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Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Brahmi Script

Brahmi Inscription from Sarnath

By the second half of the eighteenth century, British scholars in Calcutta knew about several polished pillars across North India, all of them having inscriptions in an unknown script. Towards the end of the century, the great linguist and scholar William Jones, while pouring through the inscriptions of these pillars, described them to be the work of some Ethiopian conqueror or law-giver! The writing on these pillars–by now found at other places as well–most famously on a hill at Girnar (Gujarat) and at Dhauli, near Bhubaneshwar–remained un-deciphered for more than four decades after the passing away of Sir Jones in 1795. While going through the coins of Indo-Greek rulers Agathocles and others, a Norwegian scholar, Christian Lassen was the first to read a few letters of this unknown script correctly in 1836.

James Prinsep, Mint Master and as Secretary to Asiatic Society of Bengal, intellectual heir to Sir William Jones, was actually arranging a set of votive inscriptions found at Sanchi in the same script when the Eureka moment stuck him. Noticing that all one-line inscriptions were ending with the same combination of two and a half letters, Prinsep guessed that this word stands for donation–danam. In Prinsep’s own description, rest of the alphabet fell into places within minutes. Thus, finally in 1837, thanks to the efforts of Prinsep and his Pali-knowing Sinhalese assistant Ratna Pala, the mystery of the Ashokan Brahmi script was resolved.

James Prinsep
Till the 1880s, this script was variously known as pin-man or stick-figure script in English till Albert Etienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie correctly identified this as the Brahmi lipi, the first in a list of scripts mentioned in the Buddhist text of Lalitavistara. Subsequently this has been found to be mentioned in other Buddhist and Jain texts as well. Some texts have mentioned that the name Brahmi came from Lord Brahma, who was said to have gifted this script. Most scholars, however, agree that the close association of Brahmins with the writing in this script led to this nomenclature.

The origin of Brahmi script is disputed; one of the possible theories about this origin mentions that Indian traders came across written documents in Babylon and devised Brahmi script to suit their mother tongue of Prakrit. The earliest well-accepted evidence of Brahmi, dated to fourth century BCE, has been found at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka in a mercantile context (another find of Tamil Brahmi dated to as early as sixth century BCE from Palani is yet to receive broad acceptance). Ashokan Brahmi burst forth across the subcontinent as a fully developed script. The other script used in Ashokan inscriptions, Kharosthi was definitely a derivative of the Aramaic script and it disappeared by the 3-4th Century CE. As for the foreign origin theory is concerned it is difficult to understand why there should be two completely different derivatives from the same Aramaic/Middle Eastern script. And most scholars are unanimous that Brahmi alphabets could not have originated from the Greek script. On the other hand, we have no material evidence to track the development of Brahmi as an indigenous script before it became widely available on Ashokan inscriptions.

Once it emerged, however, Buddhist institutions carried it forward in a big way. Buddhist Monasteries were repositories of general and trade information and of knowledge systems like writing and bookkeeping. In practical terms, the largest beneficiary group of this process were the traders. Buddhism and Buddhist Sangha were the most important patrons of learning in the Indian sub-continent for many centuries. Numerous stories of writing and depiction on early sculptural panels along with an almost sub-continental spread of Brahmi script clearly establish the contribution of the Buddhist Sangha in the propagation of writing systems. For centuries, in Central, South, and Southeast Asia Buddhist monks were the primary and also most dedicated community of scribes. In fact, almost all early manuscripts connected with Indian civilisation are of Buddhist origin.

The importance of Brahmi script in the world of knowledge was widespread. North Indian or late Brahmi of Gupta period diversified into Siddha, Sarada, and Devanagari scripts. Grantha and Vatteluttu of South India, Tibetan and Tocharians in extreme North, Baybayin of the Philippines, Old Javanese of Indonesia, Khmer of Cambodia, and the Mon script of Burma also emerged from the Brahmi script.


For more such stories related to Indian business history, see Laxminama: Monks, Merchants, Money and Mantra by Anshuman Tiwari and Anindya Sengupta Bloomsbury 2018


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