MA-AIHCA INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY

 INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY

EVOLUTION OF WRITING

 

 

 

CUNEIFORM SCRIPT

 

 

Que : What is Cuneiform? Explain in detail..

Ans :

Introduction :

Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed in and around southern part of the ancient Mesopotamia. It is in-arguably the first writing system known to the modern science developed circa 3500 – 3200 BC. The greatest development was observed in Sumerian city of Uruk (i.e. Warka) around 3200 BC. It was remained in active use through out Bronze age and gradually declined before the begining of Common Era. On an average, the Cuneiform script remained in use for at least 2500 years making it longest surviving script in the world.

The invention of Cuneiform is attributed to the ancient Sumerian culture, who developed this form of writing to express their language but eventually, Cuneiform was also adapted to write linguistically unrelated semitic languages like Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian. Cuneiform was such a popular system of writing that it was also used by speakers of other language families like Hitties, Phoenicians, Elamites, Medes and Persian.

The name Cuneiform is a combination of two Latin words suggested by Thomas Hyde, professor of Hebrew in Oxford university in 1700 CE. “Cuneus” in Latin means wedge and “Forma” means shape, Therefore, Cuneiform means Wedge-shaped. It is on account of the typical wedge like shape of the script made by stylus on clay tablets. In Germany, the script is known as “Keilschrift”.

EXPANSION :

Although, the script originated in Sumeria but its used expanded well beyond the limits of typical Mesopotamia. The Cuneiform script was accepted by most of the near eastern cultures with some local modifications. Like wise, cultural sphere between Taurus Mountains in the west, Zagros mountain in the East, Caucasian mountain in the north and Arabian Penninsula in the south was using cuneiform tablets. The civilizations using this script were namely, Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Elamites, Kassites, Hitties, Mitanni, Hurrians, Urartuian, Persians, Medes, Cannanites.

The cuneiform records are found in the form of inscriptions on stele, wall relief, stone statues, copper plates, fragments of vase, bricks, prizm, seals and clay tablets. among which clay tablets are numerous in number and dispersed among various museums all around the world.

Origin :

Origin of Cuneiform writing is argubaly indebted to the clay tokens of neolithic period (circa 5 millenium BC). These cylinderical clay tokens found in various mesopotamian cities depicting figures of livestocks and their number marks were popular in protohistoric chalcolithic culture of Uruk. The tokens were very simple and contain only one or two figures. According to Prof. Speiser, the property marks are the primitive prototypes found on Mesopotamian cylinder seals were beginning of the script.

Proto-Cuneiform:

Later these pictorial form of writing became prominant mode of recording the events.

The earlier pictographic tablets found from Kish (Tell al-Uhaymir) and Tell Brak site of Uruk IV period in Mesopotamia are in the from of token and also depict shape of animals, which corroborates our assumption about its origin. This sort of writing is classified as Proto-Cuneiform (around 4^th Millenium BC).

Ideological Representation:

Proto Cuneiform writing was able to represent object and events but it was not possible to represent an idea or feeling through this form of writing. Hence, with the passing of time People of Mesopotamia learnt to express their ideas in a different way, for this they had made some changes in Proto-Cuneiform writing. Now, the symbols they invented represented not only objects or events but abstract ideas too. Word was not mere sign or symbol of object but it was the representation of concepts, feelings etc.

Sun – Heat & Light

Phonetic representation :

According to Christopher Walker of British Museum, By the time 2900 BC, we have started to find the traces of phonetic representation of Cuneiform script. The incriptions generally consist of pictographic images for their phonetic value and syllabic elements in agglutinative Sumerian language. These early evidences represent abstract ideas and personal names. With this ingenuity the overall number of sign previously used in script decreased from 1500 to 600.

Hence, according to David Diringer, Early dynastic period of Sumer (2800-2600 BC) constitutes the beginning of true writing system characterized by a complex combination of word sign, phonograms-signs for vowels and syllables. The cuneiform primarily written on clay tablets was used for vast array of economic, religious and political purposes.

According to Prof. Ira Spar, consistent phonetic writing only becomes available after 2600 BC.

Chronology :

First Sumerian people (Uruk, Ur, Eridu, Kish etc) invented cuneiform script to express their agglutinative Sumerian language. The Semitic speakers from north replaced Sumerian in around 2500 BC and started to employ cuneiform script to express their own semitic language (Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian). They also adopted Sumerian religion, culture and lingual terms. Sumerian language although extinguished in 18^th century BC yet continued to remain as ritual and learned language for many centuries, this corroborates the recent finding of 2000 Sumerian tablets from 2000 BC.

