Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Sa 𑀲
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
Sa is the dental sibilant, the commonest of the three and the one that survives where Middle Indo-Aryan reduces the set to one. At the end of a word in Sanskrit it is very often replaced by the visarga, a breath written as two dots, and Brahmi has a sign for that breath standing outside the letters proper. Sa is the last of the sibilants and the thirty-second consonant of the order, leaving only the aspirate and the retroflex lateral before the consonant section of the alphabet closes. It is the sibilant of the ordinary Sanskrit endings and among the most frequently written letters in any text in the script, which is why its shape is well attested in every hand.
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. Attributions
Associated SoundDental sibilant, the commonest of the three and the one that survives where Middle Indo-Aryan reduces the set 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy 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 dental sibilant; thirty-second consonant of the Brahmi order 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters 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 PositionThirty-second consonant of the Brahmi order and the last of the three sibilants 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 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceOld Indo-Aryan distinguishes three sibilants and Middle Indo-Aryan reduced them, so the three-way distinction belongs more to the Sanskrit-writing Brahmi than to the Prakrit of the earliest inscriptions 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Transmission
Manuscript TraditionAttested from the Asokan rock and pillar edicts of the third century BCE, the earliest substantial Brahmi corpus. 2 Learn More
The Sibilant of the Endings
The dental sibilant is the commonest of the three and the one that carries most of the grammatical load in Sanskrit. It stands in the nominative singular ending of the largest class of nouns, in a whole set of verbal endings, and in the future and aorist formations, so it is met at the end of words constantly. It also opens a substantial family of common vocabulary, including the words for being, for truth, for a companion and for together.
At the end of a word before a pause, however, it is very often not written as this letter at all. Sanskrit converts a final dental sibilant to the visarga, a breath written as two dots standing outside the letters proper, so the sign a reader actually sees at the end of a great many words is the mark rather than the letter. The conversion is conditional: before certain following sounds the sibilant is kept, before others it becomes the visarga, and before others again it assimilates entirely.
That set of rules is among the most frequently applied in the language and among the first a student learns, and it means the relationship between the letter and the sound is looser here than anywhere else in the alphabet. A reader of a continuous text has to run the rules backwards to recover the underlying form of every word that ends in a sibilant.
The Two Dots, and What Survived the Reduction
The visarga is the second of the two marks that Brahmi carries outside the letters proper, the other being the anusvara. It is written as two dots and it represents a breath, the voiceless outward release that a final sibilant becomes in the environments the grammar specifies. Like the anusvara it is inherited by every script descended from Brahmi, and like the anusvara its status is unsettled: counted among the vowels it makes the Sanskrit total sixteen rather than fourteen, and different traditions count differently.
When Middle Indo-Aryan reduced the three sibilants to one, this is the letter that generally survived, so the single sibilant of most of the Ashokan edicts is written with this sign. That makes it one of the best attested consonants in the earliest Brahmi and a good letter for a palaeographer to work from, in contrast to the palatal and retroflex sibilants whose early attestation is thin and regionally restricted.
It also means a reader of the edicts sees this letter where a Sanskrit text would show any of the three, and cannot tell from the writing which one the underlying word had. Recovering that requires knowing the Sanskrit form, which is one of the ordinary reasons a Prakrit inscription is edited with its Sanskrit equivalents alongside it rather than presented alone.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Sa 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 Sa continues the sign Brahmi Sa 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.
The Gurmukhi letter Sassa continues the sign Brahmi Sa 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.
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.
Tibetan sa continues the Brahmi sa, keeping its value and its place in the inherited order. The descent of the Tibetan script from the Brahmi family is not disputed; which Indic script of that family served as the immediate model in the seventh century is, and this link names the ancestor the atlas holds rather than choosing among the candidates.
Related To
Both belong to the ushman. The dental sibilant is the commonest of the group and the aspirate is the last letter of the inherited order.
Both belong to the ushman, the sounds of audible friction that close the consonant order after the semivowels. Sa is the commonest of the three sibilants, and Ha is the last letter of the inherited order.
Two of the three sibilants, arranged in the order back to front like the five classes of stops before them.
Two of the three sibilants. In classical Sanskrit the retroflex one arises very largely by a rule that converts the dental sibilant after certain preceding sounds.
Sa answers to Brahmi Sa, the same voiceless alveolar fricative; Tibetan has no counterpart to Brahmi's retroflex Ssa, matching the same retroflex omission Ta's own description states for the dental line.
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