte also in der Phonetik bewanderte Brahmanen mit dem Einwurf
einer neuen, für eine monumentale Epigraphik besser als die
Kharo.s.thî-Schrift geeignten und zugleich dem Bedürfnis
nach einer leichteren Deutbarkeit des Geschriebenen entgegenkommenden
Scrift beauftragt haben" (p.59). This undertaking is attributed
by von Hinüber, somewhat cautiously (p.60), to Ashoka himself.
Many
of the themes introduced and discussed, if somewhat cursorily, by
von Hinüber are taken up again in greater detail by Harry Falk
in his much more voluminous study of Schrift im alten Indien . The
connections are no doubt to be explained by the authors' common
participation in Sonderforschungsbereich 321, "Übergänge
und Spannungsfelder zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit"
at the University of Freiburg. Von Hinüber himself (Vorbemerkung,
p.5) refers his readers to the then-forthcoming report of Falk for
a more comprehensive study, and Falk (p.12) acknowledges the "sehr
Fruchtbar" exchanges with von Hinüber. This is not to
say, however, that the two publications are repetitive or imitative
of each other. For although they do reflect generally similar points
of view and come to substantially the same conclusions, they cover
different ground, present different modes of argumentation on some
issues, and disagree significantly, if not fundamentally, on several
important specific questions.
As
the subtitle ( Ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen ) indicates,
Falk's study is arranged in the form of a comprehensive review in
chronological order of all the scholarly literature on issues relevant
to the origin and early development of writing in India. The summaries
of previous writing are supplemented, wherever appropriate, by the
author's own evaluative comments ranging from brief notes to discussions
ranging over several pages. [11] The basis of the work is therefore
a comprehensive bibliography (pp.15--66) which is followed by 16
analytical sections, among which the longest and most important
cover such topics as "Theorien zum Ursprung der Brâhmî"
(6), "Archäeologische Argumente" (8), "Literarische
Zeugnisse für Schrift" (9), and "Berichte von Ausländern
zur Existenz von Schrift" (11).
The
"Forschungsbericht" format of Falk's book is on the whole
successful, though it inevitably has both advantages and disadvantages.
Among the latter, Falk's intention to present a comprehensive coverage
of all literature ("versuchte ich alle Publikationen zu erfassen,
die den Umständen der Einführing der Schrift in Indien
gewidmet sind," p.12) leads him to include, not only in the
bibliography but also in the analytic text, numerous specimens of
the sort of pseudo-scholarship which is all too well represented
in this field. While Falk generally manages to dispose of such amateurish
efforts concisely and effectively (see e.g. pp. 144--7 and 157--60),
considerable space might have been saved simply by skipping over
the chaff and concentrating on serious publications; we hardly need
another discussion of Cunningham's theory of the hieroglyphic origin
of Brâhmî (p.143) or Shamasastry's tantric theories
(p.144). Nonetheless, since Falk's main purpose was to set the record
straight, the comprehensive approach is justifiable. As he notes
(p.11), the literature on the subject of the origins of writing
in India (as on many other subjects) is full of misattributions,
misinterpretations, and simple ignorance of previous works; see,
for example, pp.126--7, showing how Diringer's incorrect accounts
of opinions on the Indian scripts have found their way into the
specialist literature. Unlike most previous writers on this topic,
Falk has obviously taken the trouble to locate, read and understand
all of the literature, rather than relying on what others have said
about it, and thus has succeeded in authoritatively clarifying,
for once and for all, who said what and when. Just for this, we
are much indebted to him.
In
his review of evidence for the antiquity of writing in historical
India, Falk follows, as noted above, the positions of von Hinüber
in broad outline though not in all details. Thus he agrees with
von Hinüber that "Megasthenes sagt klar und eindeutig,
daß in Mâgadha [sic] zu seiner Zeit Schrift ganz allgemein
nicht in Gebrauch war" (p.293), and that the writing observed
by Nearchos in India was probably Aramaic (p.290). Likewise, he
takes the Pâ.nini's lipi to refer to Aramaic, concluding that
"Für eine eigene, einheimische Schrift zu seiner Zeit
gibt es aber keinerlei Anhaltspunkte" (pp.258--9). But he does
not share von Hinüber's doubts, cited above, as to whether
lipi in Pâ.nini refers to writing at all. Similarly, in his
discussion of alleged early references to writing in the Pali Vinaya,
he comes to the same basic conclusion, namely negative, as von Hinüber,
but his specific interpretations often differ. The term likhitako
coro , for example, was explained by the latter (p.38) as referring
to a thief identified by a picture, rather than a written document
such as an arrest warrant; Falk, however, quite plausibly suggests
(pp.276--7) that the phrase alludes to a branded or otherwise physically
"marked" thief. And while von Hinüber (pp.39--40)
does accept the expression lekha.m chindati as one of the authentic
references to writing in the Vinaya but dismisses it as relatively
late, Falk disagrees, cautiously suggesting (p.279) that it may
refer to an ascetic practice of cutting off pieces of one's own
flesh.
Regardless
of the differences in the details of their interpretation of particular
passages, Falk is in general agreement with von Hinüber as
well as with Goyal and other recent writers that most if not all
of the terms and passages in early Indian literature and in the
writings of foreign observers which were cited by Bühler et
al. in support an early date of origin for the Indian scripts in
fact prove no such thing. Their arguments are indeed persuasive,
but not completely decisive. For instance, there is no concrete
evidence that the writing referred to by observers such as Nearchos
and Pâ.nini in northwestern India in and around the 4th century
was Aramaic, rather than Indian, i.e. Kharo.s.thî; here von
Hinüber (quoted above) has wisely left the door open by allowing
for the possibility of a "very early form" of Kharo.s.thî,
while Falk, perhaps a little rashly, excludes this possibility.