Early Akkadian Period = 2500 – 2000 BC

Early Babylonian Period = 1900-1700 BC

Kassite Period = 1595 – 1171 BC

Neo Babylonian & Assyrian Period = 1200 – 900 BC

Neo Assyrian Period = 900 – 600 BC

Old Persian Period = 600 – 400 BC

Revival and extinction = 300-100 BC

Great Period for development of Cuneiform :

1. Hammurabi Babylon - 18^th century BC

2. Neo Assyrian Period - 9^th - 7^th century BC

Noted cuneiform inscriptions :

Baked Clay Prism of Sennachrib, King of Assyria (705-681 BC) – Invasion on Palestine and Jerusalem

Cylinder Seal of the king of Ur (24^th - 23^rd century BC)

Cylinder Seal of Darius (521-485 BC)

Tell el-Amarna letters – series of communication between egyptian king, King of Babylos and Abdi-Khiba ruler of Jerusalem (14^th BC)

Sun God Tablet – Restoration of the temple of Sippar by the Babylonian King Nabu-apal-iddina (870 BC)

Decipherment efforts :

German epigraphist Georg Friedrich Grotefend partially deciphered Old Persian cuneiform script in 1802.

Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson with Henry Layard exacavated library of Ashur Banipal in Nineveh in 1846 and retrieved a large number of clay tablets from the site. He deciphered early persian script and later Babylonian cuneiform script.

Irish clergyman Edward Hincks deceiphered Akkadian Cuneiform in 1857.

French Jews scientist, Jules Oppert authored many books on grammar of Assyrian Cuneiform and Assyrian culture from 1854 to 1875.

Czech army officer and linguist, Bedrich Hrozny deciphered Hittite Cuneiform and language in 1917.

Benefits from Decipherment :

1. Epic from Gilgamesh – Flood of Bible

2. Emuna Elish – Creation of Universe, Garden of eden

3. Enanna Descent (Ishtar's Descent) – Gospel

4. Atrahsis

5. The myth of Etana

6. Ludlul Bel-Nimequi

7. The love story of Shu-Sin (2000 BC) – Oldest love story

Nabu Literature which is the form of literature from Mesopotamia is engraved in stele generally autobiography of the Kings contain crucial informations.

1. The legend of Sargon, King of Akkad – (2334-2279 BC) – It contains victories and exploits of the King Sargon, his influence and legal codes

2. The Curse of Agade, Sargon's grand son Naram-Sin (2261-2224 BC) – It contains life struggle of Naram-Sin, his defeats and victories and ascension to the throne.

3. The Legend of Cutha

4. The legend of Gilgamesh

SALIENT FEATURES OF CUNEIFORM:

Cuneiform script was initially pictographic but later modified in the form of ideographic and syllabic.

Pictographic is simply representation of any object in the form of a picture.

Ideographic means the symbol (or picture) used to denote an object or an idea. In some cases symbol is logographic, which means a single sign is the representation of entire word like Mr, $ etc. In some of the records obtained from mesopotamian site in Jemdet Nasr period (3100-2900 BC), according to the experts, Rebus writing representation was popular. In rebus principle, pictorial image is used to represent the sound in part of the word.

Also passing with time these symbols were replaced with more advanced phonetic syllabic system but some signs retained by the later cultures for their ideographic values.

syllabic symbols represent not a alphabet but consonant often associated with vowel sound.

With the introduction of wedge like stylus, the writing of cuneiform became very easy and fast and precise but it slightly changed the shape of symbols earlier written with the help of pointed object.

Snags :

There were a few snags in the writing system which added complication to the cuneiform.

1. Cuneiform had lots of Homophone syllable

2. Cuneiform also had polyphone syllable.

3. There was no gap in between symbols, which made it very difficult to recognize beginning or the end of a word.

To overcome these problem certain determinant were used, the determinants were normally another symbols but they didn't represent any sound. Instead, they were indication of a particular context or condition. And generally used before or after the syllable to aide readers what sound should be employed with the corresponding syllables.

Comparison with other contemporary languages :

Cuneiform although first known script was also contemporary of Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Indus valley scripts. Hieroglyphic whereas was strictly confined to Egypt and Indus valley script was to Indus area, the range and area expansion of cuneiform was too wide compare to former two scripts.

