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' script' refers to the pre-modern members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best known inscriptions in are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka, dating to the 3rd century BC. These were long considered the earliest examples of Brahmi writing, but recent archaeological evidence in South India and Sri Lanka^[2][3] suggest the dates for the earliest use of to be around the 6th century BC, dated using radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating methods.
This script is ancestral to most of the scripts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, and perhaps even Korean Hangul. The Brāhmī numeral system is the ancestor of the Hindu-Arabic numerals, which are now used world-wide.

Contents

Origins

Characteristics

Usage

Descendant writing systems

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Origins

A fragment of Ashoka's 6th pillar edict.

Indian-standard silver drachm of the Greco-Bactrian king Agathocles (190 BC-180 BC), the obverse showing the Greek legend BASILEOS AGATOKLEOUS "Of King Agathocles", the reverse RAJANE AGATHUKLAYASA "Of King Agathocles" in .

is believed by some to be derived from a Semitic script such as the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, as was clearly the case for the contemporary Kharosthi alphabet that arose in a part of northwest Indian under the control of the Achaemenid Empire. Rhys Davids suggests that writing may have been introduced to India from the Middle East by traders. Another possibility is with the Achaemenid conquest in the late 6th century BC, that it was a planned invention under Ashoka as a prerequiste for his edicts.
Older examples of the script appear to be on fragments of pottery from the trading town of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, which have been dated to the early 5th century BC. Even earlier evidence of the script has been discovered in Bhattiprolu in Andhra Pradesh and on pieces of pottery in Adichanallur, TamilNadu, India. Radio-carbon dating has established that they belonged to the 6th century BC.Subramanian, T.S., Skeletons, script found at ancient burial site in Tamil Nadu
A glance at the oldest inscriptions shows striking parallels with contemporary Aramaic for a few of the phonemes that are equivalent between the two languages, especially if the letters are flipped to reflect the change in writing direction.

Brāhmī script on stone Kanheri Caves

However, Semitic is not a good phonological match to Indic, so any Semitic alphabet would have needed extensive (and perhaps planned) modification. Indeed, this is the most convincing circumstantial evidence for a link: the similarities between the scripts are just what one would expect from such an adaptation. For example, Aramaic did not distinguish dental from retroflex stops; in the dental and retroflex series are graphically very similar, as if both had been derived from a single prototype.
Aramaic did not have aspirated consonants (''kh, th''), whereas did not have Aramaic's emphatic consonants (''); and it appears that Aramaic's extra emphatic letters may have been used to fill in missing aspirates (Aramaic ''q'' for ''kh'', Aramaic '' for ''th''). And just where Aramaic did not have a corresponding emphatic stop, ''p'', seems to have doubled up for its aspirate: ''p'' and ''ph'' are graphically very similar, as if taken from the same source. The first letters of the alphabets also match: ''a'' looks a lot like Aramaic ''alef''.
According to others was a purely indigenous development, perhaps with the Indus script as its predecessor; these include the English scholars G.R. Hunter and Raymond Allchin.

The Brahmi symbol for /ka/, modified to represent different vowels

Characteristics

Brahmi is an abugida, meaning that each symbol represents a syllable. Each symbol holds the value of a consonant and an implied following vowel. In Brahmi, the inherent vowel is /a/. In order to indicate a different vowel, the symbol is modified with diacritics. Certain special symbols exist for syllables that begin with consonant clusters, such as /pr/ or /rv/. Many of them are combinations of the characters that represent the two sounds, creating a conjunct character.

Usage

Excluding the still-undeciphered Indus script, the Brahmi script and its sister Kharoshthi script represent the two oldest alphabets of India. While the Kharoshthi script was only used in Northwestern India, Brahmi was used all over the Indian subcontinent. Over time, differing forms and styles of Brahmi gave way to many descendant scripts. Kharoshthi, on the other hand, eventually fell out of use and did not yield any subsequent writing systems.
Like the Kharoshthi script, Brahmi was used to write the early dialects of Prakrit. Its usage was mostly restricted to inscriptions on buildings and graves as well as liturgical texts. Sanskrit was not written down at the time, and was instead passed down orally, only to be written many centuries later. As a result, Brahmi itself is not suited for recording Sanskrit, as many phonological aspects of Sanskrit have no corresponding symbol or diacritic in Brahmi (such as a final consonants).

Descendant writing systems

Brahmi evolved into many different scripts, which are divided into a Southern India group and a Northern India group. Over time, certain writing systems became associated with certain languages, and some became specific to a single language.

See also

★ Indian inscriptions

References

1. The link between Brahmi and Middle Eastern scripts is disputed, see Origins of Brahmi.
2. Deraniyagala on the Anuradhapura finds International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Proceedings of the XIII International Congress of the Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. 1996.
3.
★ Coningham, Robin, University of Bradford Anuradhapura Project

Further reading

★ Kenneth R. Norman's, ''The Development of Writing in India and its Effect upon the Pâli Canon'', in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens (36), 1993

★ Oscar von Hinüber, ''Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien'', Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990 (in German)

★ Gérard Fussman's, ''Les premiers systèmes d'écriture en Inde'', in Annuaire du Collège de France 1988-1989 (in French)

★ Siran Deraniyagala's ''The prehistory of Sri Lanka; an ecological perspective (revised ed.''), Archaeological Survey Department of Sri Lanka, 1992.

External links

★ On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article by Richard Salomon, University of Washington (via archive.org)

★ Brahmi project of the Indian Institute of Science

★ Ancient Scripts - Brahmi

★ Brahmi font

★ Imperial Brahmi font and editor

★ Omniglot - Brahmi (shows variants not on Ancient Scripts)

★ Buddha Relics urn from Piprahwa with the inscription in Brahmi

★ Windows Indic Script Support