For Kharo.s.thî, according to Falk, must have been created
at one stroke at some later not before 325 BC (p.104). The argument
for this date is based on the theory that the new script could only
have originated when the professional monopoly of the Aramaic scribe-bureaucrats
of the Achaemenian empire (cf. pp.78--81) had broken down in the
wake of the Greek conquest. While the introduction of social and
economic considerations into the discussion of the origin of Indian
scripts is a welcome addition, this particular argument is speculative
at best and hardly constitutes firm grounds for a late date for
Kharo.s.thî. The stronger argument for this position is that
we have no specimen of the script before the time of Ashoka, nor
any direct evidence of intermediate stages in its development; but
of course this does not mean that such earlier forms did not exist,
only that, if they did exist, they have not survived, presumably
because they were not employed for monumental purposes before Ashoka.
Likewise,
Falk's conclusion (p.103) that Kharo.s.thî was a conscious
creation loosely modelled on Aramaic, rather than the product of
a gradual evolution and differentiation from it, is intriguing and
at least partly original, but by no means immune to objections.
The most important of these, which Falk himself anticipates, is
that in several cases Kharo.s.thî characters have different
phonetic values from the Aramaic letters that they most closely
resemble in shape (e.g. Aramaic ¤ pe / Kharo.s.thî
¤ a ). This problem he attributes to a hypothetical situation
in which the inventor of Kharo.s.thî was familiar with, but
did not actually know, Aramaic script: "jemand die Kharo.s.thî
entwickelt hat, dem man zwar einmal die Funktionsweise und die Lautwerte
der aramäischen Zeichen erklärt hatte, der sich die Erklärungen
aber nur teilweise richtig merkte und deshalb später einige
Zeichen neu bewertete and andere neu entwarf. Nur ein Entwickler
ohne profunde Kenntnis der aramäischen Schrift würde so
gro.szügig mit dem Vorbild umgehen" (p.103). I must confess
that I find that explanation unconvincing, all the more so in view
of Falk's emphasis elsewhere on the important role and wide usage
of Aramaic, now so well attested by the Ashokan Aramaic inscriptions,
in the eastern regions of the Achaemenian empire. Even if we accept
that Aramaic was something of a guild monopoly, its basic syllabary
is so simple and straightforward that it is hard to imagine that
someone clever enough to invent Kharo.s.thî could have so
badly misunderstood it. Hence I am still inclined to accept Bühler's
principle of deriving the individual characters of Kharo.s.thî
from the phonetically corresponding Aramaic consonants. For the
results of the application of this principle, if inevitably not
entirely satisfactory, are on the whole successful and persuasive,
far more so than in the case of Brâhmî. Bühler's
explanations of the alterations of individual Aramaic prototypes
into the Kharo.s.thî ak.sara s on the grounds of reasonably
consistent principles of inversion, reversal, and differentiation
still seem distinctly preferable to invoking the deus ex machina
of an ignorant genius inventing Kharo.s.thî out of a vague
acquaintance with Aramaic script.
Even
more important and thought-provoking are Falk's theories on the
origin of Brâhmî. He argues vehemently and not unconvincingly
against the existence of Brâhmî before Ashoka. His comprehensive
review (Ch. 8, pp.177--239) of the archaeological, i.e. epigraphic
and numismatic evidence confirms the recent trend of opinion, developed
by such authorities D.C. Sircar and A.H. Dani, according to which
none of the several early documents such as the Piprâwâ
reliquary inscription, the Sohgaurâ bronze plaque, and Mahâsthân
stone inscription which had in the past been presented as pre-Ashokan
in date can in fact be proven to be so. Another strong argument
in favor of an Ashokan origin for Brâhmî is the formal
one adduced by Goyal and others and endorsed by Falk (pp.164--5),
which proposes that the simple and symmetrical geometric forms which
predominate in early Brâhmî (e.g. ¤ .tha and
¤ ka ) are indicative of a recent origin and an arbitrary
creation. Falk thus concludes (Schluß, pp.337--9), like Müller,
Goyal, and von Hinüber before him, that Brâhmî
was a conscious creation of the Mauryan period, probably designed
during the reign of Ashoka for the express purpose of the monumental
presentation of his edicts. This new script was designed, according
to Falk, primarily on the systemic model of Kharo.s.thî, but
with significant input, especially as far as the overall monumental
ductus (cf. p.82 and 111) and the left-to right direction was concerned,
from Greek. Since both of these latter scripts are ultimately derived
from Phoenician (via its derivative Aramaic in the case of Kharo.s.thî),
Brâhmî in Falk's view is ultimately an Indian adaptation
of Semitic scripts. [12]
However,
Falk does not attempt to work out in full detail the derivations
of the individual characters of Brâhmî from their presumptive
prototypes, as Bühler (following the lead of Albrecht Weber
[13] ) and others have in the past attempted to do, albeit with
limited success. He does stress the anomalous form of Brâhmî
¤ tha , which not only resembles the Greek theta (¤)
in form and phonetic value but also is the only Brâhmî
letter, except for initial i ( ¤) that consists of more than
one unconnected stroke: "Das heißt, man opferte in der
Brâhmî das sonst überall erkennbare Prinzip von
der graphischen Einheit jedes Zeichens im Rahmen einer Übernahme"
(p.111). I do not find this to be a particularly cogent argument,
since it is hard to know exactly what the nature and significance
of the alleged "Prinzip von der graphischen Einheit" is,
especially when not one but two Brâhmî characters violate
it. By the same logic Greek, the script should have a similar principle,
also with two exceptions (¤ theta and ¤ xi ), but
it is hard to see any special significance in this. This is not
to deny the striking similarity between theta and Brâhmî
tha , or even the possibility that that the former influenced the
formation of the latter, especially since this is one of the Brâhmî
characters for which it is difficult to find a suitable prototype
in late Aramaic (although similar shapes are available in earlier
Semitic scripts). But I doubt whether this single example deserves
the special significance attributed to it by Falk, which perhaps
overemphasizes the influence of Greek on Brâhmî.
Much
the same can be said about his analysis of the vocalization system
on Brâhmî. That the basic system of indication of post-consonantal
vowels by diacritic marking was originally developed in and adapted
from Kharo.s.thî seems well established. But Falk's suggestion
(pp.111, 339) that the introduction into Brâhmî of distinct
diacritics for short and long vowels was influenced by the model
of Greek script is doubtful, since the notation of vowel quantity
in Greek operates on entirely different principles. Whereas Greek
uses distinct alphabetic characters, mostly derived from Semitic
consonants, to represent, incompletely and inconsistently, short
and long vowel pairs, Brâhmî has a complete and regular
set of matched short/long pairs of post-consonantal diacritic signs.
