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| 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.
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| 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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