Brahmi script: Difference between revisions

{{short description|Ancient script of Central and South Asia}}

{{for|later scripts derived from Brahmi|Brahmic scripts}}

|name=Brāhmī

|sample=[[File:Brahmi_pillar_inscription_in_Sarnath.jpg |270px]]

|caption=Brahmi script on [[Pillars of Ashoka|Ashoka Pillar]] in [[Sarnath]] (circa 250 BCE)

|type=[[Abugida]]

|time=At least by the 3rd century BCE{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=11–13}} to 5th century CE

|languages=[[Sanskrit]], [[Prakrit]], [[Kannada]], [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Telugu]], [[Saka language|Saka]], [[Tocharian languages|Tocharian]]

|fam1=[[Proto-Sinaitic script]]^?

|fam2=[[Phoenician alphabet]]^?

|fam3=[[Aramaic alphabet]]^?

|sisters=[[Kharoṣṭhī]]

|children= Numerous [[Brahmic scripts|descendant writing systems]]

|footnotes=The theorised Semitic origins of the Brahmi script are not universally agreed upon.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=20}}

|unicode=[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U11000.pdf U+11000–U+1107F]

|iso15924=Brah

'''Brahmi''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|b|r|ɑː|m|i}}; [[ISO 15919]]: Brāhmī ) is the modern name<ref name="Salomon1998-p17a">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998||p=17}} Quote: " Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as “lath” or “Lat,” “Southern Aśokan,” “Indian Pali,” “Mauryan,” and so on. The application to it of the name Brahmi [''sc. lipi''], which stands at the head of the Buddhist and Jaina script lists, was first suggested by T[errien] de Lacouperie, who noted that in the Chinese Buddhist encyclopedia ''Fa yiian chu lin'' the scripts whose names corresponded to the Brahmi and Kharosthi of the ''Lalitavistara'' are described as written from left to right and from right to left, respectively. He therefore suggested that the name Brahmi should refer to the left-to-right “Indo-Pali” script of the Aśokan pillar inscriptions, and Kharosthi to the right-to-left “Bactro-Pali” script of the rock inscriptions from the northwest."</ref> for a [[writing system]] of ancient [[South Asia]].  The Brahmi writing system, or script, appeared as a fully developed universal one in South Asia in the third century BCE,<ref name="Salomon1998-p17b">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998||p=17}} Quote: "... the Brahmi script appeared in the third century B.c. as a fully developed pan-Indian national script (sometimes used as a second script even within the proper territory of Kharosthi in the north-west) and continued to play this role throughout history, becoming the parent of all of the modern Indic scripts both within India and beyond. Thus, with the exceptions of the Indus script in the protohistoric period, of Kharosthi in the northwest in the ancient period, and of the Perso-Arabic and European scripts in the medieval and modern periods, respectively, the history of writing in India is virtually synonymous with the history of the Brahmi script and its derivatives.</ref> and is a forerunner of all writing systems that have found use in South Asia with the exception of the [[Indus script]] of the third millennium BCE, the [[Kharosthi]] script, which originated in what today is northwestern Pakistan in the fourth or possibly fifth century BCE,<ref name="Salomon1998-p42">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998||pp=42–46}} "The presumptive homeland and principal area of the use of Kharoṣțhī script ... was the territory along and around the Indus, Swat, and Kabul River Valleys of the modern North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan; ... [pp. 42–44] In short, there is no clear evidence to allow us to specify the date of the origin of Kharoṣțhī with any more precision than sometime in the fourth, or possibly the fifth, century B.C. [p. 46]"</ref> the [[Arabic script|Perso-Arabic scripts]] since the medieval period, and the [[Latin script]]s of the modern period.<ref name="Salomon1998-p17b"/> Its descendants, the [[Brahmic scripts]], continue to be in use today not only in South Asia, but also [[Southeast Asia]].{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=19–30}}<ref name="Salomon 1995"/><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brahmi |title=Brahmi |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |year=1999 |quote=Among the many descendants of Brāhmī are Devanāgarī (used for Sanskrit, Hindi and other Indian languages), the Bengali and Gujarati scripts and those of the Dravidian languages}}</ref>

Brahmi is an [[abugida]] which uses a [[system]] of diacritical marks to associate vowels with consonant symbols. The writing system only went through relatively minor evolutionary changes from the [[Mauryan Empire|Mauryan]] period (3rd century BCE) down to the early [[Gupta Empire|Gupta]] period (4th century CE), and it is thought that as late as the 4th century CE, a literate person could still read and understand Mauryan inscriptions.<ref name="CB242">{{cite book |last1=Beckwith |first1=Christopher I. |title=Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia |date=2017 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-17632-1 |page=242 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=53GYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA242 |language=en}}</ref> Sometime thereafter, the capability to read the original Brahmi script was lost. The earliest (indisputably dated) and best-known Brahmi inscriptions are the rock-cut [[edicts of Ashoka]] in north-central [[India]], dating to 250–232 BCE.  The decipherment of Brahmi became the focus of European scholarly attention in the early 19th-century during [[Company rule in India|East India Company rule in India]], in particular in the [[Asiatic Society of Bengal]] in [[Kolkata|Calcutta]].<ref name="Lahiri2015">{{citation|last=Lahiri|first=Nayanjot|author-link=Nayanjot Lahiri| title=Ashoka in Ancient India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJ_XCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA15|year=2015|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-05777-7|pages=14, 15|quote=Facsimiles of the objects and writings unearthed—from pillars in North India to rocks in Orissa and Gujarat—found their way to the [[Asiatic Society of Bengal]]. The meetings and publications of the Society provided an unusually fertile environment for innovative speculation, with scholars constantly exchanging notes on, for instance, how they had deciphered the Brahmi letters of various epigraphs from Samudragupta’s Allahabad pillar inscription, to the Karle cave inscriptions. The Eureka moment came in 1837 when James Prinsep, a brilliant secretary of the Asiatic Society, building on earlier pools of epigraphic knowledge, very quickly uncovered the key to the extinct Mauryan Brahmi script. Prinsep unlocked Ashoka; his deciphering of the script made it possible to read the inscriptions.}}</ref><ref name="Thapar2004">{{citation|last=Thapar|first=Romila|author-link=Romila Thapar|title=Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-5irrXX0apQC&pg=PA11|year=2004|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24225-8|pages=11, 178–179|quote=The nineteenth century saw considerable advances in what came to be called Indology, the study of India by non-Indians using methods of investigation developed by European scholars in the nineteenth century. In India the use of modern techniques to ‘rediscover’ the past came into practice. Among these was the decipherment of the ''brahmi'' script, largely by James Prinsep. Many inscriptions pertaining to the early past were written in ''brahmi'', but knowledge of how to read the script had been lost. Since inscriptions form the annals of Indian history, this decipherment was a major advance that led to the gradual unfolding of the past from sources other than religious and literary texts. (p. 11) ... Until about a hundred years ago in India, Ashoka was merely one of the many kings mentioned in the Mauryan dynastic list included in the Puranas. Elsewhere in the Buddhist tradition he was referred to as a ''chakravartin'', ..., a universal monarch but this tradition had become extinct in India after the decline of Buddhism. However, in 1837, James Prinsep deciphered an inscription written in the earliest Indian script since the Harappan, ''brahmi''. There were many inscriptions in which the King referred to himself as Devanampiya Piyadassi (the beloved of the gods, Piyadassi). The name did not tally with any mentioned in the dynastic lists, although it was mentioned in the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka. Slowly the clues were put together but the final confirmation came in 1915, with the discovery of yet another version of the edicts in which the King calls himself Devanampiya Ashoka. (pp. 178-179)}}</ref><ref name="ConinghamYoung2015">{{citation|last1=Coningham|first1=Robin|last2=Young|first2=Ruth|title=The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hB5TCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA71|year=2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-84697-4|pages=71–72|quote=Like William Jones, Prinsep was also an important figure within the [[Asiatic Society of Bengal|Asiatic Society]] and is best known for deciphering early Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. He was something of a polymath, undertaking research into chemistry, meteorology, Indian scriptures, numismatics, archaeology and mineral resources, while fulfilling the role of Assay Master of the East India Company mint in East Bengal (Kolkatta). It was his interest in coins and inscriptions that made him such an important figure in the history of South Asian archaeology, utilising inscribed Indo-Greek coins to decipher Kharosthi and pursuing earlier scholarly work to decipher Brahmi.  This work was key to understanding a large part of the Early Historical period in South Asia ...}}</ref><ref name="Kopf2021">{{citation|last=Kopf|first=David|author-link=David Kopf|title=British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1773-1835|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LCboDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA265|year=2021|publisher=Univ of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-36163-8|pages=265–266|quote=In 1837, four years after Wilson's departure, James Prinsep, then Secretary of the Asiatic Society, unravelled the mystery of the Brahmi script and thus was able to read the edicts of the great Emperor Asoka. The rediscovery of Buddhist India was the last great achievement of the British orientalists. The later discoveries would be made by Continental Orientalists or by Indians themselves.}}</ref> Brahmi was deciphered by [[James Prinsep]], the secretary of the Society, in a series of scholarly articles in the Society's journal in the 1830s.<ref name="Verma2018">{{citation|last=Verma|first=Anjali|title=Women and Society in Early Medieval India: Re-interpreting Epigraphs|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wQFlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT27|year=2018|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0-429-82642-9|pages=27–|quote=In 1836, James Prinsep published a long series of facsimiles of ancient inscriptions, and this series continued in volumes of the ''[[Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal]]''. The credit for decipherment of the Brahmi script goes to James Prinsep and thereafter Georg Buhler prepared complete and scientific tables of Brahmi and Khrosthi scripts.}}</ref><ref name="KulkeRothermund2016">{{citation|last1=Kulke|first1=Hermann|author-link1=Hermann Kulke|last2=Rothermund|first2=Dietmar|author-link2=Dietmar Rothermund|title=A History of India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xYelDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA39|year=2016|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-1-317-24212-3|pages=39–|quote=Ashoka’s reign of more than three decades is the first fairly well-documented period of Indian history. Ashoka left us a series of great inscriptions (major rock edicts, minor rock edicts, pillar edicts) which are among the most important records of India’s past. Ever since they were discovered and deciphered by the British scholar James Prinsep in the 1830s, several generations of Indologists and historians have studied these inscriptions with great care.}}</ref><ref name="WolpertWolpert2009">{{citation|last=Wolpert|first=Stanley A.|author-link=Stanley Wolpert|title=A New History of India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JT0wAQAAIAAJ|year=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-533756-3|page=62|quote=James Prinsep, an amateur epigraphist who worked in the British mint in Calcutta, first deciphered the Brāhmi script.}}</ref><ref name="Chakrabarti2020">{{citation|last=Chakrabarti|first=Pratik|title=Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eaECEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA48|year=2020|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|isbn=978-1-4214-3874-0|pages=48–|quote=Prinsep, the Orientalist scholar, as the secretary of the [[Asiatic Society of Bengal]] (1832-39), oversaw one of the most productive periods of numismatic and epigraphic study in nineteenth-century India. Between 1833 and 1838, Prinsep published a series of papers based on Indo-Greek coins and his deciphering of Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts.}}</ref> His breakthroughs built on the epigraphic work of [[Christian Lassen]], [[Edwin Norris]], [[Horace Hayman Wilson|H. H. Wilson]] and [[Alexander Cunningham]], among others.<ref name="Salomon1998">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998||pp=204–205}} "Prinsep came to India in 1819 as assistant to the assay master of the Calcutta Mint and remained until 1838, when he returned to England for reasons of health. During this period Prinsep made a long series of discoveries in the fields of epigraphy and numismatics as well as in the natural sciences and technical fields. But he is best known for his breakthroughs in the decipherment of the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. ... Although Prinsep's final decipherment was ultimately to rely on paleographic and contextual rather than statistical methods, it is still no less a tribute to his genius that he should have thought to apply such modern techniques to his problem."</ref><ref name="Sircar2017">{{citation|last=Sircar|first=D.C.|author-link=D. C. Sircar|title=Indian Epigraphy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ceDuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11|year=2017|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|location=Delhi|isbn=978-81-208-4103-1|pages=11–|orig-date=1965|quote=The work of the reconstruction of the early period of Indian history was inaugurated by European scholars in the 18th century. Later on, Indians also became interested in the subject. The credit for the decipherment of early Indian inscriptions, written in the Brahmi and Kharosthi alphabets, which paved the way for epigraphical and historical studies in India, is due to scholars like Prinsep, Lassen, Norris and Cunningham.}}</ref><ref name=RHP>{{citation|last=Garg|first=Sanjay|editor=Himanshu Prabha Ray|title=Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MiBBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT181|year=2017|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-351-25274-4|pages=181–|chapter=Charles Masson: A footloose antiquarian in Afghanistan and the building up of numismatic collections in museums in India and England}}</ref>