The amount of literature we found in cuneiform is enormous compare to other two altogether. It gives us wide array of diverse information in early bronze age of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Iran and Meditarranean coastal areas. It let expert draw comparative studies with customs, cultures, laws and technology of other later age cultures.

Prior to decipherment of Cuneiform, Bible was considered only the oldest and the most authoritative source of Mesopotamian history. When the ancient Cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia were discovered and deciphered in the late 19^th century, they would transform human history of Mesopotamia region way beyond millenia and we literally came to know about ancient Mesopotamian thoughts, works on literatures, warfare, customs, science and techniques etc. For example, George Smith translated “The Epic of Gilgamesh” in 1872, a literature of ancient Mesopotamia, which enabled experts to comparative study of tradition, culture and social understanding of society in near east and also able to draw comparison with later Bibilical and Islamic records. Similarly, story of “Emuna Elish” specified that the bibilical theory of creation of universe and garden of Eden has origin in Mesopotamian myths.

Overall, Cuneiform has helped historian community to a very large extent in learning ancient cultures, politics, religion, myth, science etc.

Que : What is Hieroglyphic? Explain in detail.

Ans :

INTRODUCTION :

Hieroglyphic is an ancient writing system developed in Egypt circa 3000 BC.

The word Hieroglyphic is a combination of two Greek words first mentioned in the writing of Clement of Alexandria in 200 CE. He called this script as “Hieroplyphika Grammata” which means Sacred(Hiero) carved (glyphika) letters (grammata).

Incidently, Clement found these hierographic letters carved on the large pillars and walls of the Egyptian temples and tombs and was quite correct in his asssumption that these symbols were used for religious writing purpose.

Although, The Egyptians had a name for this writing, they called it “medu-naceru” (Divine words) - “mdw-ntr” (Speech of the Gods).

ORIGIN:

The Hieroglyphic is a sort of pictographic script. The early evidence of this script show us fully developed form.

Paletter of Nar-mer and Plaque of Akha (Akhai) are the earliest palaeographic evidences, these are connected to Menes who was the founder of first dynasty in Egypt around 3000 BC.

However, there are some experts who propounds theory of Idea diffusion or artificial origin of the script.

EVOLUTION :

Hieroglyphic :

Employment of Hieroglyphic characters was threefold, means same sign can be any of three types given below.

1. word signs, pictorial or logogram

2. Phonograms and Phonetic

3. Determinatives

This script was written in column manner left to right or right to left direction.

The script generally does not include vowels, like Hebrew and Arabic script, vowel marks are generally dropped.

The script contains some 24 alphabetic marks while there are more than 2400 Hieroglyphic symbols found till ptolemic era.

There was not much evolution in Hieroglyphic signs since these were subject to conservative tradition as the signs considered “divine signs” and meant to be fixed forever. However, with passing of time, new Hieroglyphic signs were invented to express new ideas.

Although, we see stylistic modification in Hieroglyphic symbols but this is just artistic representation as old kingdom Hieroglyphics adhered to more realstic representation while classical era Hieroglyphics are example of synthetic creation.

Examples

1. Palermo Stone

2. Stone of Israel, memorial tablet of Pharaoh Merenptah (1235-1227 BC)

3. Victory palette of King Narmer (3150 – 3100 BC) celebrate victory of north.

Hieratic Writing:

Eyptian Hieroglyphic writing was pictographic and hence one had to invest long time and large space to draw large pictographic characters to write even a few lines of information. Shortage of spaces on small objects especially like manucripts, papyrus forced them to come up with a new form of writing for business documents and private letters which evidently evolved from pictographic symbols. This new less pictorial script is known as hieratic was quite cursive in nature. This cursive writing was quickly written and more practical than Hieroglyphics.

As far as archaeological finding is concern, Hieratic writing existed side by side with Hieroglyhphic in first dynastic period. Hence, we can conclude that Hieratic might have evoloved from hieroglyphic at some earlier point of time. It was much more imporatant that Hieroglyphic writing since Hieroglyphic was confined to Temples, tombs and other monumental writing while Hieratic was script of day to day common use and Through most of its long history, hieratic was used for writing administrative documents, accounts, legal texts, and letters, as well as mathematical, medical, literary, and religious texts on papyrus, wood, pottery, stones, ostraca (shard of pottery or vase).

The script was written with the help of ink and reed.

