Re: [INDOLOGY] foot-mark in Kharoṣṭhī

[Richard G. Salomon]

Hi Herman,

Re foot-marks in Kharosthi: long story and complicated: the place to start
is pp. 21-28 of Andrew Glass's MA thesis (University of Washington, 2000) "A
Preliminary Study of Kharoṣṭhī Manuscript Paleography”) which I think is
available on line; and then his 2007 volume, *Four Gāndhārī Saṃyuktāgama
Sūtras: Senior Kharoṣṭhī Fragment 5 (*Gandhāran Buddhist Texts, Volume 4.
Seattle: University of Washington Press), pp. 88-91.

Basically, *true* footmarks are phonetically insignificant, incidental
artifacts of the mechanics of handwriting (like serifs, Devanagari
top-line, etc.). As Glass shows, they are very common and quite varied (as
many as ten varieties) in manuscript Kharosthi. Such incidental marks are
often (in various writing systems including Kharosthi) adopted into
epigraphic writing.

This whole issue is however complicated because the footmarks can sometimes
be hard to distinguish from, on the one hand, the anusvara sign, and on the
other, the diacritical sign at the base of various consonants, which
*does *indicate
a variant (fricative?) pronunciation in intervocalic position; see Glass
2007: 107 ff., and related discussions in other volumes of the Gandhāran
Buddhist Texts series).

Rich Salomon

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 12:15 AM Tieken, H.J.H. via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear list members,
> I have a question about the so-called foot-mark in the Kharoṣṭhī in the
> Aśoka inscriptions in Shāhbāzgarhī and Mānsehrā, or if what A.H Dani says
> about it (Indian Palaeography, p. 260 and p. 149) is all there is. What I
> would like to know is if it has a meaning or not. According to Dani it
> hasn't. For, on p. 149, while trying to explain the foot-mark in the
> Bower manuscript (birch bark), he writes: "that the writer lifted his pen
> with a back stroke and hence resulted in an upward slant at the foot". But
> the stonemason of the Aśoka inscription was using a chisel, not a pen.
> Herman
>
> Herman Tieken
> Stationsweg 58
> 2515 BP Den Haag
> The Netherlands
> 00 31 (0)70 2208127
> website: hermantieken.com
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