The origin of the script is still much debated, with most scholars stating that Brahmi was derived from or at least influenced by one or more contemporary [[Proto-Sinaitic script|Semitic scripts]], while others favor the idea of an indigenous origin or connection to the much older and as yet undeciphered [[Indus script]] of the [[Indus Valley Civilization]].{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=20}}<ref name=scharfe391>{{cite journal | last=Scharfe | first=Hartmut | title=Kharosti and Brahmi | journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society | volume=122 | issue=2 | year=2002 | pages=391–393 | doi=10.2307/3087634 | jstor=3087634 }}</ref> Brahmi was at one time referred to in English as the "pin-man" script,{{sfn|Keay|2000|p=129–131}} that is "[[stick figure]]" script. It was known by a variety of other names, including "lath", "Laṭ", "Southern Aśokan", "Indian Pali" or "Mauryan" {{harv|Salomon|1998|p=17}}, until the 1880s when [[Albert Étienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie]], based on an observation by [[Gabriel Devéria]], associated it with the Brahmi script, the first in a list of scripts mentioned in the ''[[Lalitavistara Sūtra]]''. Thence the name was adopted in the influential work of [[Georg Bühler]], albeit in the variant form "Brahma".{{sfn|Falk|1993|p=106}} The [[Gupta script]] of the fifth century is sometimes called "Late Brahmi". The Brahmi script diversified into numerous local variants classified together as the [[Brahmic scripts]]. Dozens of modern scripts used across South Asia have descended from Brahmi, making it one of the world's most influential writing traditions.{{sfn|Rajgor|2007}}{{full citation needed|date=April 2021}} One survey found 198 scripts that ultimately derive from it.{{sfn|Trautmann|2006|p=64}}

Among the inscriptions of Ashoka c. 3rd-century BCE written in the Brahmi script a few numerals were found, which have come to be called the [[Brahmi numerals]].{{Sfn|Plofker|2009|pp=44–45}} The numerals are additive and multiplicative and, therefore, not [[Place-value notation|place value]];{{Sfn|Plofker|2009|pp=44–45}} it is not known if their underlying system of numeration has a connection to the Brahmi script.{{Sfn|Plofker|2009|pp=44–45}} But in the second half of the first millennium CE, some inscriptions in India and Southeast Asia written in scripts derived from the Brahmi did include numerals that are decimal place value, and constitute the earliest existing material examples of the [[Hindu-Arabic numeral system]], now in use throughout the world.{{Sfn|Plofker|2009|p=45}} The underlying system of numeration, however, was older, as the earliest attested orally transmitted example dates to the middle of the 3rd century CE in a [[Sanskrit]] prose adaptation of a lost Greek work on astrology.{{Sfn|Plofker|2009|p=47||ps="A firm upper bound for the date of this invention is attested by a Sanskrit text of the mid-third century CE, the [[Yavana-jātaka]] or “Greek horoscopy” of one Sphujidhvaja, which is a versified form of a translated Greek work on astrology. Some numbers in this text appear in concrete number format"}}{{Sfn|Hayashi|2003|p=119}}{{Sfn|Plofker|2007|pp=396–397}}

[[File:Child learning Brahmi Alphabets, Shunga era 2nd Century BCE, National Mseum, New Delhi.jpg|thumb|250px|A northern example of Brahmi epigraphy: ancient terracotta sculpture from [[Srughna|Sugh]] ''"Child learning [[Brahmi]]"'', showing the first letters of the Brahmi alphabet, 2nd century BCE.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chhabra |first1=B. Ch. |title=Sugh Terracotta with Brahmi Barakhadi: appears in the Bulletin National Museum No. 2 |date=1970 |publisher=National Museum |location=New Delhi |url=https://archive.org/details/NationalMuseumBulletinNo.2/page/n1}}</ref>]]

The Brahmi script is mentioned in the ancient Indian texts of [[Hinduism]], [[Jainism]] and [[Buddhism]], as well as their Chinese translations.<ref name=georgbuhler6>{{cite book|author=Georg Bühler|title=On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kfIVUd7BCbAC&pg=PR14|year=1898|publisher=K.J. Trübner|pages=6, 14–15, 23, 29}}, Quote: "(...) a passage of the ''Lalitavistara'' which describes the first visit of Prince Siddhartha, the future Buddha, to the writing school..." (page 6); "In the account of Prince Siddhartha's first visit to the writing school, extracted by Professor Terrien de la Couperie from the Chinese translation of the Lalitavistara of 308 AD, there occurs besides the mention of the sixty-four alphabets, known also from the printed Sanskrit text, the utterance of the Master Visvamitra[.]"</ref><ref name=salomon8>{{harvnb|Salomon|1998|pages=8–10 with footnotes}}</ref> For example, the ''Lipisala samdarshana parivarta'' lists 64 ''[[lipi]]'' (scripts), with the Brahmi script starting the list. The ''[[Lalitavistara Sūtra]]'' states that young Siddhartha, the future [[Gautama Buddha]] (~500 BCE), mastered philology, Brahmi and other scripts from the [[Brahmin]] Lipikāra and Deva Vidyāiṃha at a school.<ref name=nado95>{{cite journal|last1=Nado|first1=Lopon|title=The Development of Language in Bhutan|journal=The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies|date=1982|volume=5|issue=2|page=95|quote=Under different teachers, such as the Brahmin Lipikara and Deva Vidyasinha, he mastered Indian philology and scripts. According to Lalitavistara, there were as many as sixty-four scripts in India.}}</ref><ref name=georgbuhler6/>

While the contemporary Kharoṣṭhī script is widely accepted to be a derivation of the [[Aramaic alphabet]], the genesis of the Brahmi script is less straightforward. Salomon reviewed existing theories in 1998,{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=19–30}} while Falk provided an overview in 1993.{{sfn|Falk|1993|pp=109–167}}

Early theories proposed a [[pictographic]]-[[acrophonic]] origin for the Brahmi script, on the model of the Egyptian [[hieroglyphic]] script. These ideas however have lost credence, as they are "purely imaginative and speculative".<ref name=RS19>{{harvnb|Salomon |1998 |pp=19–20 }}</ref> Similar ideas have tried to connect the Brahmi script with the [[Indus script]], but they remain unproven, and particularly suffer from the fact that the Indus script is as yet undeciphered.<ref name=RS19/>

[[File:Theory of pictographic-acrophonic origin of the Brahmi script.jpg|350px|thumb|A later (mistaken) theory of a [[pictographic]]-[[acrophonic]] origin of the Brahmi script, on the model of the Egyptian [[hieroglyphic]] script, by [[Alexander Cunningham]] in 1877.]]

The mainstream view is that Brahmi has an origin in Semitic scripts (usually Aramaic). This is accepted by the vast majority of script scholars since the publications by [[Albrecht Weber]] (1856) and [[Georg Bühler]]'s ''On the origin of the Indian Brahma alphabet'' (1895).{{sfn|Salomon|1996|p=378}}<ref name="Salomon 1995">{{Citation | last=Salomon | first=Richard | title=On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article. ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 115.2 (1995), 271–279 | url=http://indology.info/papers/salomon/ | access-date=2013-06-18 | archive-date=2019-05-22 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190522210705/http://www.indology.info/papers/salomon/ | url-status=dead }}</ref> Bühler's ideas have been particularly influential, though even by the 1895 date of his opus on the subject, he could identify no fewer than five competing theories of the origin, one positing an indigenous origin and the others deriving it from various Semitic models.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=2}}

The most disputed point about the origin of the Brahmi script has long been whether it was a purely indigenous development or was borrowed or derived from scripts that originated outside India. Goyal (1979)<ref>S. R. Goyal in: S.P.Gupta, K.S.Ramachandran (eds.), ''The Origin of Brahmi Script'' (1979), cited after Salomon (1998).</ref> noted that most proponents of the indigenous view are fringe Indian scholars, whereas the theory of Semitic origin is held by "nearly all" Western scholars, and Salomon agrees with Goyal that there has been "nationalist bias" and "imperialist bias" on the two respective sides of the debate.<ref>Salomon (1998), p. 19, fn. 42: "there is no doubt some truth in Goyal's comment that some of their views have been affected by 'nationalist bias' and 'imperialist bias,' respectively."</ref> In spite of this, the view of indigenous development had been prevalent among British scholars writing prior to Bühler: A passage by [[Alexander Cunningham]], one of the earliest indigenous origin proponents, suggests that, in his time, the indigenous origin was a preference of British scholars in opposition to the "unknown Western" origin preferred by [[continental Europe|continental]] scholars.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=2}} Cunningham in the seminal ''Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum'' of 1877 speculated that Brahmi characters were derived from, among other things, a pictographic principle based on the human body,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Cunningham|first1=Alexander|title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum v. 1: Inscriptions of Asoka|date=1877|publisher=Superintendent of Government Printing|location=Calcutta|page=54}}</ref> but Bühler noted that by 1891, Cunningham considered the origins of the script uncertain.

