[Buddha-l] Written and oral traditions.

[L.S. Cousins]

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*

This is not always easy to determine. Consider the letter 'X' and a cross sign.

>  - and appeared to correspond quite closely with later Indic 
>scripts. It also a looked like a reasonably long bit of text.

Roughly how many letters ?

>  He said they plan to publish something on this script this summer.

We have had rather a lot of claims like this. So far they have all 
turned out to be false once they can be evaluated. That is why I am 
immediately doubtful.

What is the claimed date and what is the proof of that ? There were 
many alphabets known in ancient India later on, including many of 
which we do not appear to have any surviving examples.

Lance