Thus at best one might suggest that Greek provided an example or
inspiration for the development of a system of notation of vowel
quantity. But I hardly see the necessity for even this much, since,
given their well-established tradition of phonetic analysis, the
Indians could certainly have thought of this on their own. So here
again, the weight of Greek influence seems to be over-emphasized.
A further
problem in deriving Brâhmî as a composite of Greek and
Kharo.s.thî are the several Brâhmî characters
which are more readily explained by reference to the presumptive
Aramaic prototype of Kharo.s.thî than to the Kharo.s.thî
(or Greek) characters themselves. Among these are Brâhmî
¤ ha , which can reasonably be derived (by inversion) from
an Aramaic ¤ he , but hardly from Kharo.s.thî ¤
ha , and ¤ ta from Aramaic ¤ taw , but not Kharo.s.thî
¤ ta ; several other such examples could be cited. What this
boils down to is the old problem that each of the proposed prototypes
for Brâhmî, viz., Kharo.s.thî, Aramaic, Phoenician,
and Greek, can provide models for some of its characters, but no
one of them can explain all of them; to do so, one must revert to
rather far-fetched combined derivations of the sort proposed by
Halévy (see n.). Falk does not address these problems head
on, and perhaps would be inclined to dismiss them, as have some
others, on the grounds that the characters of Brâhmî
were essentially arbitrary creations, with a general input from
Greek and Kharo.s.thî but not systematically patterned on
either of them. This too is not impossible, but still the resemblance
of many of the Brâhmî characters to phonetically cognate
ones in one or the other scripts is troubling. It may not ever be
possible to fully establish the derivations of each Brâhmî
character, and this was clearly not Falk's intention, but I cannot
help feeling that in this regard he has over-estimated the role
of Greek at the expense of Aramaic.
All
of the above discussion assumes that Brâhmî is in fact
a derived script, created from or loosely modeled on one or more
Semitic or Semiticderived scripts. While it is true that the historical
and geographical circumstances point strongly in this direction,
it must be remembered that this point of view is not at all widely
accepted in South Asia, and should not be taken for granted; with
his assumption of a Semitic derivation and especially his strong
emphasis on the role of Greek, Falk may leave himself open to charges
of a Eurocentric viewpoint. Such questions of indigenous development
versus borrowing from outside will also arise in connection with
Falk's analysis of the numerical notation system of Brâhmî.
Because the use of distinct signs in Brâhmî for each
of the digits (1 to 9) and the decades (10 to 90) is "eine
radikale Abkehr vom semitischen System" (p.175), he looks elsewhere
for its prototype and finds a similar system in early Chinese numerals,
which he thinks could have been brought to India by Chinese merchants
travelling to Gandhâra in ancient times. But I find it hard
to accept archaeological evidence of Chinese wares in the Swat Valley
in the early 2nd millennium BC (ibid.) as any sort of evidence for
a possible borrowing of a system of numerical notation. It is surprising
that Falk does not take into serious consideration the striking
similarities, discussed by Bühler and others, not only in system
but also (unlike Chinese) in the actual form of several of the numerical
signs, between Brâhmî and heiratic and demotic Egyptian.
Though I am not convinced that the Brâhmî characters
are in fact borrowed from Egyptian, this seems a far more plausible
possibility than China. Thus while it is not strictly correct, as
Falk states, that "Die enzige Alternative zu einem chinesischen
Einfluß auf die BrâhmîZahlzeichen...ist der Annahme
einer Neuschöpfung in Indien mit zufälliger Parallität"
(p.175), the possibility of an indigenous origin should be seriously
considered. Since numerical signs, unlike phonetic signs, are not
wholly arbitrary but rather tend to develop by cursive simplification
from collocations of counting strokes, coincidental similarities
in their forms are not nearly as unlikely as it might seem at first
glance. In the case of the Egyptian systems, we have the sufficient
materials to see how the separate hieratic decade signs originally
developed from the cursive writing of additive groups of the single
hieroglyphic sign for 10. A similar system could well have developed
separately in India, independent from the influence of any outside
system and even apart from the development of linguistic writing
(which would explain the persistent problems in establishing phonetic
or systemic linkages between early Brâhmî and the early
numerical system associated with it, cf. Falk, pp.169--73). Certainly
we do not need to look all the way to China.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Such
disagreements over details notwithstanding, the studies discussed
in this review are works of high scholarly quality which will be
of lasting impact and utility. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to
say that these authors, especially Falk, have raised the level of
discussion of the old problems of early literacy and the origin
of the scripts in ancient India to an entirely new level. All of
them have succeeded in casting off the old prejudices and lingering
effects of Bühler's outdated arguments, and Falk in particular
has brought a wealth of new information and erudition to the field.
In particular, he has for the first time looked seriously from a
modern viewpoint at the Iranian, Semitic, and Hellenistic background
to developments in Mauryan India, while also objectively and perceptively
re-evaluating the entire corpus of Indological and classical data.
Thus while I disagree on several secondary points of interpretation
and method, and while I would maintain that much still remains to
be done, particularly with regard to a detailed re-examination of
the development of the individual characters of Brâhmî,
I find myself more convinced than ever by Falk's arguments, bolstered
by those of von Hinüber, Goyal, and Fussman, for a late origin
of Brâhmî in the Mauryan, and probably the Ashokan period.
[14] In the light of new evidence such as the Aramaic inscriptions
of Ashoka and the reinterpretation of the old, faulty claims for
evidence of early writing, it must now be admitted that, as long
as one agrees to give preference to the empirical evidence, there
is every reason to think that Brâhmî did not exist before
the 3rd century BC, and that it was created then on the basis of
a loose adaptation of one or more pre-existent Semitic scripts,
with Kharo.s.thî playing at least a partial role. Kharo.s.thî
itself almost certainly did predate Brâhmî, as argued
by Falk et al., and probably dates back at least to the late 4th
century, and ( contra Falk) quite possibly even before then.