| footer = [[Heliodorus pillar]] in the Indian state of [[Madhya Pradesh]]. Installed about 113 BCE and now named after [[Heliodorus (ambassador)|Heliodorus]], who was an ambassador of the Indo-Greek king [[Antialcidas]] from Taxila, and was sent to the Indian ruler [[Bhagabhadra]]. The pillar's Brahmi-script inscription states that Heliodorus is a ''Bhagvatena'' (devotee) of [[Vāsudeva]]. A couplet in it closely paraphrases a Sanskrit verse from the ''Mahabharata''.<ref>{{cite book|author1=F. R. Allchin|author2=George Erdosy|title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5kI02_zW70C&pg=PA309 |year=1995| publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-37695-2|pages=309–310}}</ref><ref>L. A. Waddell (1914), Besnagar Pillar Inscription B Re-Interpreted, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Cambridge University Press, pages 1031-1037</ref>

Most scholars believe that Brahmi was likely derived from or influenced by a Semitic script model, with Aramaic being a leading candidate.<ref name=britbrahmiscript>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brahmi Brahmi], Encyclopedia Britannica (1999), Quote: "Brāhmī, writing system ancestral to all Indian scripts except Kharoṣṭhī. Of Aramaic derivation or inspiration, it can be traced to the 8th or 7th century BC, when it may have been introduced to Indian merchants by people of Semitic origin. (...) a coin of the 4th century BC, discovered in Madhya Pradesh, is inscribed with Brāhmī characters running from right to left."</ref> However, the issue is not settled due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhī, and Brahmi.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=18–24}} Though Brahmi and the [[Kharoṣṭhī]] script share some general features, the differences between the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts are "much greater than their similarities," and "the overall differences between the two render a direct linear development connection unlikely", states Richard Salomon.<ref name=":0">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998|pages=23, 46–54|oclc=252595337}}</ref>

Virtually all authors accept that regardless of the origins, the differences between the Indian script and those proposed to have influenced it are significant. The degree of Indian development of the Brahmi script in both the graphic form and the structure has been extensive. It is also widely accepted that theories about the [[grammar of the Vedic language]] probably had a strong influence on this development. Some authors – both Western and Indian – suggest that Brahmi was borrowed or inspired by a Semitic script, invented in a short few years during the reign of Ashoka and then used widely for Ashokan inscriptions.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=18–24}} In contrast, some authors reject the idea of foreign influence.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=19-21 with footnotes}}{{Sfn|Annette Wilke| Oliver Moebus| 2011|p=194 with footnote 421}}

[[Bruce Trigger]] states that Brahmi likely emerged from the Aramaic script but with extensive local development but there is no evidence of a direct common source.<ref name=trigger60>{{Citation|first=Bruce G.|last=Trigger|chapter=Writing Systems: a case study in cultural evolution|title=The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2004|editor=Stephen D. Houston|pages=60–61}}</ref> According to Trigger, Brahmi was in use before the Ashoka pillars, at least by 4th or 5th century BCE in [[Sri Lanka]] and India, while Kharoṣṭhī was used only in northwest South Asia (eastern parts of modern Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan) for a while before it died out in ancient times.<ref name=trigger60/> According to Salomon, the evidence of Kharosthi script's use is found primarily in Buddhist records and those of Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian and Kushana dynasty era. The Kharosthi likely fell out of general use in or about the 3rd-century CE.<ref name=":0"/>

Justeson and Stephens proposed that this inherent vowel system in Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī developed by transmission of a Semitic [[abjad]] through the recitation of its letter values. The idea is that learners of the source alphabet recite the sounds by combining the consonant with an unmarked vowel, e.g. /kə/,/kʰə/,/gə/, and in the process of borrowing into another language, these syllables are taken to be the sound values of the symbols. They also accepted the idea that Brahmi was based on a North Semitic model.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Justeson|first1=J.S.|last2=Stephens|first2=L.D.|title=The evolution of syllabaries from alphabets|journal=Die Sprache|date=1993|volume=35|pages=2–46|url=https://www.academia.edu/6805639}}</ref>

|-

| p/ph || [[File:Brahmi p.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi ph.svg|15px]] || curve addition

| b/bh || [[File:Brahmi b.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi bh.svg|15px]] || hook addition with some alteration

|-

|-

Many scholars link the origin of Brahmi to Semitic script models, particularly Aramaic.{{sfn|Salomon|1996|p=378}} The explanation of how this might have happened, the particular Semitic script and the chronology have been the subject of much debate. Bühler followed Max Weber in connecting it particularly to Phoenician and proposed an early 8th century BCE date{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=84–91}} for the borrowing. A link to [[Ancient South Arabian script|the South Semitic script]], a less prominent branch of the Semitic script family, has occasionally been proposed but has not gained much acceptance.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=23–24}} Finally, the Aramaic script being the prototype for Brahmi has been the more preferred hypothesis because of its geographic proximity to the Indian subcontinent, and its influence likely arising because Aramaic was the bureaucratic language of the Achaemenid empire. However, this hypothesis does not explain the mystery of why two very different scripts, Kharoṣṭhī and Brahmi, developed from the same Aramaic. A possible explanation might be that Ashoka created an imperial script for his edicts, but there is no evidence to support this conjecture.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|p=28}}

The below chart shows the close resemblance that Brahmi has with the first four letters of Semitic script, the first column representing the [[Phoenician alphabet]].

! rowspan="2" | Name<ref>after {{cite book|first=Steven R.|last=Fischer|year=2001|title=A History of Writing|publisher=Reaction Books|location=London|page=126}}</ref>

According to the Semitic hypothesis as laid out by Bühler in 1898, the oldest Brahmi inscriptions were derived from a Phoenician prototype.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=59,68,71,75}}{{refn|group=note|Aramaic is written from right to left, as are several early examples of Brahmi.{{sfn|Salomon|1996}}{{page needed|date=March 2017}} For example, Brahmi and Aramaic ''g'' ([[Image:Brahmi_g.svg|15px|ga]] and [[Image:Gimel.svg|15px|gimel]]) and Brahmi and Aramaic ''t'' ([[Image:Brahmi_t.svg|15px|ta]] and [[Image:taw.svg|15px|taw]]) are nearly identical, as are several other pairs. Bühler also perceived a pattern of derivation in which certain characters were turned upside down, as with ''pe'' [[File:Phoenician pe.svg|15px|Pe]] and [[File:Brahmi p.svg|15px]] ''pa'', which he attributed to a stylistic preference against top-heavy characters.}} Salomon states Bühler's arguments are "weak historical, geographical, and chronological justifications for a Phoenician prototype". Discoveries made since Bühler's proposal, such as of six Mauryan inscriptions in Aramaic, suggest Bühler's proposal about Phoenician as weak. It is more likely that Aramaic, which was virtually certainly the prototype for Kharoṣṭhī, also may have been the basis for Brahmi. However, it is unclear why the ancient Indians would have developed two very different scripts.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=28}}

  |+ Comparison of North Semitic and Brahmi scripts{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=25}}{{refn|group=note|Bühler notes that other authors derive [[File:Brahmi ch.svg|15px]] (cha) from qoph. "M.L." indicates that the letter was used as a ''[[mater lectionis]]'' in some phase of Phoenician or Aramaic. The ''matres lectionis'' functioned as occasional vowel markers to indicate medial and final vowels in the otherwise consonant-only script. Aleph [[File:Phoenician aleph.svg|15px|Aleph]] and particularly ʿayin [[Image:Phoenician ayin.svg|15px|Ayin]] only developed this function in later phases of Phoenician and related scripts, though [[File:Phoenician aleph.svg|15px|Aleph]] also sometimes functioned to mark an initial [[Prothesis (linguistics)|prosthetic (or prothetic)]] vowel from a very early period.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Andersen|first1=F.I.|last2=Freedman|first2=D.N.|title=Studies in Hebrew and Aramaic Orthography|date=1992|publisher=Eisenbrauns|location=Winona Lake, Indiana|pages=79–90|chapter=Aleph as a vowel in Old Aramaic}}</ref>}}

  ![[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] !![[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]]!! Value !! style="background: #ffaa66;" | Brahmi !! style="background: #ffaa66;" |Value

  |[[File:Phoenician sin.svg|15px|Sin]] ||[[File:shin.svg|15px|Sin]] || š {{IPAblink|ʃ}} || [[File:Brahmi sh.svg|15px]] || śa

According to Bühler, Brahmi added symbols for certain sounds not found in Semitic languages, and either deleted or repurposed symbols for Aramaic sounds not found in Prakrit. For example, Aramaic lacks the [[retroflex consonant|phonetic retroflex feature]] that appears among Prakrit [[Dental consonant|dental]] stops, such as {{IAST|ḍ}}, and in Brahmi the symbols of the retroflex and non-retroflex consonants are graphically very similar, as if both had been derived from a single prototype. (See [[Tibetan alphabet#Consonants|Tibetan alphabet]] for a similar later development.) Aramaic did not have Brahmi's [[aspirated consonant]]s ({{IAST|kh}}, {{IAST|th}}, ''etc.''), whereas Brahmi did not have Aramaic's [[emphatic consonant]]s (''{{transl|sem|q, ṭ, ṣ}}''), and it appears that these unneeded emphatic letters filled in for some of Brahmi's aspirates: Aramaic ''q'' for Brahmi ''kh,'' Aramaic ''ṭ'' (Θ) for Brahmi ''th'' ({{IPA|ʘ}}), ''etc.'' And just where Aramaic did not have a corresponding emphatic stop, ''p'', Brahmi seems to have doubled up for the corresponding aspirate: Brahmi ''p'' and ''ph'' are graphically very similar, as if taken from the same source in Aramaic ''p''. Bühler saw a systematic derivational principle for the other aspirates ''ch'', ''jh'', ''ph'', ''bh'', and ''dh'', which involved adding a curve or upward hook to the right side of the character (which has been speculated to derive from ''h'', [[File:Brahmi h.svg|15px]]), while ''d'' and ''ṭ'' (not to be confused with the Semitic emphatic {{transl|sem|ṭ}}) were derived by back formation from ''dh'' and ''ṭh''.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=76-77}}

The attached table lists the correspondences between Brahmi and North Semitic scripts.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=82-83}}{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=25}}

Bühler states that both Phoenician and Brahmi had three voiceless [[sibilant]]s, but because the alphabetical ordering was lost, the correspondences among them are not clear. Bühler was able to suggest Brahmi derivatives corresponding to all of the 22 North Semitic characters, though clearly, as Bühler himself recognized, some are more confident than others. He tended to place much weight on phonetic congruence as a guideline, for example connecting ''c'' [[File:Brahmi c.svg|15px]] to [[tsade]] [[Image:Phoenician sade.svg|15px]] rather than [[kaph]] [[File:Phoenician kaph.svg|15px]], as preferred by many of his predecessors.

