Research Items

Abstract

Neolithic Script in India.—The recent discovery ¦of two neoliths, one from Chota Nagpur, the other from Assam, said to be marked with decipherable ¦scripts, has attracted some attention. On one of these Prof. Bhandarkar read the word “Maata,” assumed to mean “a headman or chieftain.” The script is believed to be that known as the Brahmi, which, according to Buhler, was introduced in India from Semitic sources about 800 B.C. Unfortunately, however, there is no evidence that this character was ever written from right to left. The question of these neoliths has been examined by Mr. Hem Chandra Das Gupta in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (vol. xvii. No. 2), who points out that the evidence of provenance and of the fact that the inscriptions date from the Neolithic Age is far from satisfactory. Symbols like letters of the alphabet have been found in European soil painted upon pebbles belonging to a stratum between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Ages at Mas d'Azil in France, but scholars are still doubtful whether these so-called inscriptions form a scientific basis for investigation of the origin of the alphabet. The same may be said of these recent Indian discoveries.