One
final and important problem remains. According to the position espoused
in these books-- which, given the authority of their authors and
the quality of their scholarship, is likely to be hereby established
as the currently prevailing point of view, at least in the west--
the heartland of India was preliterate until the 3rd century BC.
But can we imagine such a state of affairs, given what we know (admittedly
not too much) of the state of society and culture in India, especially
in the northeast, before this time? If we can put any trust at all
in the traditional lore of the Purâ.nas and the testimony
of the Pali canon, Magadha was the site of great and prosperous
empires, notably that of the Nandas, decades if not centuries before
the foundation of the Mauryan dynasty in around 320 BC. Can we believe
that these dynasties with their legendary riches, and the remarkable
intellectual and cultural life of India in the time of the Buddha
and Mahâvîra, existed in a totally illiterate sphere?
It is certainly true that intellectual activity in India has always
strongly favored oral over written means of expression, and both
von Hinüber and Falk have effectively put to rest the already
discredited skepticism about the possibility of oral composition
and preservation of the Veda, Pâ.nini's grammar, etc. (see
e.g. Falk pp.321--7). But the fact that Pâ.nini did not use
writing in composing the A.a.tâdhyâyî does not
necessarily mean that he was illiterate (cf. Falk p.259); it may
only mean that writing was not considered an appropriate vehicle
for intellectual endeavors of his kind. Even given the very different
cultural role of writing in India as compared to many other ancient
civilizations, it is hard to conceive that practical affairs such
as the keeping of records and accounts in a fabulously wealthy empire
like that of the Nandas could have been kept in order without any
form of writing at all, or at least without some alternative system
of memory-aids like the Inca quipu . Thus one is tempted to think
along the lines of William Bright (cited by Falk, p.290) of some
type of writing that was "perhaps used for commercial purposes,
but not for religious or legal texts." [15]
Admittedly,
we have not a shred of concrete evidence for this, and it is perhaps
better to stick with what we have and assume that business affairs,
like cultural ones, were conducted in pre-Mauryan Magadha simply
on the basis of the highly-developed memory skills so well attested
in ancient and modern India, perhaps with the assistance of a system
of numerical notation such as that hypothesized above. This, it
would be hard to deny in light of the evidence that Falk, von Hinüber,
et al. have laid out before us, is the most likely scenario on the
grounds of the unfortunately meager evidence that is left to us.
Still, we should not fall into the trap of thinking that the last
word has been spoken. Admittedly, it hardly seems likely, after
all the years of waiting, searching, and the dashing of false hopes,
that some major archaeological discovery will reveal a whole new
picture of the origins of writing in the Indian heartland, or reveal
a sustainable (rather than purely hypothetical) connection with
the Indus script. Nevertheless, it would be unwise to rule out surprises
in the future, and we should leave the door open, as does Falk (p.340),
to discoveries that could revive theories of an early development
of Brâhmî. But we must also agree, if reluctantly, with
his final sentence: "Zur Zeit erscheint dieser Fall jedoch
kaum zu erwarten" (p.340).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One
final note: It is unfortunate that the work of Fussman in French
and von Hinüber and Falk in German will not be available to
a large portion of their potential audience. These works, especially
Falk's Schrift im alten Indien , are of sufficient importance and
quality to merit publication in English translation in order to
bring them to the wider audience they deserve and permit them to
have the influence on future discussion that they ought to.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRAHMI AND SOUTH ASIA (II)
The
Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka) Project
Dr Robin Coningham, Reader in South Asian Archaeology, University
of Bradford, Bradford, BD7 1DP, UK
1.
Introduction
The modern settlement of Anuradhapura is the capital of Sri Lanka's
North Central Province and has a population of some 50,000, however,
in the nineteenth Century AD, it was little more than "a small
mean village, in the midst of a desert" (Davy, 1821,225) (Figure
1.1). Anuradhapura's recent genesis owes much to the colonial restoration
of the ancient irrigation system of the area (Parker, 1909; Brohier,
1934), but much more to its role in the hearts and minds of many
Sri Lankans as the royal capital of the island for over one and
a half millennia. To some it is a symbol of the island's magnificent
pre-colonial past, echoed on modern Sri Lankan bank notes and stamps;
to others it is a holy city to be visited on pilgrimage; and to
others a reminder of Asia's rich cultural heritage, a heritage which
has been barely exposed. It is a city, which, through the pressures
of modern politics, has been politicized from the massacres of 1986
AD to the restoration of the Mirisavatiya stupa by the late President
Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993 AD. It is also a city which has kept
the same name from its initial foundation in the first millennium
BC to its selection in 1873 AD as the administrative centre of colonial
Ceylon's North Central Province, despite abandonment from the eleventh
century AD. It also represents, as noted by Anuradha Seneviratna,
one of the world's major archaeological sites, covering over 40
square kilometers (Seneviratna, 1994,13).
Archaeologically, Anuradhapura is an extremely important site as
it fills a lacuna in the chronological and artefactual sequences
for the island. Whilst major excavations have been conducted over
the last thirty years at the major sites of Mantai, Kantarodai,
Pomparipu and Ibbankatuva, their reports are still only in a preliminary
stage. This state of affairs has led to a reliance upon textual
sources for much of the early history of the island and a subsequent
relegation of archaeological research to support such sources. Such
a process has not been without its problems (Coningham, 1994a; 1995a),
and it is hoped that the current volumes will illustrate some of
the opportunities that archaeology can offer to the historian. This
process, combined with a general absence of chronometric dating,
has led also to the lack of a classic type-site for the island's
chronologies. It is hoped that the present project's publications,
augmented by the future publication of the Anuradhapura Citadel
Archaeological Project's sondages excavated between 1984 and 1990,
will allow Anuradhapura to provide a typological artefactual and
structural sequence with which to date other sites within the island.
Anuradhapura also fills a lacuna in the chronological and artefactual
sequences for the southern part of the South Asia. Anuradhapura
undoubtedly can be classified as an Early Historic fortified city,
and as the most southerly example of its type, helps us to understand
the test models for this, the second urbanization of the South Asia.