Another evidence cited in favor of Persian influence has been the Hultzsch proposal in 1925 that the Prakrit/Sanskrit word for writing itself, ''lipi'' is similar to the Old Persian word ''dipi'', suggesting a probable borrowing.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hultzsch|first1=E.|title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum v. 1: Inscriptions of Asoka|date=1925|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford |page=xlii|url= https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n44/mode/1up|access-date=8 April 2015}}</ref><ref name="Scharfe 2002" /> A few of the Ashoka edicts from the region nearest the Persian empire use ''dipi'' as the Prakrit word for writing, which appears as ''lipi'' elsewhere, and this geographic distribution has long been taken, at least back to Bühler's time, as an indication that the standard ''lipi'' form is a later alteration that appeared as it diffused away from the Persian sphere of influence. Persian ''dipi'' itself is thought to be an [[Elamite language|Elamite]] loanword.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Tavernier|first1=Jan|title=The Case of Elamite Tep-/Tip- and Akkadian Tuppu|journal=Iran|date=2007|volume=45|pages=57–69|url=https://archive.org/stream/Tavernier2007THECASEOFELAMITETEPTIPANDAKKADIANTUPPU/Tavernier%202007%20THE%20CASE%20OF%20ELAMITE%20TEP-TIP-%20AND%20AKKADIAN%20%E1%B9%ACUPPU_djvu.txt|access-date=8 April 2015|doi=10.1080/05786967.2007.11864718|s2cid=191052711}}</ref>

[[File:Coin of the Bactrian King Agathokles.jpg|thumb|300px|Coin of [[Agathocles of Bactria|Agathocles]] with [[Hindu]] deities, in Greek and Brahmi.<br>'''Obv''' [[Balarama]]-[[Samkarshana]] with Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ.<br>'''Rev''' [[Vasudeva-Krishna]] with [[Brahmi]] legend:𑀭𑀸𑀚𑀦𑁂 𑀅𑀕𑀣𑀼𑀓𑁆𑀮𑀬𑁂𑀲 ''Rājane Agathukleyesa'' "King Agathocles". Circa 180 BCE.]]

Falk's 1993 book ''Schrift im Alten Indien'' is a study on writing in ancient [[India]],<ref name=bronkhorst2002lar/>{{sfn|Falk|1993}} and has a section on the origins of Brahmi.{{sfn|Falk|1993|pp=109–167}} It features an extensive review of the literature up to that time. Falk sees the basic [[writing]] [[system]] of Brahmi as being derived from the Kharoṣṭhī script, itself a derivative of Aramaic. At the time of his writing, the Ashoka edicts were the oldest confidently dateable examples of Brahmi, and he perceives in them "a clear development in language from a faulty linguistic style to a well honed one"{{Sfn|Annette Wilke| Oliver Moebus| 2011|p=194, footnote 421}} over time, which he takes to indicate that the script had been recently developed.{{sfn|Falk|1993|pp=109–167}}<ref name=salomon1995rev/> Falk deviates from the mainstream of opinion in seeing Greek as also being a significant source for Brahmi. On this point particularly, Salomon disagrees with Falk, and after presenting evidence of very different methodology between Greek and Brahmi notation of vowel quantity, he states "it is doubtful whether Brahmi derived even the basic concept from a Greek prototype".{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|p=22}} Further, adds Salomon, in a "limited sense Brahmi can be said to be derived from Kharosthi, but in terms of the actual forms of the characters, the differences between the two Indian scripts are much greater than the similarities".{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=23}}

As of 2018, Harry Falk refined his view by affirming that Brahmi was developed from scratch in a rational way at the time of [[Ashoka]], by consciously combining the advantages of the pre-existing [[Greek script]] and northern [[Kharosthi]] script.<ref name="HF57"/> Greek-style letter types were selected for their "broad, upright and symmetrical form", and writing from left to right was also adopted for its convenience.<ref name="HF57"/> On the other hand, the Kharosthi treatment of vowels was retained, with its inherent vowel "a", derived from [[Aramaic]], and stroke additions to represent other vowel signs.<ref name="HF57"/> In addition, a new system of combining consonants vertically to represent complex sounds was also developed.<ref name="HF57">{{cite journal |last1=Falk |first1=Harry |title=The Creation and Spread of Scripts in Ancient India |journal=Literacy in Ancient Everyday Life, Pp.43-66 |date=2018 |pages=see pages 57–58 for the online publication|doi=10.1515/9783110594065-004 |isbn=9783110594065 |url=https://www.academia.edu/37342561 |language=en}}</ref>

The possibility of an indigenous origin such as a connection to the [[Indus script]] is supported by some Western and Indian scholars and writers. The theory that there are similarities to the Indus script was suggested by early European scholars such as the archaeologist [[John Marshall (archaeologist)|John Marshall]]<ref>{{cite book|author=John Marshall|title=Mohenjo-daro and the Indus civilization: being an official account of archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-Daro carried out by the government of India between the years 1922 and 1927|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ds_hazstxY4C&pg=PA423|year=1931|publisher=Asian Educational Services|isbn=978-81-206-1179-5|page=423}}, Quote: "Langdon also suggested that the Brahmi script was derived from the Indus writing, (...)".</ref> and the Assyriologist [[Stephen Herbert Langdon|Stephen Langdon]],<ref>{{cite book|author1=Senarat Paranavitana|author2=Leelananda Prematilleka|author3=Johanna Engelberta van Lohuizen-De Leeuw|title=Studies in South Asian Culture: Senarat Paranavitana Commemoration Volume|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OIceAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119|year=1978|publisher=Brill Academic|isbn=90-04-05455-3|page=119}}</ref>. G.R. Hunter in his book ''The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its Connection with Other Scripts'' (1934) proposed a derivation of the Brahmi alphabets from the Indus Script, the match being considerably higher than that of Aramaic in his estimation.<ref name="Hunter 1934">{{citation| title=The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its Connection with Other Scripts|last=Hunter|first=G.R.|year=1934|publisher=London:K. Paul, Trench, Trubner|series=Studies in the history of culture|url=http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00013642/}}</ref> British archaeologist [[Raymond Allchin]] stated that there is a powerful argument against the idea that the Brahmi script has Semitic borrowing because the whole structure and conception is quite different. He at one time suggested that the origin may have been purely indigenous with the Indus script as its predecessor.<ref>{{Citation | last=Goody|first=Jack|title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1987|pages=301–302 (note 4)}}</ref> However, Allchin and Erdosy later in 1995 expressed the opinion that there was as yet insufficient evidence to resolve the question.<ref>{{Citation | last1=Allchin | first1=F.Raymond |last2=Erdosy|first2=George | title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States | publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995|page=336}}</ref>  

Today the indigenous origin hypothesis is more commonly promoted by non-specialists, such as the computer scientist [[Subhash Kak]], the spiritual teachers [[David Frawley]] and [[Georg Feuerstein]], and the social anthropologist [[Jack Goody]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Georg Feuerstein|author2=Subhash Kak|author3=David Frawley|title=The Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wNlsRZh3rwgC&pg=PA136|year=2005|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-2037-1|pages=136–137}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Jack Goody|title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TepXQMN6lfUC&pg=PA301|year=1987|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-33794-6|pages=301 footnote 4}}, Quote: "In recent years, I have been leaning towards the view that the Brahmi script had an independent Indian evolution, probably emerging from the breakdown of the old Harappan script in the first half of the second millennium BC".</ref><ref name= Paranavitana119>{{cite book|author1=Senarat Paranavitana|author2=Leelananda Prematilleka|author3=Johanna Engelberta van Lohuizen-De Leeuw|title=Studies in South Asian Culture: Senarat Paranavitana Commemoration Volume|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OIceAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119|year=1978|publisher=Brill Academic|isbn=90-04-05455-3|pages=119–120 with footnotes}}</ref> Subhash Kak disagrees with the proposed Semitic origins of the script,<ref>{{Citation |first=Subhash | last=Kak| title=The evolution of early writing in India| journal=Indian Journal of History of Science |volume=28| pages=375–388| year=1994|url=http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/writ.pdf}}</ref> instead states that the interaction between the Indic and the Semitic worlds before the rise of the Semitic scripts might imply a reverse process.<ref>Kak, S. (2005). Akhenaten, Surya, and the Rigveda. in "The Golden Chain" [[Govind Chandra Pande]] (editor), CRC, 2005. http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/Akhenaten.pdf</ref> However, the chronology thus presented and the notion of an unbroken tradition of literacy is opposed by a majority of academics who support an indigenous origin. Evidence for a continuity between Indus and Brahmi has also been seen in graphic similarities between Brahmi and the late Indus script, where the ten most common ligatures correspond with the form of one of the ten most common glyphs in Brahmi.<ref>Kak, S. (1988). A frequency analysis of the Indus script. Cryptologia 12: 129–143. http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/IndusFreqAnalysis.pdf</ref> There is also corresponding evidence of continuity in the use of numerals.<ref>Kak, S. (1990) Indus and Brahmi – further connections, Cryptologia 14: 169–183</ref> Further support for this continuity comes from statistical analysis of the relationship carried out by Das.<ref>Das, S. ; Ahuja, A. ; Natarajan, B. ; Panigrahi, B.K. (2009) Multi-objective optimization of Kullback-Leibler divergence between Indus and Brahmi writing. World Congress on Nature & Biologically Inspired Computing, 2009. NaBIC 2009.1282 – 1286. {{ISBN|978-1-4244-5053-4}}</ref> Salomon considered simple graphic similarities between characters to be insufficient evidence for a connection without knowing the phonetic values of the Indus script, though he found apparent similarities in patterns of compounding and diacritical modification to be "intriguing." However, he felt that it was premature to explain and evaluate them due to the large chronological gap between the scripts and the thus far indecipherable nature of the Indus script.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=20–21}}

