Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Ta 𑀢
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
Ta is the voiceless unaspirated dental stop and the head of the fourth class, made with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper teeth rather than on the ridge behind them as the English t is. The difference between this class and the retroflex class before it is a matter of where the tongue lands, and it separates words in every language the script was used for. Ta is among the commonest consonants in Sanskrit and in the Prakrit of the inscriptions, and its sign is one of the most frequently cut in the whole script. Speakers who use an English t in these languages are heard at once, because the difference between the dental and the retroflex class is not a matter of accent but of which letter is being said.
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 voiceless unaspirated dental; sixteenth consonant of the Brahmi order 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters 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 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 PositionSixteenth consonant of the Brahmi order and head of the dental class, the fourth of the five classes 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 SoundVoiceless unaspirated dental stop, made with the tongue tip against the back of the upper teeth, not on the ridge behind them as the English t is 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
Ta, and the Word for That
The Sanskrit demonstrative stem begins with this letter, and it is the most heavily worked pronoun in the language. It supplies the words for that, those, he, she and it, declined through three genders and eight cases, and it does duty as the ordinary third-person pronoun because the language has no separate one. A sentence of any length is likely to contain it more than once, and the forms are among the first a reader of inscriptions learns to recognise on sight.
The letter carries a second load as a suffix. The past passive participle of a very large class of Sanskrit verbs is formed by adding this consonant with its inherent vowel to the root, and those participles behave as adjectives, as nouns and as the main verb of a sentence in their own right, so an enormous share of the vocabulary ends in this sound. Between the pronoun and the participle the letter is among the two or three commonest consonants in any Sanskrit or Prakrit text.
Being common has a consequence for how it is written. A frequent letter accumulates a large stock of standard conjuncts, because it meets every other consonant sooner or later, and a reader learns those combined shapes as units rather than assembling them from their parts each time. The clusters this letter forms with the semivowels, with the sibilants and with the other dentals are among the most familiar shapes in the script.
The Palaeographer's Workhorse
Dating an inscription in India, where most carry no date, is done by comparing the shapes of common letters against inscriptions whose date is fixed by a named ruler or a regnal year. The method needs letters that are frequent enough to appear in every specimen and distinct enough that a worn example can still be identified, and this letter qualifies on both counts. It appears in quantity in the Ashokan edicts, in the donative records at Sanchi and Bharhut, in the western cave inscriptions and in every later hand, so its development can be traced continuously rather than reconstructed across gaps.
What that tracing shows is a script diverging steadily after the Mauryan period. Ashokan Brahmi is remarkably uniform across an empire that ran from the northwest to the far south, which is itself evidence of a chancery imposing a standard rather than a script evolving locally. Within a few centuries the uniformity is gone, and regional hands develop that a specialist can tell apart at a glance.
By the Gupta period the northern and southern lines are clearly separate, and from there the family fans out: Siddham and the Nagari group in the north, the Sharada line in the northwest, Grantha and the Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Sinhala alphabets in the south, and the Pallava chancery script that carried the system to Southeast Asia. This letter can be followed down every one of those paths.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Ta 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 Ta continues the sign Brahmi Ta 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.
The Gurmukhi letter Tatta continues the sign Brahmi Ta 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.
Tibetan ta continues the Brahmi ta, 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
Voicing partners in the dental class. Both are unaspirated stops made with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper teeth, and the vocal folds vibrate through the closure of the second.
Opposite corners of the dental class, the fourth 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.
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.
Aspiration partners in the dental class. The two are the same voiceless stop, and only the breath that follows the release separates them.
Ta answers to Brahmi's DENTAL Ta (576), not the retroflex line; Ta's own description states the retroflex letters Sanskrit needs at this point "were never part of the Tibetan thirty."
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