Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Bha 𑀪
Brahmi Letters
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Origin Mature Brahmi is securely attested in the edicts of Ashoka in the middle of the third century BCE, and the script could be read again only after James Prinsep worked out its values in 1837
Bha is the voiced aspirated labial, the fourth member of the class, released with breathy voice. It completes the twenty stops of the five by five table, after which only the nasal of the labial class remains before the order moves on to the semivowels. The four way distinction of voice and aspiration is carried through all five classes without exception, and it is that regularity, rather than the number of letters, that the Indian phonetic tradition is remembered for. The table is a piece of analysis before it is a list of signs. Words beginning with it are common in the religious vocabulary of the subcontinent, so the letter is frequent in inscriptions of every period.
Facts
Disputed
Origin PeriodMany epigraphists derive Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Brahmi's ancestry is disputed among epigraphists. Richard Salomon's Indian Epigraphy (Oxford University Press, 1998) surveys two live positions on the origin of the script attested in the Ashokan inscriptions: one derives Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire; the other holds that it developed inside India itself. The dispute turns on the corpus, since Brahmi is securely attested only from Ashoka's edicts in the middle of the third century BCE onward, first read again by James Prinsep in 1837, and no earlier specimen on either side is securely dated. Both camps compare Brahmi's letterforms against Aramaic and other Semitic scripts using the same paleographic method, and without an intermediate dated example bridging the gap between any proposed ancestor and the Mauryan era script, neither derivation has been shown to fit the evidence better than the other. Origin PeriodOthers argue for a development inside India, and with no securely dated specimen earlier than the edicts the question stays open 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Brahmi's ancestry is disputed among epigraphists. Richard Salomon's Indian Epigraphy (Oxford University Press, 1998) surveys two live positions on the origin of the script attested in the Ashokan inscriptions: one derives Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire; the other holds that it developed inside India itself. The dispute turns on the corpus, since Brahmi is securely attested only from Ashoka's edicts in the middle of the third century BCE onward, first read again by James Prinsep in 1837, and no earlier specimen on either side is securely dated. Both camps compare Brahmi's letterforms against Aramaic and other Semitic scripts using the same paleographic method, and without an intermediate dated example bridging the gap between any proposed ancestor and the Mauryan era script, neither derivation has been shown to fit the evidence better than the other. Origins
Origin PeriodMature Brahmi is securely attested in the edicts of Ashoka in the middle of the third century BCE, and the script could be read again only after James Prinsep worked out its values in 1837 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Place of OriginThe Indian subcontinent. The Ashokan edicts carry the script from the Gangetic plain across the Deccan to the far south, while the northwest of the same empire wrote in Kharosthi instead 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Origin of the NameThe letter has no traditional name of its own. It is called by its own sound plus the inherent short a, and the form used here is the name the Unicode Standard gives the character 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters Sense of the Namethe voiced aspirated labial; twenty-fourth consonant of the Brahmi order 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters Transmission
Manuscript TraditionAttested from the Asokan rock and pillar edicts of the third century BCE, the earliest substantial Brahmi corpus. 2 Identity
Script TypeAn abugida: every consonant sign carries an inherent short a, which a vowel mark alters and the virama cancels, so the unit written is the syllable rather than the single sound 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems PositionTwenty-fourth consonant of the Brahmi order and fourth member of the labial class 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy How the Letter JoinsConsonants that meet with no vowel between them are written as a conjunct, the second stacked beneath or ligatured to the first, rather than as two separate signs 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems Attributions
Associated SoundVoiced aspirated labial stop, breathy voiced; it completes the twenty stops of the five by five table 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe letter belongs to the received Brahmi order, and the corresponding sign in the scripts descended from Brahmi across South and Southeast Asia goes back to it 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Learn More
The Root of Becoming
One of the two most basic verbs in Sanskrit begins with this letter, the root meaning to be or to become, and it supplies both the ordinary present tense of the verb to be and an enormous derived vocabulary. The words for existence, for a state of being, for the world, for a living creature and for what has come to pass are all built on it, and so is the term for worldly existence in the religious literature of the subcontinent.
A second root beginning with the same letter means to share, to apportion or to be devoted, and it produces the word for devotional participation that names one of the great movements in Indian religion, along with the title for a lord or a blessed one that is applied to deities and to teachers across several traditions. Between these two roots the letter is at the head of a very large share of the religious vocabulary of South Asia.
It is correspondingly frequent in inscriptions of every period, which is convenient for a palaeographer. Where a letter is common the shapes can be compared across many dated examples, and the sequence of forms is firm rather than reconstructed. Letters like the aspirated palatal, which the language barely uses, offer nothing like the same evidence and are dated by inference from their neighbours instead.
Twenty Stops, Then a Change of Principle
This letter completes the twenty stops of the five by five table. After the labial nasal that follows it the classed consonants are finished, and the order changes its organising principle: the semivowels, the sibilants and the aspirate are grouped by manner rather than by place of articulation, because manner is what distinguishes them and place no longer does the work.
That change of principle is the most interesting joint in the whole arrangement, and it is where the Indian analysis had to make a decision rather than apply a rule. The semivowels are placed to match the vowels they answer to, so their internal order comes from the vowel table rather than from anything about the semivowels themselves. The three sibilants are ordered back to front, borrowing the principle from the stops. The aspirate is put last on the reasoning that it is made at the vocal folds, further back than anything else, and there is nowhere else to go.
The result is a table that is regular where regularity is possible and honestly ad hoc where it is not, and the tradition never pretended otherwise. That is a considerable intellectual achievement for a description of speech worked out well before the common era, and it is the reason the Brahmi order has needed no rearrangement in two thousand years.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
The Gurmukhi letter Bhabbha continues the sign Brahmi Bha writes in the same place of the inherited series. The descent is not direct: it runs through the Sharada script of the northwest and then the Landa hands of the Punjab, and it is stated from position in the order rather than from shape.
Devanagari Bha descends from the Brahmi sign of the same value, through the Gupta and Nagari hands of northern India. The two alphabets align letter for letter because both are laid out in the varnamala order, the arrangement the Sanskrit phoneticians fixed by place of articulation.
Ranjana Bha continues the sign Brahmi Bha writes in the same place of the inherited varnamala. The descent is not direct: it runs through the Gupta and Siddhamatrka stages of the northern Brahmi line and then the scripts of Nepal, and it is stated from position in the order rather than from shape.
Siddham continues the Brahmi order letter for letter. The descent runs through the late Brahmi of the Gupta period and the Siddhamatrka hand that grows out of it, so this is a lineage rather than a direct copy of the older shape.
Related To
Aspiration partners in the labial class. Both are voiced, and the second is released with the breathy voice that Sanskrit kept where most of its relatives lost it.
The nasal of the labial class, and the letter that closes the group in the recited order before the table moves on to the next point of articulation.
Opposite corners of the labial class, the fifth of the five groups of five. One is voiceless and unaspirated, the other voiced and aspirated, and the class holds all four combinations of the two features.
Voicing partners in the labial class. Both are aspirated stops, and they differ only in voice, which is the second of the two features the table is built on.
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