Script was written in right to left fashion. Structurally the same as the hieroglyphic script.

Interestingly, It was written in different styles which are in that sense quite similar to various styles the Arabic script.

Hieratic writing remained in existence till 800-700 BC when it evolved in a comparatively new more cursive variant also know as Demotic script.

Example of Hieratic writing:

1. Great Harris Papyrus – British Museum

DETERMINANT :

Demotic script :

The Demotic or popular script, a name given to it by Herodotus, (Greek word- Demos=People). There were a number of regional variations in Hieratic script, one of which, a northern (lower) Egypt version, developed into the Demotic script by the 25th Dynasty (900-800 BC ) became popular script through out entire Egypt. The Egyptians themselves called it 'sekh shat' (writing for documents). It replaced Hieratic and became script of all legal, courtly matters. during the 2nd-4th century it was gradually replaced by the Greek-derived Coptic alphabet. The most recent example of writing in the Demotic script dates from 425 AD. Even today 6 coptic signs which represent 6 native egyptian sound are direct borrowing from Demotic script.

The Demotic script was used for writing business, legal, scientific, literary and religious documents. It was written almost exclusively from right to left in horizontal lines and mainly in ink on papyrus. During the Ptolemaic Period carved inscription of stones mostly consisted of bilingual messages both in Greek and Demotic script. the most famous example of this is the Rosetta Stone, which is inscribed with texts in the Hieroglyphic script, Greek and Demotic and was one of the keys to the decipherment of Ancient Egyptian scripts. Deciphered by Thomas Young.

SALIENT FEATURES OF HIEROGLYPHIC, HIERATIC AND DEMOTIC :

Hieratic :

Like any modern cursive script, Hieratic employed simplified version of more formal elaborate signs, which frequently ligatured together to form connected groups (words). In addition, because of the decreased iconicity of Hieroglyphic, a great many Hieratic signs and groups look very similar to one another. Consequently, it is very hard to recognize appropriate meaning from the connected groups. For this it required contextual Knowledge, vocabulary, Grammar and orthography from parent Hieroglyphic inscriptions. Fortunately, spelling of Hieratic words correspond exactly with the spellings of their Hieroglyphic counterparts.

There is a great variation in hieratic script because it was a handwriting and handwriting varies from person to person.

Deomotic : it was direct descendent of Hieratic.. symbols were more cursive in nature. Direction was right to left.

BENEFIT FROM LEARNING EGYPTIAN SCRIPTS :

With the decipherment of Egyptian script the egyptologist could able to read numerous egyptian texts spreading through out egypt. From this they could able to learn the name of the kings and dynasties, priests, officers, egyptian adminstration, bureocracy, science, techniques, architecture, rituals, beliefs, religion, food habits, treaties, business and wars. This helped them to garner a great deal of information from ancient egyptian culture.

DECIPHERMENT :

HIEROGLYPHIC – THOMAS YOUNG OF immanuael college of cambridge AND Silvestre de Sacy, Jean-François Champollion french IN 1823.

HIERATIC -

DEMOTIC - Swedish diplomat and scholar Johan David Åkerblad 1802

The stone was carved during the Hellenistic period and is believed to have originally been displayed within a temple, possibly at nearby Sais. It was probably moved in late antiquity or during the Mameluk period, and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien DE ROSETTA near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. It was discovered there in July 1799 by French officer Pierre-François Bouchard during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt

Fall of the egyptian script :

With the gradual overtaking by Greaco-roman empires, the native egyptian script diminished due to neglect by royal dynasty and eventually Hieratic and demotic were replaced by Greek Alphabet based Coptic script which was more advanced and capable then them. Use of Hieroglyphic from temple also disappeared with finally shut of temples on the orders of Byzantine King Justinian.

INDUS VALLEY

Que : What is the Indus valley script ? Explain in detail.

Ans :

Introduction :

A civilization came into existence in and around Indus valley comprising todays Pakistan and part of west India during bronze age (3000-1900 BC) is generally regarded as Indus valley or Harappan civilization. This was the most extensive and advanced urban culture of its time, encompassing 1 million square km area and around 1 million people classified as the largest settlement in terms of extent and population among any other known contemporary civilizations in the world. More than 1400 settlements under this civilization have been identified so far.

Like any other civilization, this urban civilization also had a writing system to express its ideas, actions, or language. This writting system is commonly known as Indus valley script, although some philologist prefer to call it Indus script.