Indeed, the nearest known examples of similar cities are at Dhanyakataka
in Andrah Pradesh and Banavasi in Karnataka, some 900 km to the
north. The presence of a fortified urban centre in the interior
of the island at a date of the fourth century BC, surely recommends
that earlier hypotheses that the urbanization of the peripheries
of South Asia occurred as a direct result of Mauryan expansion and
contact in the third century BC are re-examined. Indeed, the excellent
sequence of structures and artefacts at Anuradhapura allow us to
study an aspect of the urbanization of South Asia in some detail,
with the development of a settlement from a small Iron Age settlement
to a mediaeval metropolis. Unlike many of the great Early Historic
cities in the north of the subcontinent, Anuradhapura is protected
to ensure that it is relatively free of the pressures of increasing
urbanism and agriculture.
Another
aspect of this importance is illustrated by Anuradhapura's pivotal
role in Indian Ocean trade (Table 1). Whilst rather better known
sites such as Mantai (Carswell and Prickett, 1984) or Arikamedu
(Wheeler, 1946; Casal, 1949; Begley, 1996) are frequently cited
as providing clear evidence of the early and late stages of this
trade, Anuradhapura, with its sequence from the beginning of the
first millennium BC to the beginning of the first millennium AD,
straddles its growth and development for almost two millennia. All
the more surprising is that Anuradhapura is situated over 60km from
the coast, with no navigable river connecting the city to the coast.
The second volume of the project provides ample evidence of this
trade and contact with the coast in the form of Early Islamic glass
and glazed ceramics, Graeco-Roman glass, metal-work and derived
ceramic forms, Chinese glazed ceramics, imported semi-precious stone,
as well as the presence of marine species at the site. Such studies
have also allowed us understand more about the position of Anuradhapura
as a primate city within the island and its role as a centralized
manufacturing centre. We have been able to study internal trade
developments through analysis of metal-working, stone-working and
shell-working debris at the site, allowing us to identify at which
stages different raw, and semi-processed, materials were processed
within the site. A further, connected aspect is the evidence at
Anuradhapura for the development of writing systems within South
Asia. The earlier prophetic work of Deraniyagala at Anuradhapura
suggested for the first time that Brahmi, the ancestor of many of
South Asia's vernacular scripts occurred a number of centuries earlier
than previously thought (Deraniyagala, 1990). It had been generally
accepted that this script had been derived from a Semetic script,
developed in Northern India under the Buddhist emperor, Asoka, in
the third century BC and then spread southwards through the peninsula
until it reached Sri Lanka (Buhler, 1896; Winternitz, 1927; Dani,
1963; Von Hinuber, 1990). Our own work has now supported Deraniyagala's
earlier hypothesis and evidence of Brahmi script dating to the beginning
of the fourth century BC is presented in the second volume of the
project. This discovery, the earliest example of its kind in South
Asia, has enabled a reassessment of the traditionally accepted theories
and to suggest fresh hypotheses for its development and spread through
trade (Coningham, Allchin, Batt & Lucy, 1996). These combined
archaeological factors help to overturn Sri Lanka's cultural stereotype,
which suggests that as it is situated at the southern tip of the
peninsula it was the latest recipient of any innovation. As such
a theoretical paradigm appears to have been widely accepted, all
resultant formulations of relative chronologies have naturally followed
its directive. The growing use of chronometric dating within Sri
Lanka is helping to establish its position, not as a cultural cul-de-sac,
but as a pivotal point of South Asia.
This
is not to suggest, of course, that ritually Anuradhapura is not
a site of more significance through its association with Buddhism.
This association has taken two forms, one in a physical sense of
relics and the other in a more mystic sense, both of which are recorded
in the Mahavamsa and Culavamsa, Pali texts which pertain to record
the history of the island. The former ritual significance is given
by the presence of relics associated with the Buddha or Buddhism
within the monastic establishments within the city. The Mahavamsa
records that many of these relics were brought to the island during
reign of king Devanampiya Tissa (r. 250-210 BC), shortly after his
conversion to Buddhism by Mahinda. The relics brought to Anuradhapura
included the Buddha's right collar-bone relic, which was enshrined
in the Mahavihara's Thuparama stupa (Mvs.xvii.55-57); a branch of
the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha had obtained enlightenment,
which was enshrined in the Mahavihara's Bodhighara (Mvs.xix.35-46);
the bowl relic, which was enshrined in the Cetiyapabbata close by
at Mihintale (Mvs.xvii.22-24); and one of the original eight shares
of the Buddha's remains from the stupa of the Koliyas of Ramagrama,
which was then enshrined in the Mahathupa or Ruvanvalisaya (Mvs.xxxi.1-126).
These relics of the Buddha were later supplemented by the arrival
of the tooth relic from Kalinga during the reign of king Sirimeghavanna
(r. 301-328 AD). It was first housed in a building called the Dhammacakka
within the Citadel itself (Cvs.xxxviii.92-98), before being later
installed in the Tooth Relic temple, or daladage, during the reign
of king Dhatusena (r. 455-473 AD) (Cvs.xxxviii.70-72). This relic,
a relative late comer to Anuradhapura, was to become the symbol
of kingship of the island and, when Anuradhapura became untenable,
it was moved from capital to capital until in 1815 AD it was captured
by the British.
Whilst
Anuradhapura was thus associated with the Buddha through his relics,
it was also associated with the Buddha in a more mystic way. The
Mahavamsa records that Anuradhapura was founded as a village by
Anuradha (Mvs.vii.43), a minister of king Vijaya, who colonized
the, otherwise unoccupied, island on the day of the Buddha's nirvana
(Mvs.vii.1-4). The site was later settled by prince Anuradha, brother-in-law
of king Panduvasudeva, who built a tank and palace there (Mvs.ix.9-10).