The main obstacle to this idea is the lack of evidence for writing during the millennium and a half between the collapse of the [[Indus Valley Civilisation]] around 1500 BCE and the first widely accepted appearance of Brahmi in the 3rd or 4th centuries BCE. Iravathan Mahadevan makes the point that even if one takes the latest dates of 1500 BCE for the Indus script and earliest claimed dates of Brahmi around 500 BCE, a thousand years still separates the two.<ref name="Mahadevan interview">{{cite web|last1=Khan|first1=Omar|title=Mahadevan Interview: Full Text|url=http://www.harappa.com/script/mahadevantext.html|website=Harappa|access-date=4 June 2015}}</ref> Furthermore, there is no accepted decipherment of the Indus script, which makes theories based on claimed decipherments tenuous. A promising possible link between the Indus script and later writing traditions may be in the [[megalithic graffiti symbols]] of the South Indian megalithic culture, which may have some overlap with the Indus symbol inventory and persisted in use up at least through the appearance of the Brahmi and Tamil Brahmi scripts up into the third century CE. These graffiti usually appear singly, though on occasion may be found in groups of two or three, and are thought to have been family, clan, or religious symbols.<ref>{{citation|title=Between the Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE|chapter=Inscribed pots, emerging identities|first=Himanshu Prabha| last=Ray|pages=121–122|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2006|editor=Patrick Olivelle|editor-link=Patrick Olivelle}}</ref> In 1935, C.L. Fábri proposed that symbols found on Mauryan [[punch-marked coins]] were remnants of the Indus script that had survived the collapse of the Indus civilization.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Fábri|first1=C. L.|title=The Punch-Marked Coins: A Survival of the Indus Civilization|journal=The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland|date=1935|volume=67|issue=2|pages=307–318|doi=10.1017/S0035869X00086482|jstor=25201111}}</ref> [[Iravatham Mahadevan]], decipherer of Tamil-Brahmi and a noted expert on the Indus script, has supported the idea that both those [[semiotics|semiotic]] traditions may have some continuity with the Indus script, but regarding the idea of continuity with Brahmi, he has categorically stated that he does not believe that theory "at all".<ref name="Mahadevan interview"/>

{{main|Lipi}}

[[Pāṇini]] (6th to 4th century BCE) mentions ''[[lipi]]'', the Indian word for writing scripts in his definitive work on [[Sanskrit]] grammar, the ''Ashtadhyayi''. According to Scharfe, the words ''lipi'' and ''libi'' are borrowed from the [[Old Persian]] ''dipi'', in turn derived from Sumerian ''dup''.<ref name="Scharfe 2002">{{citation|last=Scharfe|first=Hartmut|series=Handbook of Oriental Studies|title=Education in Ancient India|pages=10–12|year=2002|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|location=Leiden, Netherlands}}</ref>{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=135}} To describe his own Edicts, Ashoka used the word ''[[Lipī]]'', now generally simply translated as "writing" or "inscription". It is thought the word "lipi", which is also orthographed "dipi" in the two [[Kharosthi]]-version of the rock edicts,{{refn|group=note|[[File:Dhrama Dipi inscription in the Shahbazgarhi First Edict in the Kharosthi script.jpg|right|120px|thumb|"[[Dharma|Dhrama]]-[[Lipi|Dipi]]" in [[Kharosthi]] script.]]For example, according to Hultzsch, the first line of the First Edict at [[Shahbazgarhi]] (or at [[Mansehra]]) reads: ''"(Ayam) [[Dharma|Dhrama]]-[[lipi|dipi]] Devanapriyasa Raño likhapitu"'' ("This Dharma-Edicts was written by King [[Devanampriya]]" {{cite book |title=Inscriptions of Asoka. New Edition by E. Hultzsch |date=1925 |page=51 |url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n191/mode/2up |language=sa}}<br>This appears in the reading of Hultzsch's original rubbing of the [[Kharoshthi]] inscription of the first line of the First Edict at [[Shahbazgarhi]] (here attached, which reads "Di" [[File:Kharoshthi letter Di.jpg|15px]] rather than "Li" [[File:Kharoshthi letter Li.jpg|15px]]).}} comes from an [[Old Persian]] prototype '' dipî'' also meaning "inscription", which is used for example by [[Darius I]] in his [[Behistun inscription]],{{refn|group=note|For example [https://www.livius.org/sources/content/behistun-persian-text/behistun-t-42/ Column IV, Line 89]}} suggesting borrowing and diffusion.<ref name=Hultzsch>{{cite book|last1=Hultzsch|first1=E.|title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum v. 1: Inscriptions of Asoka|year =1925| publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford |page=xlii| url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n44/mode/1up }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sharma |first1=R. S. |title=India's Ancient Past |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199087860 |page=163 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=giwpDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT163 |language=en}}</ref><ref>"The word dipi appears in the Old Persian inscription of Darius I at Behistan (Column IV. 39) having the meaning inscription or "written document" in {{cite book |last1=Congress |first1=Indian History |title=Proceedings – Indian History Congress |date=2007 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GhVDAAAAYAAJ |language=en}}</ref>

Scharfe adds that the best evidence, is that no script was used or ever known in India, aside from the [[Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley|Persian-dominated Northwest]] where [[Aramaic]] was used, before around 300 BCE because Indian tradition "at every occasion stresses the orality of the cultural and literary heritage",<ref name="Scharfe 2002"/> yet Scharfe in the same book admits that "a script has been discovered in the excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization that flourished in the Indus valley and adjacent areas in the third millennium B.C. The number of different signs suggest a syllabic script, but all attempts at decipherment have been unsuccessful so far. Attempts by some Indian scholars to connect this undeciphered script with the Indian scripts in vogue from the third century B.C. onward are total failures."<ref>{{citation|last=Scharfe|first=Hartmut|series=Handbook of Oriental Studies|title=Education in Ancient India|page=9|year=2002|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|location=Leiden, Netherlands}}</ref>

==== Megasthenes' observations ====

[[Megasthenes]], a Greek ambassador to the Mauryan court in Northeastern India only a quarter century before [[Ashoka]], noted "… and this among a people who have no written laws, who are ignorant even of writing, and regulate everything by memory."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Strabo|editor1-last=Hamilton|editor1-first=H.C.|editor2-last=Falconer|editor2-first=W.|title=The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes|date=1903|publisher=George Bell and Sons|location=London|page=15.1.53|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D53}}</ref> This has been variously and contentiously interpreted by many authors. [[Ludo Rocher]] almost entirely dismisses Megasthenes as unreliable, questioning the wording used by Megasthenes' informant and Megasthenes' interpretation of them.{{sfn|Rocher|2014}} Timmer considers it to reflect a misunderstanding that the Mauryans were illiterate "based upon the fact that Megasthenes rightly observed that the laws were unwritten and that oral tradition played such an important part in India."{{sfn|Timmer|1930|p=245}}

Some proponents of the indigenous origin theories{{Who|date=March 2017}} question the reliability and interpretation of comments made by Megasthenes (as quoted by [[Strabo]] in the ''[[Geographica]]'' XV.i.53). For one, the observation may only apply in the context of the kingdom of "Sandrakottos" (Chandragupta). Elsewhere in Strabo (Strab. XV.i.39), Megasthenes is said to have noted that it was a regular custom in India for the "philosopher" caste (presumably Brahmins) to submit "anything useful which they have committed to writing" to kings,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Strabo|editor1-last=Hamilton|editor1-first=H.C.|editor2-last=Falconer|editor2-first=W.|title=The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes|date=1903|publisher=George Bell and Sons|location=London|page=15.1.39|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D39}}</ref> but this detail does not appear in parallel extracts of Megasthenes found in [[Arrian]] and [[Diodorus Siculus]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sterling|first1=Gregory E.|title=Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography|date=1992|publisher=Brill|page=95}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=McCrindle|first1=J.W.|title=Ancient India As Described By Megasthenes And Arrian|date=1877|publisher=Trübner and Co.| location=London| pages=40,209|url= https://archive.org/stream/AncientIndiaAsDescribedByMegasthenesAndArrianByMccrindleJ.W| access-date=14 April 2015}}</ref> The implication of writing per se is also not totally clear in the original Greek as the term "[[wiktionary:σύνταξις|συντάξῃ]]" (source of the English word "[[syntax]]") can be read as a generic "composition" or "arrangement", rather than a written composition in particular. [[Nearchus]], a contemporary of [[Megasthenes]], noted, a few decades prior, the use of cotton fabric for writing in Northern India. Indologists have variously speculated that this might have been Kharoṣṭhī or the Aramaic alphabet. Salomon regards the evidence from Greek sources to be inconclusive.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=11}} Strabo himself notes this inconsistency regarding reports on the use of writing in India (XV.i.67).

[[File:Sanskrit Brhama English alphabets.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Connections between Phoenician (4th column) and Brahmi (5th column). Note that 6th-to-4th-century BCE Aramaic (not shown) is in many cases intermediate in form between the two.]]

[[K. R. Norman|Kenneth Norman]] (2005) suggests that Brahmi was devised over a longer period of time predating Ashoka's rule:<ref name="Hinüber1989">{{cite book|author=Oskar von Hinüber|title=Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xiYTAQAAMAAJ|year=1989|publisher=Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur|oclc= 22195130|pages=241–245|isbn=9783515056274}}</ref>

:"Support for this idea of pre-Ashokan development has been given very recently by the discovery of sherds at [[Anuradhapura]] in [[Sri Lanka]], inscribed with small numbers of characters which seem to be Brāhmī. These sherds have been dated, by both [[radiocarbon dating|Carbon 14]] and [[thermoluminescence dating|Thermo-luminescence dating]], to pre-Ashokan times, perhaps as much as much as two centuries before Ashoka."<ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth Roy Norman|title=Buddhist Forum Volume V: Philological Approach to Buddhism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qYyRAgAAQBAJ |year=2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-75154-8|pages=67, 56–57, 65–73}}</ref>

He also notes that the variations seen in the [[Edicts of Asoka|Asokan edicts]] would be unlikely to have emerged so quickly if  Brahmi had a single origin in the chancelleries of the Mauryan Empire.<ref name=dow>Norman, Kenneth R. “THE DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING IN INDIA AND ITS EFFECT UPON THE PĀLI CANON.” Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Südasiens / Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 36, 1992, pp. 239–249. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24010823. Accessed 11 May 2020.</ref> He suggests a date of not later than the end of the 4th Century for the development of Brahmi script in the form represented in the inscriptions, with earlier possible antecedents.<ref name=dow/>

[[Jack Goody]] (1987) had similarly suggested that ancient India likely had a "very old culture of writing" along with its oral tradition of composing and transmitting knowledge, because the Vedic literature is too vast, consistent and complex to have been entirely created, memorized, accurately preserved and spread without a written system.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jack Goody|title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TepXQMN6lfUC|year=1987|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-33794-6|pages=110–124}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Jack Goody|title=Myth, Ritual and the Oral|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5BJ_PDhpy2QC |year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-49303-1|pages=42–47, 65–81}}</ref>