Unfortunately, this largest culture is completely meek about itself, and we know nothing much about it except archealogical evidences. because experts have not been able to decipher the script of Indus valley.

Thus, we do not yet have any idea about whether these symbols appearing on various Indus seals, copper plates or potteries, represent any language, sound or just idea or identity.

Most of these inscriptions are very small, limited to a few signs on small square or rectagular seals made of steatite or terracotta measuring around 2 to 3 centimeters. Other materials like copper plates, terracotta seal impression, ivory or bone sticks, ivory/bone bangles, copper or bronze tools/weapons and potsherds with inscription are also found in small numbers.

Occurence of these inscriptions is very much confided to Indus valley area, where 90% of total inscripted material have been found, remaining 10% found beyond Indus region and elsewhere.

As per Jonathan Kenoyer's latest estimation in 2002, more than 4200 Indus seals and inscriptions found at 60 different sites out of which,

2090 found at Mohen-jo-Daro

1490 found at Harappa

240 found at Lothal

140 found at Kalibangan

83 found at Chanhu-jo-Daro

44 found at Near East

Indus seals are the only major source to study the script as no large corpus of script has been found in excavation. 60% of these seal incriptions are on Steatite. There seems to be some kind of standardization followed in iconography on seals, in which single or two line text is generally appear on the top followed by Pictograph of an animal or human figure at the bottom.

Examples of symbols:

Origin of Indus script :

Since Indus valley script has not been deciphered yet and we do not know its structure and the type and nature of language it represents. As these kind of information are very crucial to ascertain the origin and certain features of the script and without it vital information can not be garnered with certainity. Hence, linguists and philologists have hypothesized various origins of this script based on their theories, employing interesting methodology, logic and concepts. Some of them also compared Indus script with other contemporary scripts and deduced their conclusion accordingly.

Some of these hypothesis for origin of Indus script are as under:

1. Sir Alexander Cunningham was the first person to report seals from Harappa in 1875. At that time he was not aware of any civilization beneath Harappan soil. Hence, Initially, he considered these seals of foreign origin but when he started to see more of them, he presumed that the script engraved on the seals might be an unknown earlier form of Brahmi script.

2. In 1924, a group of British Archaeologist comprising A. H. Sayce, C. J. Gadd and Sidney Smith pointed to the resemblance between Indus and Elamite-Mesopotamian civilization and compared Indus script with Pictograph of other proto Elamite and archaic sumerian script. This hypothesis was long forgotten until in 1974 another British Assyriologist James Kinnier Wilson revived the idea of connection between Indus langauge & Sumerian in his book Indo-Sumerian.

3. Renowned Czech Assyriologist, Bedrich Hrozny, who had successfully deciphered Hittite language from cuneiform tablets and first to discover that Hittite was an Indo-European langague, suggested that there was a resemblancce between Hittite hieroglyphs and Indus script. He also read many Indus signs with their equivalent Hittite phonetic value and claimed to deciphered Indus script on the basis of his understanding.

4. G. R. Hunter, who was the first person to systematically study Indus seals at Harappa nd Mohenjo-Daro believed that the script had some connection with later Brahmi script.

5. David McAlpin, Assistant Professor at university of Pennsylvania suggested in 1975 that the Indus script is associated with Harappan language which is a proto-Elamo-Dravidian language family and hence had shared features of proto-Elamite script.

6. Asko Parpola, in his book Indus script challenging puzzle-2010 has suggested that thousand of potsherds found on early harappan sites like Mehragarh, Dam sadar, Balakot, Quetta valley, LaBella etc have potter's marks which are quite similar to later Indus valley script signs.

Example:

These signs are found on daily use utilitarian unpaintedware and marks were incised on wet clay by potter himself before firing. According to him, this indicates that even if Indus script was not independently originated, some of the signs were incorporated from earlier pottery marks. And it seems most likely that the Indus script was created autonomously with in a short period of time.

7. Recent excavation in Harappa indicates that Indus script originated in early Harappan period (2900-2600 BCE) and inspiration of which might have come from Proto-Elamite script (3100-2900 BCE)

Structure of Indus Valley Script :

From History of writing we understand that the writing systems of the world have evolved historically and in various state wise. Same principle should be applied to Indus script, if it was not borrowed or influenced by any other writing system.