It was then selected by prince Anuradha's great nephew, king Pandukabhaya,
as his new capital - Anuradhapura (Mvs.x.73-102). The association
of the city with the Buddha is only later made in the Mahavamsa
when describing the reign of Pandukabhaya's grandson, king Devanampiya
Tissa (r. 250-210 BC). Following the latter's conversion to Buddhism
by Mahinda, he presented the royal garden known as the Mahameghavana,
situated to the south of Anuradhapura, to the Sangha, or Buddhist
order, and with Mahinda proceeded to mark out the future location
of the various monastic monuments and structures. At each site Mahinda
marked there was an earthquake, and on inquiring from the monk,
Devanampiya Tissa was informed that similar establishments had been
located in the same places during the lifetimes of the three Buddhas
who had proceeded the historical Buddha in the present era, Kakusandha,
Konagamana and Kassapa. They had all visited the site in the past,
when the city, the royal garden and even the island were known by
different names. Thus the Buddha Kakusandha was given the garden
Mahatittha by king Abhaya, when the city was known as Abhaya and
the island Ojadipa (Mvs.xv.56-59). Similarly, the Buddha Konagamana
was given the garden Mahanoma by king Samiddha, when the city was
known as Vaddhamana and the island Varadipa (Mvs.xv.91-93); and
the Buddha Kassapa was given the garden Mahasagara by king Jayanta,
when the city was known as Visala and the island Mandadipa (Mvs.xv.125-127).
The sanctity of Anuradhapura was further increased by a record in
the Mahavamsa that the Gautama Buddha himself, even before Vijaya's
arrival, visited the future site of the monastery and meditated
at the future sites of the Bodhi tree, the Mahathupa and the Thuparama
(Mvs.i.80-83). That these traditions were widely held is supported
by the report of a fifth century AD Chinese monk, Fa Hsien, who
visited Anuradhapura on a pilgrimage of holy Buddhist sites and
stated that the Abhayagiri stupa had been built over one of the
footsteps of the Buddha, made when he visited the site (Beal, 1869,150).
These factors, when combined with the series of monumental constructions
erected by successive kings at the city, continued to add to the
ritual significance of the site to Buddhists. Indeed, Anuradhapura
contains seven of the island's sixteen holiest places of Buddhist
pilgrimage - the Bodhi tree, the Maricavatticetiya or Mirisavati
stupa, the Mahathupa or Ruvanvalisaya stupa, the Thuparama, the
Abhayagiri vihara, the Jetavana vihara and the Selacetiya (Geiger,
1960,207). A factor which in the late eighteenth AD still caused
Sri Lankan monarchs, now confined by European maritime powers to
kingdoms in the hill country, to undertake pilgrimage to the ruins
of the holy city (Coningham, 1994a,92). In conclusion, Anuradhapura
is not merely a ruined city, but is a living cultural entity which
intertwines identity, ritual, tradition and archaeology.
2.
Trench ASW2
The Project, directed by Robin Coningham and Raymond Allchin, worked
within the framework already established by the Archaeological Survey
of Sri Lanka's Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project, which
had itself been set up in 1984 under the Direction of Dr Siran Deraniyagala,
to investigate the ancient urban core of the complex. Our own trench,
Anuradhapura Salgaha Watta 2 (ASW2), was excavated between 1989
and 1994 during which some 905m3 of archaeological deposits were
excavated. The trench, which measured 10 metres by 10 metres and
10 metres deep was designed to enable to successfully identify a
structural sequence at the site as well as provide a periodised
artefact catalogue. Both objectives were fully realised during the
four years of excavations; and the 1,887 contexts, 118 stratigraphic
phases, 515 postholes, 77 pits, 42 walls, 38 slots, 17 ovens, 3
wells, 30 structural phases and 11 structural periods have provided
a unique sequence through the site's development from an Iron Age
village to a Mediaeval metropoli. Equally importantly, it is argued
that the sequence is one of unbroken continuity, providing an invaluable
artefactual and structural sequence supported by a very comprehensive
chronometric sequence.
The
excavation has provided a strong structural sequence, which starts
with the erection of temporary timber structures located beside
an outcrop of gneiss boulders (Coningham 1999). These structures,
built during Structural period K, became more solid during the period
and culminated in the construction of a circular timber shelter
with an estimated diameter of 2.5m associated with as series of
ancillary structures as well as a shallow well. The period, which
is dated between c. 840 and 460 cal. BC, was then succeeded by Structural
period J, itself associated with an increase in the diameter and
depth of postholes, probably indicating increasing height and longevity
of structures. The period consisted of five phases of superimposed
circular timber structures with wattle and daub walls and diameters
ranging between 3 and 6 metres associated with pits, fences and
furnaces. One of the pits, 1371, appears to have very close affinities
to the pit burials of the associated Iron age of peninsular India
(Coningham & Batt 1999), and the period has been allocated a
general date range of between c. 510 and 430 cal. BC. These structures
were, in turn, superseded by those of Structural Period I, which
saw the introduction of eight phases of rectangular and square plans
and the loss of circular ones in the vicinity of the trench. Built
of timber with wattle and daub, phase 4, provided the first evidence
of the use of fired ceramic roof tiles, complete with iron securing
nails. Period I, which dated between 360 and 190 cal. BC, is also
contemporary with the construction of a ditch and rampart around
the settlement as a whole (Coningham & Cheetham 1999). Structural
period G provided evidence for the first introduction of fired brick
within a sequence of 5 phases of rectangular structures and well
as the use of limestone slabs in foundation pits for timber pillars.
This period, dated between the third century cal. BC and the latter
half of the first century cal. AD, was followed by the construction
of a brick platform with at least 25 stone pillars, in the early
centuries of the first millennium AD. Following its abandonment,
the pillared hall was utilised as a source of building materials
and was itself the focus for a series of impermanent structures
between the seventh and twelfth centuries AD. The locality was fully
abandoned after that date and only reoccupied, with a brick and
concrete structures, following the re-colonisation of Anuradhapura
in the early twentieth century.
3.
Future Plans
Our excavations at ASW2, combined with the work of Siran Deraniyagala
(1992), have presented the development of a small Iron Age village
into a mediaeval metropolis (Coningham 1999). The appearance of
early Brahmi script, monumental works, irrigation, imports and craft
specialisation has been mapped against this process, providing a
unique model of urbanisation within South Asia (Coningham in press).