Opinions on this point, the possibility that there may not have been any writing scripts including Brahmi during the Vedic age, given the quantity and quality of the Vedic literature, are divided. While Falk (1993) disagrees with Goody,{{Sfn|Annette Wilke|Oliver Moebus|2011|pages=182–183}} while [[Walter J. Ong|Walter Ong]] and John Hartley (2012) concur,<ref>{{cite book|author1=Walter J. Ong|author2=John Hartley|title=Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ys8gGDZQHQ4C |year=2012 |publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-53837-4| pages=64–69}}</ref> not so much based on the difficulty of orally preserving the Vedic hymns, but on the basis that it is highly unlikely that Panini's grammar was composed. [[Johannes Bronkhorst]] (2002) takes the intermediate position that the oral transmission of the Vedic hymns may well have been achieved orally, but that the development of Panini's grammar presupposes writing (consistent with a development of Indian writing in c. the 4th century BCE).<ref name=bronkhorst2002lar>"Falk goes too far. It is fair to expect that we believe that Vedic memorisation — though without parallel in any other human society — has been able to preserve very long texts for many centuries without losing a syllable. (...) However, the oral composition of a work as complex as Pāṇini's grammar is not only without parallel in other human cultures, it is without parallel in India itself. (...) It just will not do to state that our difficulty in conceiving any such thing is our problem." {{cite journal|last1=Bronkhorst|first1=Johannes|title=Literacy and Rationality in Ancient India|journal=Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques|date=2002|volume=56|issue=4|pages=803–804, 797–831}}</ref>

A Chinese Buddhist account of the 6th century CE attributes its creation to the god [[Brahma]], though [[Monier Monier-Williams]], [[Sylvain Lévi]] and others thought it was more likely to have been given the name because it was moulded by the [[Brahmin]]s.<ref>{{citation |last=Levi|first=Silvain|title=The Kharostra Country and the Kharostri Writing|journal=The Indian Antiquary|date=1906|volume=XXXV|page=9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GRwoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA9 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Monier Monier-Williams|title=Sanskrit-English dictionary| year=1970|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass (Reprint of Oxford Claredon)|isbn=978-5-458-25035-1|page=xxvi with footnotes}}</ref>

The term ''Brahmi'(बामभी in original) appears in Indian texts in different contexts. According to the rules of the Sanskrit language, it is a feminine word which literally means "of Brahma" or "the female energy of the [[Brahman]]".<ref>{{cite book|author=Arthur Anthony Macdonell|title=Sanskrit English Dictionary (Practical Hand Book)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PzQxel1GueUC|year=2004|publisher=Asian Educational Services|isbn=978-81-206-1779-7|page=200}}</ref> In other texts such as the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', it appears in the sense of a goddess, particularly for [[Saraswati]] as the goddess of speech and elsewhere as "personified [[Shakti]] (energy) of Brahma".<ref name=mmwbrahmi>Monier Monier Willians (1899), [http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/0700/mw__0775.html Brahmi], Oxford University Press, page 742</ref>

One of the most important recent developments regarding the origin of Brahmi has been the discovery of Brahmi characters inscribed on fragments of pottery from the trading town of [[Anuradhapura]] in Sri Lanka, which have been dated between the sixth to early fourth century BCE.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=12–13}} Coningham et al. in 1996,<ref name="Coningham 1996">{{cite journal|last1=Coningham|first1=R.A.E.|last2=Allchin|first2=F.R.|last3=Batt|first3=C.M.|last4=Lucy|first4=D.|title=Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script|journal=Cambridge Archaeological Journal|date=22 December 2008|volume=6|issue=1|pages=73|doi=10.1017/S0959774300001608}}</ref> stated that the script on the Anuradhapura inscriptions is Brahmi, but stated that the language was a [[Prakrit]] rather than a [[Dravidian languages|Dravidian language]]. The historical sequence of the specimens was interpreted to indicate an evolution in the level of stylistic refinement over several centuries, and they concluded that the Brahmi script may have arisen out of "mercantile involvement" and that the growth of [[trade route|trade networks]] in Sri Lanka was correlated with its first appearance in the area.<ref name="Coningham 1996" /> Salomon in his 1998 review states that the Anuradhapura inscriptions support the theory that Brahmi existed in South Asia before the Mauryan times, with studies favoring the 4th century BCE, but some doubts remain whether the inscriptions might be intrusive into the potsherds from a later date.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=12–13}} Indologist Harry Falk has argued that the Edicts of Ashoka represent an older stage of Brahmi, whereas certain [[paleography|paleographic]] features of even the earliest Anuradhapura inscriptions are likely to be later, and so these potsherds may date from after 250 BCE.<ref>Falk, H. (2014). "[https://www.academia.edu/11754083/Owners_graffiti_on_pottery_from_Tissamaharama Owner's graffiti on pottery from Tissamaharama]", in ''Zeitchriftfür Archäeologie Aussereuropäischer Kulturen''. 6. pp.45–47.</ref>

[[File:Classification of Brahmi characters by James Prinsep, March 1834, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Volume 3 (March1834).jpg|thumb|Classification of Brahmi characters by [[James Prinsep]] in March 1834. The structure of Brahmi (consonantal characters with vocalic "inflections") was properly identified, but the individual values of characters remained undetermined, except for four of the vocalic inflections. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Volume 3 (March 1834).<ref name="RSP">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998||pp=204–208}} Equally impressive was Prinsep's arrangement, presented in plate V of JASB 3, of the unknown alphabet, wherein he gave each of the consonantal characters, whose phonetic values were still entirely unknown, with its "five principal inflections", that is, the vowel diacritics. Not only is this table almost perfectly correct in its arrangement, but the phonetic value of the vowels is correctly identified in four out of five cases (plus anusvard); only the vowel sign for i was incorrectly interpreted as o.</ref>]]

[[James Prinsep]], an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the [[East India Company]], started to analyse the inscriptions and made deductions on the general characteristics of the early Brahmi script essentially relying on statistical methods.<ref name="RS204"/> This method, published in March 1834, allowed him to classify the characters found in inscriptions, and to clarify the structure of Brahmi as being composed of consonantal characters with vocalic "inflections". He was able to correctly guess four out of five vocalic inflections, but the value of consonants remained unknown.<ref name="RS204"/> Although this statistical method was modern and innovative, the actual decipherment of the script would have to wait until after the discovery of bilingual inscriptions, a few years later.<ref name="DanielsBright1996">{{citation|last=Daniels|first=Peter T.|author-link=Peter T. Daniels|editor=Peter T. Daniels, William Bright|title=The World's Writing Systems|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ospMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA144|year=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-507993-7|pages=141–159, 151|chapter=Methods of Decipherment|quote=Brahmi: The Brahmi script of Ashokan India (SECTION 30) is another that was deciphered largely on the basis of familiar language and familiar related script—but it was made possible largely because of the industry of young James Prinsep (1799-1840), who inventoried the characters found on the immense pillars left by Ashoka and arranged them in a pattern like that used for teaching the Ethiopian abugida (FIGURE 12). Apparently, there had never been a tradition of laying out the full set of aksharas thus—or anyone, Prinsep said, with a better knowledge of Sanskrit than he had had could have read the inscriptions straight away, instead of after discovering a very minor virtual bilingual a few years later. (p. 151)}}</ref>

The same year, in 1834, some attempts by Rev. J. Stevenson were made to identify intermediate early Brahmi characters from the [[Karla Caves]] (circa 1st century CE) based on their similarities with the [[Gupta script]] of the [[Samudragupta]] inscription of the [[Allahabad pillar]] (4th century CE) which had just been published, but this led to a mix of good (about 1/3) and bad guesses, which did not permit proper decipherment of the Brahmi.<ref>{{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. |date=1834 |pages=495–499|publisher=Calcutta : Printed at the Baptist Mission Press [etc.] |url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofasiatic334asia#page/n31}}</ref><ref name="RS204"/>

The next major step towards deciphering the ancient Brahmi script of the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE was made in 1836 by Norwegian scholar [[Christian Lassen]], who used a bilingual Greek-Brahmi coin of [[Indo-Greek]] king [[Agathocles of Bactria|Agathocles]] and similarities with the [[Pali]] script to correctly and securely identify several Brahmi letters.<ref name=RHP/><ref name="RS204"/><ref name="ACXII">{{cite book |title=Four Reports Made During the Years 1862-63-64-65 by Alexander Cunningha M: 1/ by Alexander Cunningham. 1 |date=1871 |publisher=Government central Press |page=XII |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR12 |language=en}}</ref> The matching legends on the bilingual coins of Agathocles were:

{{quote|Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ  /  ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ (''[[Basileus|Basileōs]] Agathokleous'', "of King [[Agathocles of Bactria|Agathocles]]")<br>

[[James Prinsep]] was then able to complete the decipherment of the Brahmi script.<ref name="RS204"/><ref name="Asiatic Society of Bengal 1837">{{Cite book|url= https://archive.org/details/journalasiatics06benggoog |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal|last=Asiatic Society of Bengal|date=1837|others=Oxford University|language=en}}</ref><ref name=RHP/><ref name="asi.nic.in">[http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_sanchi_detail.asp More details about Buddhist monuments at Sanchi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721165126/http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_sanchi_detail.asp# |date=2011-07-21 }}, Archaeological Survey of India, 1989.</ref> After acknowledging Lassen's first decipherment,<ref>[[:File:Announcement of the decipherement of Brahmi letters by Lassen in the JASB in 1836.jpg|Extract of Prinsep's communication about Lassen's decipherment]] in {{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol V 1836 |date=1836 |pages=723–724 |url=https://archive.org/stream/JournalOfTheAsiaticSocietyOfBengalVolV1836/Jasb1836Full#page/n837/mode/2up |language=en}}</ref> Prinsep used a bilingual coin of Indo-Greek king [[Pantaleon]] to decipher a few more letters.<ref name="ACXII"/> James Prinsep then analysed a large number of donatory inscriptions on the reliefs in [[Sanchi]], and noted that most of them ended with the same two Brahmi characters: "𑀤𑀦𑀁". Prinsep guessed correctly that they stood for "''[[:File:Danam letters on Sanchi inscription.jpg|danam]]''", the [[Sanskrit]] word for "gift" or "donation", which permitted to further increase the number of known letters.<ref name="RS204"/><ref>{{cite book |title=Four Reports Made During the Years 1862-63-64-65 by Alexander Cunningha M: 1/ by Alexander Cunningham. 1 |date=1871 |publisher=Government central Press |page=XI |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR11 |language=en}}</ref> With the help of Ratna Pâla, a [[Sinhalese people|Singhalese]] Pali scholar and linguist, Prinsep then completed the full decipherment of the Brahmi script.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keay |first1=John |title=To cherish and conserve the early years of the archaeological survey of India |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeological Survey of India |pages=30–31 |url=https://archive.org/details/tocherishconserv00keay/page/30}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Four Reports Made During the Years 1862-63-64-65 by Alexander Cunningha M: 1/ by Alexander Cunningham. 1 |date=1871 |publisher=Government central Press |page=XIII |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR13 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Salomon |1998 |p=207}}<ref>''Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor'', [[Charles Allen (writer)|Charles Allen]], Little, Brown Book Group Limited, 2012</ref> In a series of results that he published in March 1838 Prinsep was able to translate the inscriptions on a large number of rock edicts found around India, and provide, according to [[Richard G. Salomon (academic)|Richard Salomon]], a "virtually perfect" rendering of the full Brahmi alphabet.<ref>{{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. |date=1838 |publisher=Calcutta : Printed at the Baptist Mission Press [etc.] |pages=219–285 |url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofasiatic775asia#page/n51}}</ref>{{sfn|Salomon |1998 |p=208}}

Ashokan inscriptions are found all over India and a few regional variants have been observed. The [[Bhattiprolu alphabet]], with earliest inscriptions dating from a few decades of Ashoka's reign, is believed to have evolved from a southern variant of the Brahmi alphabet. The language used in these inscriptions, nearly all of which have been found upon Buddhist relics, is exclusively Prakrit, though [[Kannada script|Kannada]] and Telugu proper names have been identified in some inscriptions. Twenty-three letters have been identified. The letters ''ga'' and ''sa'' are similar to Mauryan Brahmi, while ''bha'' and ''da'' resemble those of modern [[Kannada script|Kannada]] and [[Telugu script]].