As per Arlene R. K. Zide, Pictographic system is most basic type of writing system in the process of evolution. In pictorgraphic script each symbol represents a picture which has intending meaning but no linguisting sound associated with it. This kind of system generally have more than 600 symbols. Chinese pictographic system has more than 1000 signs.

In logogram, signs either represent a word and its sound or syllable sound, as well as it depicts any other thing which has same phonetic value. Sun, son

Practically, it is almost impossible for logographic script to exist alone, it generally exists in logo-syllabic form. In which many of the symbols are just logograms (words) and other represent individual Phonetic entity (syllables). The combination of two are effectively utilized to represent proper nouns, foreign names etc. In most of the cases Rebus principle is used to represent abstract ideas. A logo-syllabic script system has around 400-600 symbols

and in a pure syllabic bases script, the sign represent a combination of consonant with vowel sound, it may have 140-300 symbols

while Alphabetic system is modern day writing system sound for each consonant and vowel is represented separately. it can have 20-130 symbols.

As far as Indus script is concern several experts have suggests different number of total Indus signs. This variation is on account of how many signs you consider unique. According to

Landon (1931) total signs = 288

Hunter (1932) total signs = 149

Von Merigg (1934) total signs = 270

Dani (1963) total signs = 537

Mahadevan (1977) = 417

Parpola (1982) = 396

Fairservis (1992) = 419

and as per the latest data a large number of experts recognize 400+ distinct signs and 200 root signs. Thus, Indus script can very well be kept in the category of logo-syllabic writing system. However, earlier Harappan script was more of crude logo-syllabic form but we see fully developed Indus script in Mature Harappan period (2600-2500 BCE) in perhaps syllabic form.

What we observe in other cultures might have happened with Indus valley script too, the scribes naturally tend to write cursive writing, this perhaps had happened with Indus script but we do not have written material to verify this fact. Although, egyptians preserved their monumental Hieroglyphic intact for 3000 years. Thus, its hard to predict that Indus script changed to what extent in the absence of any manuscript written by scribes.

STYLE OF WRITING :

Most of the seals we find have engraving from left to write. These seals are mirror images meant for impression on other objects where writing would be read, and these are to be read right to left.

100. J. Gadd was first person to propose the direction of Indus script from right to left. He pointed to some seals where signs were compressed and crammed on right side due to unavailability of space. These cramming would be visible on left side of the seal impression.

Later renown Indian archaeologist sh. B. B. Lal (1966) decisively showed on some potsherds that inscribing was done in right to left fashion.

Regional Extent of the script :

The area of Indus valley civilization was around one million square km making it worlds largest bronze age culture. Hence, probability of more than one language being spoken in this vast area is quite strong but the evidence of writing through out entire civilization is almost consistent. This implies that only one type of language was used for writing script.

Although, there is no written literature found in the Indus Valley civilization but high literarcy level of the civilization and control over large area can be justified since even ordinary pottery has scratch marks and circulation through out large and distant areas.

EVOLUTION OF SCRIPT AND REPRESENTATION OF LANGUAGE :

Student of Indus script persistently have been confronted with question like whether this is a script or just random symbols? Does it constitue a real meaningful writing system?

Many of the experts have variety of opinion on this issue, group of American historian and experts comprising Steve Farmer neuro scientist by profession, Richard Sproat linguist and computer expert, Michael Witzel an Indologist have categorically denied the existence of any real writing system behind the Indus script. They have written several papers and reviews on various decipher attempts refuting the claims and criticizing methodologies and assumptions. In the book, “Indus script thesis : The myth of a literate Harappan civilization”, they discuss various desipher attempts and methodology of various experts and highlighting flaws in their approach.

German linguist and Hittologist, Johannes Friedrich in 1966 denied every possibility of deciphering the Indus script for non-availability of the cruicial key that had unlocked other unknown script

1. There was no parallel version of the script available any where else.

2. No political history of any type is known, ie. Harappan gods, kings, cities, villages name are unknown.

3. Texts are very short and limited, no clearly recognizable word divider.

But even then there are several or even majority of linguists and philologists who sincerely believe that Indus valley script truely represent a language.

This is because all the seals found in south Asian region have almost similar and uniform sequence while those Indus seals found in Mesopotamia and near east region especially round seals and cylinder seals have Indus signs but occurance of these signs or sequence is not in harmony with Indus seals. It is perhaps due to the reason that Indus signs were used to write different language, may be Sumerian or Akkadian. Thus, this strongly indicates that the script was being used to represent phonetic form of the language.

