Origin and Development of Arakanese Script

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction: the name the land the people. 2. Arakanese chronicles and scripts. 3. Script in the third Dhanyawady age the age of the advent of script in Arakan. 4. Script in the Vesali age. 5. Script in the Lemrot age. 6. Script in the Mrauk-U age. 7. Script in present day Arakan. 8. Concluding remarks. Appendix. Select bibliography. Geographical index. General index.

In 1913 the renowned scholar R.D. Banerji was awarded the Jubilee Research Prize of Calcutta University for his dissertation “The Origin of The Bengali Script. About 100 years later, almost coincidentally, Prof. Dr. Amitabha Bhattacharyya, grandson-in-law of Prof. R.D. Banerji supervised the research work ‘Origin and Development of Arakanese Script’ by U. Sandamuni for which the latter was awarded the Ph.D. Degree of Calcutta University. Divided into eight chapters the thesis demonstrated Arakanese script from the earliest time to present day in twenty seven highly invaluable charts. Originally containing two hundred twenty four plates as part of the 2nd volume of the thesis when it was submitted in anticipation of the Ph.D. Degree, the present book illustrates eighty seven representative plates.

In the development of Arakanese script two distinct phases can be ascertained. In the first phase Arakan was influenced by eastern northern Indian form of Brahmi and its derivatives. In the second phase scripts current in Sri Lanka which themselves were influenced by Pallava-Kannada scripts of Southern India, moulded the script of Arakan. Presently excepting some regional and phonetic features there is little difference between Arakanese script-language and Myanmarese script language. (jacket)