[[Tamil-Brahmi]] is a variant of the Brahmi alphabet that was in use in South India by about 3rd century BCE, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Inscriptions attest their use in parts of Sri Lanka in the same period. The language used in around 70 Southern Brahmi inscriptions discovered in the 20th century have been identified as a Prakrit language.<ref name=mahadevan/><ref name=spuler1975/>

Unlike the edicts of Ashoka, however, the majority of the inscriptions from this early period in Sri Lanka are found above caves. The language of Sri Lanka Brahmi inscriptions has been mostly been Prakrit though some [[Tamil-Brahmi]] inscriptions have also been found, such as the [[Annaicoddai seal]].<ref>{{cite book | last = Raghupathy | first = Ponnambalam | title = Early settlements in Jaffna, an archaeological survey |url=http://www.noolaham.org/wiki/index.php?title=Early_Settlements_in_Jaffna&uselang=en| publisher = Raghupathy | year = 1987 | location = Madras }}</ref> The earliest widely accepted examples of writing in Brahmi are found in [[Anuradhapura]], [[Sri Lanka]].<ref name="Coningham 1996" />

The Khuan Luk Pat inscription discovered in [[Thailand]] is in Tamil Brahmi script. Its date is uncertain and has been proposed to be from the early centuries of the common era.<ref>{{cite book|author=P Shanmugam|editor=Hermann Kulke|display-editors=et al|title=Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2swhCXJVRzwC&pg=PA208 |year=2009|publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies|isbn=978-981-230-937-2|page=208}}</ref><ref name="Cobb2018"/> According to Frederick Asher, Tamil Brahmi inscriptions on potsherds have been found in Quseir al-Qadim and in Berenike, [[Egypt]] which suggest that merchant and trade activity was flourishing in ancient times between India and the Red Sea region.<ref name="Cobb2018"/> Additional Tamil Brahmi inscription has been found in Khor Rori region of [[Oman]] on an archaeological site storage jar.<ref name="Cobb2018">{{cite book|author=Frederick Asher|editor=Matthew Adam Cobb|title=The Indian Ocean Trade in Antiquity: Political, Cultural and Economic Impacts |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bPJNtAEACAAJ |year=2018|publisher=Taylor & Francis Group|isbn=978-1-138-73826-3|page=158}}</ref>

Brahmi is usually written from left to right, as in the case of its descendants. However, an early coin found in [[Eran]] is inscribed with Brahmi running from right to left, as in Aramaic. Several other instances of variation in the writing direction are known, though directional instability is fairly common in ancient writing systems.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=27–28}}

Brahmi is an [[abugida]], meaning that each letter represents a consonant, while vowels are written with obligatory [[diacritic]]s called ''mātrā''s in Sanskrit, except when the vowels commence a word. When no vowel is written, the vowel {{IPA|/a/}} is understood. This "default short a" is a characteristic shared with Kharosthī, though the treatment of vowels differs in other respects.  

Vowels following a consonant are inherent or written by diacritics, but initial vowels have dedicated letters. There are three "primary" vowels in Ashokan Brahmi, which each occur in length-contrasted forms: /a/, /i/, /u/; [[vowel length|long vowels]] are derived from the letters for short vowels. There are also four "secondary" vowels that do not have the long-short contrast, /e/, /ai/, /o/, /au/.{{sfn|Salomon|1996|pp=373–4}} Note though that the grapheme for /ai/ is derivative from /e/ in a way which parallels the short-long contrast of the primary vowels. However, there are only nine distinct vowel diacritics, as short {{IPA|/a/}} is understood if no vowel is written. The initial vowel symbol for /au/ is also apparently lacking in the earliest attested phases, even though it has a diacritic. Ancient sources suggest that there were either 11 or 12 vowels enumerated at the beginning of the character list around the Ashokan era, probably adding either ''aṃ'' or ''aḥ''.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=32}} Later versions of Brahmi add vowels for four syllabic liquids, short and long /ṛ/ and /ḷ/. Chinese sources indicate that these were later inventions by either [[Nagarjuna]] or Śarvavarman, a minister of King [[Hāla]].{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=33}}

The [[collation]] order of Brahmi is believed to have been the same as most of its descendant scripts, one based on [[Shiksha]], the traditional Vedic theory of Sanskrit phonology. This begins the list of characters with the initial vowels (starting with ''a''), then lists a subset of the consonants in five phonetically-related groups of five called ''vargas'', and ends with four liquids, three sibilants, and a spirant. [[Thomas Trautmann]] attributes much of the popularity of the Brahmic script family to this "splendidly reasoned" system of arrangement.{{sfn|Trautmann|2006|p=62–64}}

 

[[File:Vidisha ivory carvers inscription in Sanchi.jpg|thumb|upright=2|A 1st century BCE/CE inscription from [[Sanchi]]: ''"Vedisakehi daṃtakārehi rupakaṃmaṃ kataṃ"'' ({{Script|Brah|𑀯𑁂𑀤𑀺𑀲𑀓𑁂𑀳𑀺 𑀤𑀁𑀢𑀓𑀸𑀭𑁂𑀳𑀺 𑀭𑀼𑀧𑀓𑀁𑀫𑀁 𑀓𑀢𑀁}}, "Ivory workers from [[Vidisha]] have done the carving").<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chakrabarti |first1=Manika |title=Mālwa in Post-Maurya Period: A Critical Study with Special Emphasis on Numismatic Evidences |date=1981 |publisher=Punthi Pustak |page=100 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jba1AAAAIAAJ |language=en}}</ref>]] Punctuation<ref>Ram Sharma, ''Brāhmī Script: Development in North-Western India and Central Asia'', 2002</ref> can be perceived as more of an exception than as a general rule in Asokan Brahmi. For instance, distinct spaces in between the words appear frequently in the pillar edicts but not so much in others. ("Pillar edicts" refers to the texts that are inscribed on the stone pillars oftentimes with the intention of making them public.)  The idea of writing each word separately was not consistently used.

Brahmi is generally classified in three main types, which represent three main historical stages of its evolution over nearly a millennium:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Singh |first1=Upinder |title=A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century |date=2008 |publisher=Pearson Education India |isbn=9788131711200 |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3lUIIYxWkEC&pg=PA43 |language=en}}</ref>

* Early Brahmi or "Ashokan Brahmi" (3rd-1st century BCE)

* Middle Brahmi or "[[Kushana]] Brahmi" (1st-3rd centuries CE)

* Late Brahmi or "[[Gupta Empire|Gupta]] Brahmi", also called [[Gupta script]] (4th-6th centuries CE)

==Early Brahmi or "Ashokan Brahmi" (3rd–1st century BCE)==

Early "Ashokan" Brahmi (3rd–1st century BCE) is regular and geometric, and organized in a very rational fashion<!-- this is an opinion -->:

!IAST and<br>Sanskrit IPA

!IAST and<br>Sanskrit IPA

!IAST and<br>Sanskrit IPA

!IAST and<br>Sanskrit IPA

===Unicode and digitization===

 

 

 

 

===Some famous inscriptions in the Early Brahmi script===

The Brahmi script was the medium for some of the most famous inscriptions of ancient India, starting with the [[Edicts of Ashoka]], circa 250 BCE.

In a particularly famous Edict, the Rummindei Edict in [[Lumbini]], [[Nepal]], Ashoka describes his visit in the 21st year of his reign, and designates Lumbini as the birthplace of the Buddha. He also, for the first time in historical records, uses the epithet "Sakyamuni" (Sage of the [[Shakyas]]), to describe the Buddha.<ref name="Hultzsch p164">{{cite book |last=Hultzsch |first=E. |year=1925 |url=https://archive.org/details/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch |title=Inscriptions of Asoka |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |pages=164–165}}</ref>

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|+ Rummindei pillar, inscription of Ashoka (circa 248 BCE)

! scope="col" align=left| Translation<br><small>(English)</small>!!Transliteration<br><small>(original Brahmi script)</small>!!Inscription<br><small>([[Prakrit]] in the Brahmi script)</small>

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{{quote|When King Devanampriya Priyadarsin had been anointed twenty years, he came himself and worshipped (this spot) because the [[Buddha Shakyamuni]] was born here. (He) both caused to be made a stone bearing a horse (?) and caused a stone pillar to be set up, (in order to show) that the Blessed One was born here. (He) made the village of Lummini free of taxes, and paying (only) an eighth share (of the produce).|The [[Rummindei]] Edict, one of the [[Minor Pillar Edicts]] of Ashoka.<ref name="Hultzsch p164"/>}}

{{poemquote|<big>{{Script|Brah|[[Devanampriya|𑀤𑁂𑀯𑀸𑀦𑀁𑀧𑀺𑀬𑁂]]𑀦 [[Priyadasi|𑀧𑀺𑀬𑀤𑀲𑀺]]𑀦 [[Raja|𑀮𑀸𑀚𑀺]]𑀦𑀯𑀻𑀲𑀢𑀺𑀯𑀲𑀸𑀪𑀺𑀲𑀺𑀢𑁂𑀦}}</big>

<small>aṭha-bhāgiye ca</small>|Adapted from transliteration by [[E. Hultzsch]],<ref name="Hultzsch p164"/>}}

[[File:Lumbini - Pillar Edict in Brahmi Script, Lumbini (9241396121).jpg|thumb|300px|The Rummindei pillar edict in [[Lumbini]].]]

