Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Ssa 𑀱
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
Ssa is the retroflex sibilant, made with the tongue tip curled back, and the second of the three. In classical Sanskrit it arises very largely by a rule that converts the dental sibilant after certain preceding sounds, so it is more a product of the grammar than an independent choice of the speaker. It sits between the palatal and the dental sibilants in the order, following the same back to front arrangement that governs the five classes of stops, and every script descended from Brahmi keeps the three sibilants in that sequence. Because it is largely the output of a rule, a text that writes it where the rule does not apply is telling the reader something about either the language or the scribe.
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 SoundRetroflex sibilant, made with the tongue tip curled back; in classical Sanskrit it arises very largely by a rule converting the dental sibilant after certain sounds 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 retroflex sibilant; thirty-first 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 PositionThirty-first consonant of the Brahmi order and second of the three sibilants 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 SourceOld Indo-Aryan distinguishes three sibilants and Middle Indo-Aryan reduced them, so the three-way distinction belongs more to the Sanskrit-writing Brahmi than to the Prakrit of the earliest inscriptions 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
A Sibilant and the Cluster It Is Famous For
The retroflex sibilant is best known outside Sanskrit for the cluster it forms with the velar stop, which spells a set of words that travelled far: the name of the warrior and ruling class in the classical description of Indian society, the term for release or liberation that names the goal of several Indian religious systems, and the words for a moment, for a field and for the sky. That single cluster carries more weight in the philosophical and social vocabulary of the subcontinent than most whole letters do.
In its own right the letter is largely the output of a rule. In classical Sanskrit the dental sibilant is converted to this retroflex one when certain vowels or consonants precede it, and the grammatical tradition states the conditions exactly, so a reader who knows the rule can predict most of its occurrences. Where it appears without the rule applying, the word is telling the reader something about the language or the scribe.
The letter also stands in the word for a seer, the term for the composers of the Vedic hymns, where it follows the syllabic r that conditions it. Sanskrit words containing the retroflex sibilant frequently also contain an r or a retroflex earlier in the word for exactly this reason, and the pattern is regular enough that a damaged syllable can sometimes be reconstructed from the sibilant that follows it.
The Cluster That Became a Letter
The cluster of this sibilant with the velar stop is treated in several Indian traditions as though it were a letter in its own right. It is recited at the end of the alphabet after the last consonant, it appears on alphabet charts as a separate item, and children learning to write are taught it as a unit rather than as an assembly of two signs. The reason is partly that its written form in several of the descendant scripts fused into a ligature in which neither component can be made out, and partly that its pronunciation drifted so far from its spelling in the later languages that the connection to its parts stopped being audible.
That is the most conspicuous case of a general phenomenon. A conjunct is in principle a mechanical combination of two letters, and in practice a frequent one becomes a shape learned as a whole, drifts away from its components, and can end up functioning as an additional letter. Brahmi itself keeps the two parts of this cluster visible, which is one of several places where the parent script is more transparent than its children.
It is also why the alphabets of South Asia are quoted with different totals in different books. Whether this cluster counts, and whether the anusvara and visarga count, decides whether the traditional figure comes out at forty-six, forty-eight, forty-nine or fifty.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Ssa 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 Ssa continues the sign Brahmi Ssa 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
Both belong to the ushman, the sounds of audible friction that close the consonant order after the semivowels.
Two of the three sibilants. In classical Sanskrit the retroflex one arises very largely by a rule that converts the dental sibilant after certain preceding sounds.
Two of the three sibilants Old Indo-Aryan holds apart. Middle Indo-Aryan reduced the set, so most of the Ashokan edicts write one sibilant where Sanskrit writes three.
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