Despite our understanding of the urban process, knowledge of the
role played by non-urban communities is very poor (Coningham &
Allchin 1995). As a result of this lacuna, we wish to research the
following questions:
a..
How did settlement and land use patterns respond to urbanisation?
b.. Was the plain's environmental context altered during urbanisation?
c.. Did certain traits (writing, monuments, imports) become restricted
to the city?
d.. How did urbanisation affect the organisation of craft production?
e.. Was the plain entirely abandoned in the eleventh century AD?
Our proposed research methodology aims to map the nature and location
of non-urban sites, soils and resources surrounding Anuradhapura
with a sample of 10 sites subject to geophysical survey, auger coring
and excavation. The latter three will confirm sequences, morphology,
size, subsistence and craft-working set within a context of environment
change.
4.
Acknowledgements
We are most grateful to the three Directors-General of Archaeology,
Dr Roland Silva, Mr M. Sirisoma and Dr Siran Deraniyagala, who held
office during our fieldwork at Anuradhapura between 1989 and 1994.
Together, and singularly, they provide excellent support and collaboration
for the team. We are also extremely grateful to Dr Roland Silva
for his continued assistance as Director-General of the Cultural
Triangle. Special thanks is, however, reserved for Dr Siran Deraniyagala,
first as Director of the Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project,
and later as Director-General of Archaeology. The pioneer of scientific
investigation at the Citadel of Anuradhapura, he acted as a mentor
to the field team and was an exceptional source of knowledge about
the archaeology of the citadel and the island itself. Indeed, without
Dr Deraniyagala's generous invitation to Raymond Allchin to mount
an archaeological expedition to the Citadel of Anuradhapura, none
of the fieldwork published here would have been undertaken.
Thanks
must also go to the Directors, officers and staff of the Cultural
Triangle Jetavana and Abhayagiri projects in Anuradhapura, especially
Dr Hema Ratnayake and Professor Hetterachchi. Dr Bridget Allchin,
Dr Raymond Allchin, Dr Janet Ambers, Mr Robert Janaway, the late
President J.R. Jayewardene, Mr Rukshan Jayewardene, Dr N. Kemp,
Mr Nimal Perera, Dr Martha Prickett, Dr Sudashan Seneviratne, Dr
Colin Shell, Professor van Andel and Dr Wijepala also provided great
assistance. A great debt of gratitude is owed to the members of
the field teams of officers, students and staff from the Archaeological
Survey Department, the Cultural Triangle and the universities of
Bradford, Cambridge, Keleniya, Peradeniya, the Post-Graduate Institute
of Archaeological Research and Sri Jayewadenapura who worked at
the site. Whilst there are too many to name individually, in particular
I would like to thank the following: Dr Bridget Allchin; Mr Kalum
Nalinda Manamendra Arachchi; Claudia Beukmann, M.A.; Steve Cheshire,
B.Sc.; Masaki Choya, B.A.; Paula Coningham, M.A.; Gary Dooney, M.A.;
Luxman Chandra, M.A.; Antonia Douthewaite, M.A.; Rukshan Jayewardene,
M.Phil.; Dr Carl Knappett; Mr Alfred de Mel; Mr. P.D. Mendis; Halawthage
Jude Perera, B.A.; Mr P.R. Premachandre; Simon Weston, M.A.; and
Sarah Wilde, B.A. The Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project
lab teams also provided an excellent back-up and support for which
I am very grateful. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts
of the lab teams and experts who have helped prepare the field data
in the UK for publication: Dr Cathy Batt; Paul Cheetham, M.Phil.;
Steve Cheshire, B.Sc.; Dr Randolph Haggerty; Jon Sygrave, B.Sc.;
and Ruth Young, M.Phil. Finally, I should like to acknowledge the
work of Jenny Marsh as copy editor of both volumes.
The
Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka) Project was supported by the following
bodies: the Archaeological Survey Department of Sri Lanka; the Ancient
India and Iran Trust, Cambridge; the British Academy; the British
Council, Colombo; Churchill College, Cambridge; King's College,
Cambridge; the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge
University; the Overseas Development Administration; the Society
of Antiquaries of London; and the Society for South Asian Studies,
(the British Academy).
5.
Further reading
The report of our excavations at trench ASW2 has been divided into
two volumes, volume 1: The Site (Coningham 1999) and volume 2: The
Artefacts (in print in 2003). The first volume contained six chapters,
which introduced and discussed the site's physical environment,
the history of archaeological research at the site, its general
topography, the dating and phasing of its fortifications, the archaeological
and structural sequence at trench ASW2, the dating of that sequence,
and the impact of the findings on the models proposed for the emergence
of Early Historic urban forms in the southern half of southern Asia.
The forthcoming volume, volume 2: The Artefacts, contains the artefacts
recovered from the excavations at trench ASW2 and has been divided
into chapters, largely by material. Whilst this material approach
may provide some undue complexity to the study of beads, which range
from metal, to glass and stone, it is strongly felt that the material
base may provide a clearer basis for the understanding of artefact
manufacture and provenance. The first three chapters, chapters 8,
9 and 10, include the metal artefacts and have been divided into
coins, metal objects and metal-working residues. Chapters 12 and
13 comprise ceramic artefacts and have been divided into glazed
and unglazed ceramics, the latter including both fine and coarse
wares such as Grey ware and Rouletted ware. Chapter 14 comprises
glass objects and chapter 15 stone artefacts. Chapter 16, which
contains the epigraphic evidence has been isolated as a group as
its evidence is found spread through a number of materials such
as metal, stone and clay. The final three chapters, 17, 18 and 19,
include the faunal and floral materials recovered from the excavation,
the former divided into human and non-human remains. Chapter 20,
the conclusion, identifies the key findings of the excavations and
is followed by an index for both volumes.