The [[Heliodorus pillar]] is a stone column that was erected around 113 BCE in central [[India]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Avari|first1=Burjor|title=India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Subcontinent from C. 7000 BCE to CE 1200|date=2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317236733|page=167|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTaTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA167|language=en}}</ref> in [[Vidisha]] near modern [[Besnagar]], by [[Heliodorus (votive erector)|Heliodorus]], an ambassador of the [[Indo-Greek]] king [[Antialcidas]] in [[Taxila]]<ref name="SW"/> to the court of the [[Shunga Empire|Shunga]] king [[Bhagabhadra]]. Historically, it is one of the earliest known inscriptions related to the [[Vaishnavism]] in India.<ref name="Bopearachchi">[[Osmund Bopearachchi]], 2016, [https://www.academia.edu/25807197/Emergence_of_Vi%E1%B9%A3%E1%B9%87u_and_%C5%9Aiva_Images_in_India_Numismatic_and_Sculptural_Evidence Emergence of Viṣṇu and Śiva Images in India: Numismatic and Sculptural Evidence]</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Burjor Avari|title=India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Subcontinent from C. 7000 BCE to CE 1200|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTaTDAAAQBAJ |year=2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-23673-3|pages=165–167}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Romila Thapar|title=Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-5irrXX0apQC&pg=PA216 |year=2004|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24225-8|pages=216–217}}</ref>

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! scope="col" align=left| Translation<br><small>(English)</small>!!Transliteration<br><small>(original Brahmi script)</small>!!Inscription<br><small>([[Prakrit]] in the Brahmi script)</small><ref name="SW"/>

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in the fourteenth year of his reign.</poem>

<ref>Archaeological Survey of India, Annual report 1908–1909 [https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.207532/2015.207532.Annual-Reports p.129]</ref>

{{poemquote|<big>{{Script|Brah|𑀤𑁂𑀯𑀤𑁂𑀯𑀲 𑀯𑀸(𑀲𑀼𑀤𑁂)𑀯𑀲 𑀕𑀭𑀼𑀟𑀥𑁆𑀯𑀚𑁄 𑀅𑀬𑀁}}</big>

<small>neyamti sva(gam) dama cāga apramāda</small>

|Adapted from transliterations by [[E. J. Rapson]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rapson |first1=E. J. |title=Ancient India |date=1914 |page=157 |url=https://archive.org/details/RapsonAncientIndia1914pdf/page/n183}}</ref> Sukthankar,<ref name=VSS>Sukthankar, Vishnu Sitaram, V. S. Sukthankar Memorial Edition, Vol. II: Analecta, Bombay: Karnatak Publishing House 1945 [http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil_elib/Suk9442__Sukthankar_MemorialEd_2_Analecta_1945.pdf p.266]</ref> [[Richard G. Salomon (academic)|Richard Salomon]],<ref name=RS265>{{harvnb|Salomon|1998||pp=265–267}}</ref> and Shane Wallace.<ref name="SW">[https://www.academia.edu/25638818 Greek Culture in Afghanistan and India: Old Evidence and New Discoveries] Shane Wallace, 2016, p.222-223</ref>}}

[[File:Heliodorus pillar Rapson rubbing inverted.jpg|thumb|300px|Heliodorus pillar rubbing (inverted colors). The text is in the Brahmi script of the [[Sunga Empire|Sunga period]].<ref name=RS265/> For a [https://kevinstandagephotography.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/heliodorus-pillar-column-vidisha/ recent photograph].]]

==Middle Brahmi or "Kushana Brahmi" (1st–3rd centuries CE)==

Middle Brahmi or "[[Kushana]] Brahmi" was in use from the 1st-3rd centuries CE. It is more rounded than its predecessor, and introduces some significant variations in shapes. Several characters (r̩ and l̩), classified as vowels, were added during the "Middle Brahmi" period between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, in order to accommodate the transcription of [[Sanskrit]]:<ref>{{cite book |title=Brahmi Unicode |pages=4–6 |url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2003/03249r-brahmi-proposal.pdf}}</ref><ref>[[:File:Brahmi script vowels according to James Prinsep March 1838.jpg|James Prinsep table of vowels]]</ref>

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===Examples===

File:Shastana inscription.jpg|Inscribed [[Kushan]] statue of [[Western Satraps]] King [[Chastana]], with inscription "Shastana" in Middle Brahmi script of the Kushan period ([[File:Gupta ashoka ss.svg|10px]]_{[[File:Gupta ashoka sta.jpg|13px]]}[[File:Gupta ashoka n.svg|10px]] ''Ṣa-sta-na'').<ref name="JBO">"The three letters give us a complete name, which I read as Ṣastana (vide facsimile and cast). Dr. Vogel read it as Mastana but that is incorrect for Ma was always written with a circular or triangular knob below with two slanting lines joining the knob" in {{cite book |title=Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society |date=1920 |publisher=The Society |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yKZEAQAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref><br>Here, ''sta'' [[File:Gupta ashoka sta.jpg|13px]] is the [[conjunct consonant]] of ''sa'' [[File:Gupta ashoka s.svg|10px]] and ''ta'' [[File:Gupta ashoka t.svg|10px]], vertically combined. Circa 100 CE.

==Late Brahmi or "Gupta Brahmi" (4th–6th centuries CE)==

| caption1 = Gupta script vowel diacritics ([[Allahabad pillar|Allahabad]] standard).<ref name="DBS">{{cite book |title=Das Buch der Schrift: Enthaltend die Schriftzeichen und Alphabete aller ... |date=1880 |publisher=K. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei |page=126 |url=https://archive.org/details/dasbuchderschri01faulgoog/page/n142 |language=de}}</ref><ref name="GU">{{cite web |title=Gupta Unicode |url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2003/03249r-brahmi-proposal.pdf}}</ref>

!IAST and<br>Sanskrit IPA

!IAST and<br>Sanskrit IPA

===Examples===

File:Mihirakula of the Alchon Huns.jpg|Coin of [[Alchon Huns]] ruler [[Mihirakula]]. Obv: Bust of king, with legend in [[Gupta script]] ([[File:Gupta_allahabad_j.svg|12px]])[[File:Gupta_allahabad_y.svg|12px]][[File:Gupta_allahabad_tu.jpg|12px]]^{[[File:Gupta_allahabad_mi.jpg|12px]]}^{[[File:Gupta ashoka hi.jpg|14px]]}[[File:Gupta_allahabad_r.svg|12px]][[File:Gupta_allahabad_ku.jpg|12px]][[File:Gupta_allahabad_l.svg|12px]],<ref>The "h" ([[File:Gupta ashoka h.svg|12px]]) is an early variant of the Gupta script, seen for example in the [[:Template:Early Brahmic scripts|Chandragupta type]]</ref> ''(Ja)yatu Mihirakula'' ("Let there be victory to Mihirakula").<ref>{{cite book |last1=Verma |first1=Thakur Prasad |title=The Imperial Maukharis: History of Imperial Maukharis of Kanauj and Harshavardhana |date=2018 |publisher=Notion Press |isbn=9781643248813 |page=264 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=09FqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT264 |language=hi}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sircar |first1=D. C. |title=Studies in Indian Coins |date=2008 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=9788120829732 |page=376 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m1JYwP5tVQUC&pg=PA376 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Tandon |first1=Pankaj | pages=24–34|title=Notes on the Evolution of Alchon Coins Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society, No. 216, Summer 2013 |date=2013 |publisher= Oriental Numismatic Society |url=http://coinindia.com/galleries-alchon-early.html}} also [http://coinindia.com/galleries-toramana.html Coinindia Alchon Coins (for an exact description of this coin type)]</ref>

The Brahmi script also evolved into the [[Nagari script]] which in turn evolved into [[Devanagari]] and [[Nandinagari]]. Both were used to write [[Sanskrit]], until the latter was merged into the former. The resulting script is widely adopted across [[India]] to write Sanskrit, [[Marathi language|Marathi]], [[Hindi]] and its dialects, and [[Konkani]].

Some authors have theorized that some of the basic letters of [[hangul]] may have been influenced by the [['Phags-pa script]] of the [[Mongol Empire]], itself a derivative of the [[Tibetan alphabet]], a Brahmi script (see [[origin of Hangul]]).{{sfn|Ledyard|1994|p=336–349}}<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Daniels|first1=Peter T.|title=On Writing Syllables: Three Episodes of Script Transfer|journal=Studies in the Linguistic Sciences|date=Spring 2000|volume=30|issue=1|pages=73–86|url=https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/9639/SLS2000v30.1-09Daniels.pdf?sequence=2}}</ref> However, one of the authors, Gari Ledyard, on whose work much of this theorized connection rests, cautions against giving 'Phags-pa much credit in the development of Hangul:

:''I have devoted much space and discussion to the role of the Mongol ʼPhags-pa alphabet in the origin of the Korean alphabet, but it should be clear to any reader that in the total picture, that role was quite limited. ''[...]'' The origin of the Korean alphabet is, in fact, not a simple matter at all. Those who say it is "based" in ʼPhags-pa are partly right; those who say it is "based" on abstract drawings of articulatory organs are partly right.'' [...] ''Nothing would disturb me more, after this study is published, than to discover in a work on the history of writing a statement like the following: "According to recent investigations, the Korean alphabet was derived from the Mongol ʼPhags-pa script"'' [...] ''ʼPhags-pa contributed none of the things that make this script perhaps the most remarkable in the world.''<ref>''The Korean language reform of 1446 : the origin, background, and Early History of the Korean Alphabet'', Gari Keith Ledyard. University of California, 1966:367–368, 370, 376.

</ref>

*[[Lipi]]

*[[Sankhalipi]]

*[[Annaicoddai seal]]

{{Reflist|30em}}

* {{cite book|last1=Patel|first1=Purushottam G.|last2=Pandey|first2=Pramod|last3=Rajgor|first3=Dilip|title=The Indic Scripts: Palaeographic and Linguistic Perspectives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CAIaAQAAIAAJ|year=2007|publisher=D.K. Printworld|isbn=978-81-246-0406-9}}

  | title-link = Mathematics in India

* {{cite encyclopedia | title = Brāhmī | editor-last1 = Buswell Jr. | editor-first1 = Robert E. | editor-last2 = Lopez Jr. | editor-first2 = David S.| url = https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780190681159.001.0001/acref-9780190681159-e-700?rskey=nZ6Dnf&result=3 | encyclopedia  = The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism  | publisher = Princeton University Press | year = 2017 }}

* {{cite encyclopedia | title = Brahmi | last = Matthews | first = P. H.  | url = https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199675128.001.0001/acref-9780199675128-e-400?rskey=nZ6Dnf&result=2 | encyclopedia  = The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics | edition = 3 | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2014 }}