Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Vocalic R 𑀋
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
Vocalic R writes a syllabic r, a sound that carries a syllable on its own with no other vowel beside it, and it is one of the features that most sets Old Indo-Aryan apart from its neighbours. It stands seventh in the Brahmi order, grouped with the vowels because it behaves like one. The Middle Indo-Aryan of the Ashokan edicts had lost the sound, which fell together with a, i or u according to dialect, so the letter belongs to the Brahmi that was later adapted for writing Sanskrit rather than to the language of the earliest inscriptions. Its vowel mark is a curl written beneath the consonant sign, in the same position as the marks for the u vowels. Sanskrit words familiar well beyond Sanskrit carry the sound in their first syllable, among them the name Krishna and the title Rigveda.
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 SoundA syllabic r, retroflex, carrying a syllable on its own with no other vowel beside it; its vowel mark is a curl written beneath the consonant sign 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 the vowel it writes, 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 short syllabic r; seventh letter 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 PositionSeventh letter of the Brahmi order, first of the two syllabic r vowels 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy How the Letter JoinsAn independent vowel letter takes no attachment. After a consonant the same vowel is written not with this letter but as a mark added to the consonant sign 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe Middle Indo-Aryan of the Ashokan edicts had no such sound, so the letter belongs to the Brahmi later adapted for writing Sanskrit rather than to the language 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
A Vowel Made of a Consonant
A syllabic r carries a syllable with no other vowel beside it, which is a familiar enough thing in the world's languages but unusual among the neighbours of Old Indo-Aryan, and the Indian phoneticians handled it by classing the sound with the vowels outright rather than treating it as a consonant behaving oddly. That decision is what puts the letter in the vowel section of the order, seventh in the sequence, with its own short and long pair like any other vowel. It also means the sound takes vowel endings, participates in the ladder of strengthening, and is written with a vowel mark rather than with a consonant sign.
The strengthening is where the sound is most often met. Raised one grade the syllabic r becomes the sequence ar, and raised a second it becomes aar, so a root containing this vowel appears with a plainly different shape whenever a suffix calls for a stronger grade. That single alternation accounts for a large number of Sanskrit word families whose members look unrelated until the ladder is applied to them. The letter is also the first sound of a set of words that travelled well beyond Sanskrit, including the name of the oldest of the Vedic collections and the name of the deity most widely worshipped across the subcontinent under a form of it.
A Letter the Earliest Inscriptions Had No Use For
The Middle Indo-Aryan of the Ashokan edicts had lost the syllabic vowels entirely. The sound fell together with a, i or u depending on the dialect, which is one of the differences by which the dialects of the edicts are told apart, and a scribe of the third century BCE writing Prakrit therefore had no occasion to cut this letter at all. It belongs to the Brahmi that was later adapted for writing Sanskrit, when the script came to be used for a language older than the one it had been developed to record.
That gap is worth dwelling on, because it says something about how the alphabet is transmitted. The letter is in the order, and the order was recited whole, so the sign was carried forward by a tradition of memorised sequence rather than by continuous use on stone. When Sanskrit began to be written in the early centuries of the common era the letter was there waiting, in seventh place, ready for a sound that the writing had never had to record. Every script descended from Brahmi has it, including several used for languages that have no such sound and never did. A place in a memorised order is a durable thing, and it does not depend on there being a word that needs the sign.
The letter is nonetheless among the more common in later Sanskrit epigraphy, because the roots and stems it appears in are ordinary ones and because a great many personal names are built on them. So its attestation is thin in the third century BCE and thick from a few centuries later, and a palaeographer dating a hand from it has to be careful which end of the sequence is being used as the standard. That uneven distribution across periods is a general feature of the Brahmi evidence rather than a peculiarity of this one sign.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Vocalic R 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 Vocalic R continues the sign Brahmi Vocalic R 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
The vowel this semivowel answers to. The syllabic r and the consonantal r are one sound in two roles, and the same substitution rule that turns i into ya turns the syllabic r into ra.
Quantity partners among the syllabic liquids. The long form is confined to a narrow set of Sanskrit endings and has no place in the Prakrit of the earliest inscriptions.
Quantity partners among the syllabic liquids. Vocalic Rr is the long counterpart of Vocalic R, confined to a narrow set of Sanskrit endings.
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