was soft clay written upon with a triangular-ended stylus and baked afterwards. The original pictures could hardly be recog rized in this wedge shaped writing, which grew simpler in time The Babylonians thus reached the beginning of the third stage. The writing records of Assyrian and Accadian are found on the clay tablets discovered amongst the ruins of the ancient towns in Mesopotamia, the oldest of which is the tablet of Sargon I, who on the authority of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon (550 B. C.), reigned about 3800 B. C. (1) Susan and Old Armenian.-These were also written in wedge-shaped letters barrowed from Assyrian. They, however, freed their syllabic symbols from foreign meanings, which made them much simpler to write and decipher than Assyrian. This writing reached the third stage. Phoenician.-In Phoenician we have a real alphabet of 22 letters, all of which were consonants. The names of the letters and probably their arrangement is still preserved in Hebrew, old Arabic, Greek and other European languages, all of which owe their alphabets to Phoenician. We find the Phoenician writing in the fourth stage of development. Its oldest record discovered is dated 1000 B. C. The previous stages of this writing are not traceable and it is yet uncertain what was the source from which it was derived. As the Phoenician alphabet is considered to be the parent of all the alphabets in the world it will be examined more fully in a later chapter. Greek. The Greek alphabet, as said above, has been derived from the Phoenician. Its oldest record is an Attic inscription dated about 800 B. C. Moabite. The alphabet of the Moabs is similar to the Phoenician alphabet. It is not known what the arrangement of the letters was. The oldest record dates 895 B. C. Aramaic.-The Aramaic alphabet is similar to the Moabite and had perhaps a common origin. In Aramaic there is a (1) This old date can only be taken with the greatest reservation, as it depends entirely on the statement in the tablet of Nabon dus that Sargon reigned 3200 years before his time, a period too long to be considered accurate. tentency of the heads of the letters opening. The oldest record is dated about 800 B. C. Saboan.-This is a south Semitic alphabet with 29 letters, agreeing in form, to a certain extent, to the old Brahmi script found in the inscriptions. It is dated 1000 B. C., and is the origin of the Ethiopean alphabets. All the other alphabets like Hebrew, Arabic, Roman, have been derived from one or the other of the above and need not be enumerated here. None of the alphabets, ancient or modern, reached the 5th or scientific stage. This was developed only in India, and at an age, as will be seen further on, long before Pánini wrote his grammar. The supposition, therefore, that the Indian alphabet bad a Semetic origin cannot be borne out by facts; for, although there are no actual written inscriptions available (and the cause of this has been discussed in the 1st chapter), the grammar of Páuini, which begins with an alphabet, was coeval with, if not earlier than, the oldest known inscriptions written in a monophone alphabet. It will also be noticed from the dates of the several inscriptions, that the Phoenician alphabet which is generally taken to be the parent of all the other alphabets may claim to be so for the European alphabets, but its claim is not made out so far as the Asiatic alphabets are concerned. The Sabcean and the Moabite are as old as the Phoenician and cannot be said to have been derived from the latter. Similarity of letters gives no advantage one way or the other. It is probable they had a common origin. (To be continned). THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BIHAR AND ORISSA RESEARCH SOCIETY, FOR 1921. Members. The number of ordinary members at the end of 1921 was 187 as compared with 207 in 1920. The reduction is due to an increase in subscription for resident as well as non-resident members. Ten members withdrew. During the year 1921 the Society lost one life-member and two ordinary members by death. The number of honorary members stands at 13 and the number of life-members the same. Seventeen new members were elected during the year. Journal. Owing to the great increase in the cost of printing and other reasons, it has become necessary to reduce the size of the Journal considerably. The Journal has also appeared at irregular intervals. In order to cope with the difficulties the Council have formed a Journal Committee and it is hoped to publish the Journal quarterly, although, for the present, its size must be kept within reduced limits. It is proposed to get the Journal printed by a private press, as the charges at the Government press are very high. Meetings. In 1921 the Council held two meetings only. No ordinary quarterly meetings of the Society were held. I venture to think that such meetings would be very useful if arrangements are made for the reading and discussion of papers at them, as this would keep the interest of the members and of the public in the activities of our Society. Library. Since last year we have placed the order for a complete set of Hakluyt Society's publications with Messrs. Cambray & Co., and we hope to receive the books at an early date. We have no bylaws regulating the loan, retention and return of the books in the Library. The result has been that several books have been out for years without, in some cases, even finding a place in the Catalogue. I suggest that a permanent Library Committee should be appointed as in other learned Societies, and that this committee should look after the purchase, cataloguing, loaning and general care of the Society's collections. I also suggest that in future a list of books received and purchased by the Society should be published as an appendix in the Journal, as is done, for example, by the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. The total number of volumes in our Library at present is 2,066. We are very grateful to Sir Edward Gait for a gift of valuable books, which have mate. rially enriched our Library in quality as well as quantity. Finance. A detailed statement of our financial position is given in the Appendix. The realisations from the members amounted to Rs. 1,939-5-0 and from the sale of copies of the Journal to Rs. 289-1-0. The amount realized from the members is less than in the last year for two reasons: firstly, the amount of arrears was small and, secondly, the Journal was not published in time. Anthropological Research. During the year the Anthropological Secretary has been studying some of the aboriginal tribes of the Province and, for the sake of cultural comparision, has also been studying some of the Himalayan and Central Indian tribes, such as the Mangars and Saharias. He is making a special study of the kinship systems of different peoples. We are very pleased to note the reference to our anthropological activities at the last Annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Learning in the following terms, "remarkable success in Anthropological Research under the auspices of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society," which clearly referred to the researches of Anthropological Secretary. Search for Manuscripts. The search for Sanskrit and Hindi Manuscripts was conti nued in the year under report. The Pandit in Orissa catalogued 2,004 Manuscripts out of which 123 are reported to be hitherto unedited. As regards the dates of these Manuscripts, so far as they can be ascertained, 34 belong to the 17th century, 437 to the 18th century, 1,472 to the 19th century, and the rest to the present century. The Pandit also copied out in Devanāgri 317 Manuscripts which were copied in the Oriya script during the first year. The Pandit in Mithila catalogued 1,345 Manuscripts, out of which 800 were dated. About 300 Manuscripts, out of these, belong to the 15th and 16th centuries and 500 to the 18th and 19th centuries. The Pandit reports that 230 Manuscripts have been published. It is hoped that the Journal Committee will see its way to give a descriptive account of these Manuscripts in an early number of our Journal. Amalgamation. Proposals have been made suggesting an amalgamation of the Society with the Museum Committee. Our Council have appointed a committee consisting of Messrs. Sen, Bhate and Harichand to examine the details and report how far such an amalgamation is practicable. Deputation. The General Secretary received a communication from the Joint Secretaries to the second session of the Oriental Conference, intimating that the Conference would be held in Calcutta from Saturday the 28th January, 1922, to Wednesday the 1st February, 1922, and inviting the Society to send delegates and representatives to the Conference. We accordingly sent six members of the Council as our representatives. APPENDIX. Receipts. Amount in hand on the 11th December, 1920 ... Rs. 8. p. 103 5 0 |