Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Au 𑀒
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
Au is the last of the fourteen vowels and the second strengthening grade of the back series, standing to o as ai stands to e. It is always long and always heavy in metre. Its mark builds on the mark for o with an added element, in the same way that the mark for ai builds on the mark for e, so the four compound vowels are written as a set of related shapes rather than as four unrelated signs. With au the vowel section of the order closes, and the consonants begin with the velar class, the sounds made furthest back in the mouth, in a run that will move forward to the lips. In the Prakrit of the edicts the sound had largely fallen together with o, so the letter is written far less often there than a Sanskrit text would lead a reader to expect. The four compound vowels are the last part of the order that a learner meets before the consonants begin.
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 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 vowel au; fourteenth and last of the Brahmi vowels 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 PositionFourteenth letter of the Brahmi order and the last of the 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 Attributions
Associated SoundAlways long and heavy in metre; the second strengthening grade of u, standing to o as ai stands to e 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
The Last Vowel, and the Turn to the Consonants
Au is the second strengthening grade of the back series, standing to o as ai stands to e, and it is produced by the same set of suffixes that call for vrddhi in the front series. It is always long and always heavy in metre. Like ai it appears most often at the head of a word, because the strengthening applies to the first syllable of the stem, so the independent letter is the form a reader usually meets rather than the attached mark.
With this letter the vowel section of the order closes and the consonants begin. That transition is the main structural joint in the Brahmi alphabet, and it is the point at which a learner moves from a series arranged by quantity and grade to a series arranged by place of articulation. The consonants open at the back of the mouth with the velars and move forward class by class to the lips, so the two halves of the order are built on different principles and the join between them is where the design shows most plainly. In the Prakrit of the Ashokan edicts the sound had largely fallen together with o, so the letter is written far less often in the earliest inscriptions than the completeness of the vowel table would suggest.
For a reader of inscriptions the practical point is that the last four vowels are met chiefly at the beginnings of words, where the independent letters have to be written out in full. That makes them disproportionately visible on stone relative to how often the sounds occur, since the vowels inside words are carried by marks rather than by letters. A count of independent vowel signs in an inscription therefore says more about where words begin than about which vowels the language uses.
Fourteen, Sixteen, or However Many
The number of vowels in the order is not a fixed figure, and the disagreement is instructive. Counted as this atlas counts them there are fourteen, running from short a to au. Counted with the anusvara and the visarga included there are sixteen, and those two are marks rather than letters, standing outside the alphabet proper and written as a dot and as a pair of dots. Some traditions count differently again. The variation is not carelessness; it reflects a real question about whether a sign that modifies a vowel belongs in the list of vowels.
That question is inherited by every script descended from Brahmi, which is why the alphabets of South Asia are quoted with different totals in different books and why the traditional figure of fifty letters for the Sanskrit alphabet requires a particular set of choices to arrive at. Brahmi itself has the anusvara and the visarga as signs and does not settle their status, leaving the matter to the grammatical tradition where it belongs. A reader meeting two different counts of the same alphabet has not found an error but a boundary dispute about what a letter is, and the dispute is older than any of the scripts now used to write these languages.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Au 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 Au continues the sign Brahmi Au 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
Successive grades of the same series. The mark for au is built on the mark for o, so the four compound vowels are written as one family of shapes.
Second strengthening grade. Vrddhi raises u past o to au, completing the back series in the same two steps the front series takes.
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