Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Ba 𑀩
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
Ba is the voiced unaspirated labial stop, the third member of the fifth class, made by closing the lips with the vocal folds vibrating. In the Middle Indo-Aryan of the Ashokan edicts the labials are among the more stable series, where other parts of the inherited sound system shifted a good deal, and the letter is common in the inscriptions. Its Brahmi shape is one of the simpler in the script. Like every consonant sign it is read with the inherent short a, and it takes a vowel mark above, below or beside it when a different vowel follows. Because va and ba fell together in many Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, an inscription may write either where a Sanskrit form would have only one, and editors record the variation rather than correcting it.
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 SoundVoiced unaspirated labial stop, made by closing the lips with the vocal folds vibrating 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 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 voiced unaspirated labial; twenty-third consonant 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 PositionTwenty-third consonant of the Brahmi order and third member of the labial 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 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 Transmission
Manuscript TraditionAttested from the Asokan rock and pillar edicts of the third century BCE, the earliest substantial Brahmi corpus. 2 Learn More
Ba, and a Name in the Earliest Inscriptions
The name of the founder of Buddhism begins with this letter, and Buddhist donative inscriptions make up a very large share of the earliest Brahmi material there is. The railings at Sanchi and Bharhut, the western cave sites, the reliquary deposits and the pillar records name monks, nuns, lay donors and guilds giving to the community, and the vocabulary of that giving is repetitive enough that the letters in it are attested in thousands of examples. The word behind the name means awakened, a past participle of a root meaning to wake or to understand, and it is an ordinary Sanskrit adjective before it is a title.
The letter appears in ordinary vocabulary besides, in the root meaning to bind and its large family of derivatives, and in the words for strength and for the outside. Like every consonant it carries the inherent short a and joins a following consonant into a conjunct where no vowel comes between them.
One complication attends it throughout the epigraphic record. In many Middle Indo-Aryan dialects this letter and the labial semivowel fell together, so an inscription may write either where the Sanskrit form has only one, and the alternation is among the commonest notes in an epigraphic apparatus. Editors record the spelling they find rather than the one Sanskrit would require.
What an Editor Does With a Variant Spelling
The temptation, reading an inscription in a language one knows only from its classical form, is to correct. A Prakrit word that looks like a misspelled Sanskrit one invites emendation, and the practice of Indian epigraphy is firmly against it. What the stone shows is evidence about the language actually spoken and written in a place at a time, and normalising it destroys exactly the information the inscription uniquely carries.
The alternation between this letter and the labial semivowel is the standard case. It is not a scribal error but a real merger in the dialects concerned, and its distribution across the sites where the Ashokan edicts were cut is one of the pieces of evidence used to group those dialects. Correcting the spellings would erase a dialect boundary. The same holds for the eastern substitution of l for an inherited r, for the varying treatment of consonant clusters and for the reduction of the three sibilants to one.
A modern edition therefore prints the text as cut, with the Sanskrit equivalents in an apparatus, and the apparatus is often longer than the text. That is not fussiness. The Ashokan corpus is the earliest substantial written material in any Indian language, and the variations in it are close to the whole of what is known about how the language of the third century BCE actually differed from place to place.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
The Gurmukhi letter Babba continues the sign Brahmi Ba 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.
Devanagari Ba 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 Ba continues the sign Brahmi Ba 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 ba continues the Brahmi ba, 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
Aspiration partners in the labial class. Both are voiced, and the second is released with the breathy voice that Sanskrit kept where most of its relatives lost it.
The nasal of the labial class. Both are voiced and both are made with a closure of the two lips, the nasal differing in that the closure is released through the nose.
Voicing partners in the labial class. Both are unaspirated stops made with a closure of the two lips, and the vocal folds vibrate through the closure of the second.
Opposite corners of the labial class, the fifth of the five groups of five. Between them the two carry one feature each from the pair the table is built on.
Ba answers to Brahmi Ba, the voiced member; Tibetan drops the intervening voiced aspirate Bha, completing the same four-line pruning pattern.
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