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AKARA

The Quest for Perfect Form

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'Aksharanam akaro 'smi'

Of the letters, I am the akara'

Gita 10.33

The meaning of akshara in itself (a: not; kshara: mutable describes the attribute -- the immutability of the letterform according to most basic Indian precepts.

The Pratyahara Sutra, of fourteen syllables said to be from the sounds of the Cosmic Dancer Shiva's damaru or hand-drum was the basis of the phonetic alphabet, the key to the great grammarian Panini's Ashtadhyayi.

The signs on the Indus Valley seals of the Harappan civilisation of 2,500 B.C. says the Lalita Vistara, a Buddhist work, there were as many as 64 scripts in India.

The Mauryan Brahmi of Ashoka's edicts of the 3rd century B.C. was a highly developed writing system with simple geometric forms of minute accuracy, following a philological and phonological order. it also provided an admirable base for the development of various scripts all over India. Although they differ in signlist and depiction of letters, most of them inherit a common feature; a specific sign for a specific sound, being phonetic, rather than syllabic or ideographic.

Travelling through time and topography, Brahmi changed. The curvilinear form grew into some of the scripts of south India and the south-eastern regions of Asia. A condensed version went east towards Bengal and Assam, finely wrought ones spread across the northern boundaries to Central and East Asia. A non-decorative Brahmi descended from the north to the west, eventually to become Devanagari-- perhaps among the most widely used and widely-travelled of these scripts.

As a discipline, Calligraphy in India appears of relatively recent origin. It flourished through the Perso-Arabic scripts of the medieval period. Monarchs encouraged literary activity and writing in their courts, whereas men in trade and commerce adopted cursive scripts for speedier writing; some examples being Modi for Marathi, Mahajani for Gujarati and Karani for Oriya.

As for formal manuscript writing by masters, their names remain mostly unknown. A specific reference is found din a 17th century treatise on Calligraphy by the poet-saint Ramdas from western India.

The early 20th century saw the introduction of the running hand (copperplate) for the Roman script. Script books for Devanagari were introduced, and were in use until the 50's.

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