review article
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
vidya at cco.caltech.edu
Sat Aug 24 02:20:46 UTC 1996
While it may be possible that the Brahmi script was completely invented
in Asoka's time, shouldn't one expect some record of such invention
somewhere? Surely, the introduction of a script and its widespread use
(with regional variations) over vast regions in Asoka's empire must have
meant a significant change in the culture of a people who had absolutely
no writing prior to the event. Didn't a king who meticulously recorded
the missions of various dhamma-mahamatras feel the need to record so
significant a change as introducing writing in a preliterate society?
I am not asking this question lightly. The absence of evidence of writing
prior to Asoka's time is interpreted as evidence of absence of writing.
Similarly, does not Asoka's silence on the issue qualify as evidence
that the Brahmi script was not invented by him?
My point is that nowhere does absence of evidence imply evidence of absence.
Just as arguments for the existence of a script prior to Asoka are weak, so
also is the argument that Asoka (or a team of scholars sponsored by him, or
by some other Mauryan king, for that matter) invented the script. Given that
the radiocarbon dating from the recent finds from Sri Lanka have been doubted,
all that can be legitimately said is that the earliest evidence of the Brahmi
script is in Asoka's inscriptions, which is nothing more than a statement of
fact.
S. Vidyasankar
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