Each
artefactual chapter in volume 2 follows a similar organisation and
contains an introduction to the material, followed by a complete
catalogue of each artefactual group, recording special find number,
context number, structural period, stratigraphic phase and weight;
dimensions are recorded if necessary. Key and representative examples
are illustrated in order to provide explicit dated artefactual groupings
which may go towards filling the lacuna in the chronological and
artefactual sequences for the island in the light of the absence
of more than preliminary reports from major excavations at the major
sites of Mantai, Kantarodai, Pomparipu and Ibbankatuva. These materials,
combined with the results of Dr Deraniyagala's excavations (1992),
will lead towards the generation of a relative type-site for the
island's Early Historic chronology. As already noted in volume 1
(Coningham 1999: 3), the artefactual catalogues comprise the largest
section of volume 2. Furthermore, they are purposely embedded within
the text as they represent the key data sets and results from the
excavations at trench ASW2 and not an annex to that work. Where
possible analogies and comparisons with other relevant sites and
artefacts have been made, and much of this work has relied heavily
on the expertise of the team of 17 international scholars who contributed
formally to this volume; in addition, a number of other scholars
offered additional assistance and their comments have been gratefully
acknowledged. In conclusion, it is hoped that publication of these
two volumes will allow a presentation of our data and its identification
and interpretation, however, we should reiterate Barry Cunliffe's
words of warning that (Cunliffe, 1984,viii):
"no
excavation report, however detailed, can hope to be more than an
interim summary of a site. To suggest more would be naive or arrogant.
A data-set.will continue to be reworked by students for the foreseeable
future asking new and increasingly sophisticated questions. These
reports merely advertise what is available and offer some general
approximations to the truth which may help those interested in these
matters to design new and more penetrating analyses"
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1999, Anuradhapura, Volume 1: The Site, Society for South
Asian Studies (British Academy) Monograph no. 3, Archaeopress, Oxford.
Coningham,
R.A.E., in press for 2003), Anuradhapura, Volume 2: The Artefacts,
Society for South Asian Studies (British Academy) Monograph no.
4, Archaeopress, Oxford.
Also
see:
Coningham, R.A.E. in press. South Asia: from early villages to Buddhism,
in Scarre, C.J. (ed.), The human past, Thames & Hudson, Cambridge.
Coningham,
R.A.E., in press, The antiquity of caste and the timeless nature
of south Asia's subordination, in Reid, A. & Lane, P., Studies
in subordinate archaeologies, Routledge, London.
Coningham,
R.A.E. 2002. Beyond and Before the imperial frontiers: Early Historic
Sri Lanka and the origins of Indian Ocean trade, Man & Environment
27: 99-108.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 2001, The archaeology of Buddhism, in Insoll, T.A. (ed.),
Archaeology and world religions: theoretical and practical approaches
to the construction of religious identities, Routledge, London:
61-95.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 2000, Contestatory urban texts or were cities in South Asia
built as images, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 10: 348-357.
Coningham,
R.A.E. & Lewer, N., 2000, The Vijayan colonisation and the archaeology
of identity in Sri Lanka, Antiquity, 74: 707-712.
Coningham,
R.A.E. & Lewer, N., 1999, Paradise lost: the bombing of the
Temple of the Tooth - a UNESCO World Heritage site in Sri Lanka,
Antiquity, 73: 857-866.
Coningham,
R.A.E. & Young, R.L., 1999, The archaeology of caste, in Insoll.
T.A. (ed.), Case studies in archaeology and world religions, British
Archaeological Reports, Oxford: 84-93.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1997, Anuradhapura, in B.M. Fagan et al. (eds.), The Oxford
Companion to Archaeology, Oxford University Press, New York: 38-39.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1997, The spatial distribution of craft activities in Early
Historic cities and their social implications, in F.R. & B.
Allchin (eds.), South Asian Archaeology 1995, Oxford and IBH, New
Delhi: 35-48.
Krishnan,
K. & Coningham, R.A.E., 1997, Microstructural analysis of samples
of Rouletted Ware and associated pottery from Anuradhapura, Sri
Lanka, in F.R. & B. Allchin (eds.), South Asian Archaeology
1995, Oxford and IBH, New Delhi: 55-63.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1995, Dark Age or Continuum? An archaeological analysis
of the second emergence of urbanism in South Asian, in F.R. Allchin
(ed.), The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The emergence
of cities and states, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 54-72.
Coningham,
R.A.E. & Allchin, F.R., 1995, The rise of cities in Sri Lanka,
in F.R. Allchin (ed.), The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia:
The emergence of cities and states, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge: 152-184.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1995, Monks, Caves and Kings: A reassessment of the nature
of early Buddhism in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), in G.L. Barnes (ed.), Buddhism
and the state, World Archaeology, 27: 222-242.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1995, The origins of the Brahmi script reconsidered: The
new evidence from Anuradhapura, Minerva, International Review of
Ancient Art and Archaeology, 8.2: 27-31.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1994, Notes on the construction and destruction of ancient
Sri Lankan buildings, in B. Allchin (ed.), Living Traditions; Studies
in the ethno-archaeology of South Asia, Oxford and IBH , New Delhi:
69-82.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1994, Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project: Preliminary
results of a season of geophysical survey, South Asian Studies,
10: 179-188.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1993, Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project: Preliminary
results of the excavation of the southern rampart, 1992, South Asian
Studies, 9: 111-122.
Coningham,
R.A.E. & Allchin, F.R., 1992, Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological
Project: Preliminary report of the third season of Sri Lankan British
Excavations at Salgaha Watta, June - September 1991, South Asian
Studies 8: 155-167.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1991, Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project: Preliminary
report of the second season of Sri Lankan British Excavations at
Salgaha Watta, June - August 1990, South Asian Studies 7: 167-175.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1991, Recent excavations at the Citadel of Anuradhapura,
Sri Lanka, Bead Study Trust Newsletter: 8-9.
Coningham,
R.A.E., 1990, Anuradhapura Citadel Archaeological Project: Preliminary
report of the first season of Sri Lankan British Excavations at
Salgaha Watta, December 1989 - February 1990, Ancient Ceylon 9:
23-48.
Also
see the following websites:
http://whc.unesco.org/sites/200.htm
http://www.the-prehistory-of-sri-lanka.de/index.htm
South
Asian Archaeology Research Group
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