Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Na 𑀦
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
Na is the dental nasal, the fifth member of the fourth class and the commonest nasal in the languages written with the script. Unlike the velar and palatal nasals it begins words freely, and in Sanskrit it is the source of most retroflex nasals, through a rule that converts it after certain sounds earlier in the word. It closes the dental class, and after it the table moves to the lips for its last group of five stops, completing the run from the back of the mouth to the front that gives the consonant order the shape it has kept ever since. It is frequent in the titles and set formulas that recur through the Ashokan edicts, and a reader learns to pick it out early.
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 dental nasal; twentieth 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 PositionTwentieth consonant of the Brahmi order and the nasal that closes the dental 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 SoundDental nasal, the commonest of the five and the only one that freely begins words; in Sanskrit the source of most retroflex nasals by rule 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
Na, and the Word for No
The ordinary Sanskrit negative is this letter with its inherent vowel and nothing else, a single sign standing as a word. It negates a verb, a sentence or a clause, and it is among the most frequent words in the language. A reader of inscriptions learns to spot it early for the same reason they learn the word for and: a lone sign in a stream of longer groups is easy to see, and the meaning of a sentence turns on it.
The letter is also the commonest nasal in these languages and, unlike the velar and palatal nasals, it begins words freely. It forms the past participle of a class of verbs, appears in a wide range of nominal suffixes, and stands in the endings of several declensions, so it is met constantly at both ends of words. In Sanskrit it is the source of most retroflex nasals, through the rule that converts it when certain retroflex or r-like sounds occur earlier in the same word.
That rule is one of the more remarkable pieces of the classical grammatical analysis, because it describes an effect operating across intervening sounds rather than between neighbours, and the tradition states exactly which consonants block it and which let it pass. A reader who knows the rule can often reconstruct a damaged syllable from the nasal that follows it, which is a practical benefit to an epigraphist and not merely a point of theory.
Frequent in the Formulas
The Ashokan edicts are formulaic in the way that official proclamations usually are. They open with a standard phrase naming the emperor by title, they repeat set expressions about what he has caused to be done and what he wishes his people to practise, and they close with instructions about the inscription itself. Those formulas recur across an empire and across two dozen sites, in several Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, and they are what makes the corpus tractable: a reader who has one edict has a good deal of every other.
This letter appears throughout that repeated material, which makes it one of the best attested signs in the earliest Brahmi and one of the most useful for dating a hand. It also makes it a good test of dialect. The edicts were cut in several different dialects across the empire and they differ from one another in regular ways, so the same formula in two places can show different treatments of the same inherited sound.
Comparing those versions is the earliest direct evidence for dialect variation anywhere in South Asia, and it was produced by accident: a chancery sending one text to many places, and local scribes rendering it in the language spoken there. No comparable body of evidence exists again for many centuries.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Na 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.
The Gurmukhi letter Nanna continues the sign Brahmi Na 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.
Ranjana Na continues the sign Brahmi Na 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.
Tibetan na continues the Brahmi na, 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
The nasal of the dental class. Both are voiced and both are made with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper teeth, the nasal differing in that the closure is released through the nose.
The nasal of the dental class, and the letter that closes the group in the recited order before the table moves on to the next point of articulation.
The dental nasal of the inherited order. Tamil holds an alveolar nasal apart from it, and from the retroflex nasal as well, giving three where Indo-Aryan has two.
The nasal of the dental class, made at the same point as this stop, with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper teeth and the breath let out through the nose. Every class in the table closes with its own nasal.
The nasal of the dental class, made at the same point as this stop, with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper teeth. Every class in the table closes with its own nasal, standing after the stop that opens the class.
The nasal of the dental class. The five nasals were arrived at by asking where each was made rather than by hearing one sound with variants.
Na answers to Brahmi's dental Na, the nasal that closes the dental line in both scripts.
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