[Buddha-l] Written and oral traditions.

[Christopher Fynn]

L.S. Cousins wrote:

> Chris,

>> A couple of months back Abdur Rehman  who works with Ahmad Hassan Dani 
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Hasan_Dani> in Pakistan told me 
>> they have recently found examples of a script which pre-dates Brahmi & 
>> Kharosthi - but is later the than Indus Valley scripts.

> I rather doubt this. People often confuse signs and writing. There is a 
> lot of wishful thinking in this area.

In this case the example Dr. Rehman showed me a photo of was of a script with 
letters *not signs* - and appeared to correspond quite closely with later Indic 
scripts. It also a looked like a reasonably long bit of text. He said they plan 
to publish something on this script this summer.

Related to this general topic, there was a recent item on the BBC about the 
discovery of 2,000 pictorial symbols on cliff faces in NW China which date back 
8,000 years and "bear a strong resemblance to later forms of ancient Chinese 
characters".

See: "Chinese writing '8,000 years old'"
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6669569.stm>


- Chris