BENEFITS OF THE DECIPHERMENT :

With the current inventory of Indus valley script seals and other inscriptions, we can not expect much help in our understanding of Indus valley civilization. Most of the seals and inscription we have are in the form of single liner and also extremely small volume of texts indicate that most probably these lines are names not sentences. Now, even if we sucessfully able to decipher the scipt we probably will not be able to learn much about Indus valley language and its affliation with any extant language family, the insription will not be able to say much about day to day ordinary life, neither we get any type of information about political or religious system. The names we would get after deciphering Indus script might aide us in connecting those names with and existing Indian language family like Vedic Sanskrit or contemporary Mesopotamian/egyptian culture. But except that Deciphering indus script will hardly be a milestone in understanding Indus culture any further.

According to renowned decipherer Irvatham Mahadevan, “Even if the script is read, it is not likely to throw much greater light on what we already know archaeologically. The linguistic question would be solved, and that is very important. But in the absence of chronicles, legends, epics, connected accounts of the type you have the Akkadian, Sumerian and other Near Eastern civilizations, we have no accounting tablets, we have no long connected works. “

DIFFICULTIES IN DECIPHERMENT OF SCRIPT :

There are many rudimentary problems in decipherment of Indus script, a few of them are cited below :

1. There is no availability of large Indus literature which effectively precludes experts to make any further deduction on the structure and grammar of the encoded language.

   According to prof. J. Baines, an egyptologist at Oxford observed there are many unique and low frequency sign in the incriptions available on non-perishable seals. This may well be evidence that the sizeable number of balance sign are not present.

   In other words, he means that due to unavailability of large corpus we can never be assure that Indus script has how many unique symbols over all.

2. We don't have any bilingual inscription in case of Indus script. Most other ancient languages were deciphered with the help of bilingual texts.

3. No other historical information and record about the script exist. Such as Bible and Greek sources gives us detail about Persian cuneiform & Hieroglyphic.The script was completely forgotten since no Indian sources could tell anything about script.

4. The Indus script is not closely or obviously related to any other script in the world. Thus, we can not adopt any phonetic value for Indus sign for decipherment.

5. We don't see clearly any word divide or identifier unlike other scripts as cuneiform.

6. Numerous signs are clearly pictographic but some are so much simplified that it is virtually impossible to understand what they depicted originally.

7. Signs which look similar to the signs of other scripts can be compared but they represent different phonetic value in other languages (logo-syllabic) which may or may not be same in Indus script.

8. Surviving texts are very short, even the longest text has merely 26 signs. This indicates we may not have full sentence, it may be noun or phrase.

9. If Indus language belongs to an unknown language family which is not known in any other form, than it will be almost impossible to decipher Indus script. For example: compare the case with Estruscan and Proto Elamite, even though they are written in readable script, large amount of literature is available too. Yet not much is understood because of the unknown language except some bilingual corpus.

   But as we know Harappan population touched almost one million population and extened over large area, there are fair chances that traces of language survived and preserved in various regional languages of the area.

WHY DON'T WE FIND LONG INSCRIPTION OR LARGE CORPUS FOR INDUS SCRIPT:

Most of the inscription we find from Indus valley are in the form of steatite seal, small copper plates and potsherds, Ivory bangles. The length of inscriptions in these cases is 4-5 signs only. This is a great limitation in deciphering the Indus script.

Many experts in view of that there were large texts in the indus valley culture but were written on perishable material like Birch bark, clothes or palm leaf. And hence destroyed over the long period of time.

As per Sir John Marshall (1931),

“ Longer texts may have been written on Birch bark, palm leaves, parchment, wood or cotton cloths or any of which would have perished in the course of ages.

For example, Harappan used to wear cotton clothes yet we have not able to find a single piece out of millions of clothes Harappan made. Although, microscopic observation of a few metal pieces have yield fibers of cotton clothes. This proves that Harappan werre using cotton since Chalcolithic.”

Same thing applies to the perishable written corpus of Harappan.

DECIPHER ATTEMPTS FOR INDUS SCRIPT :

From the discovery of Indus valley script to the beginning of 21^st century more than 50 claims of decipherment have been made by experts of varying level, some are amateur philologist but some are renowned linguists and experts of their field. We will discuss about some of these attempt in brief.

1. Prannath, Ray, C.J. Gadd, M.V.S Krishna Rao, Karmakar assumed Indus script based on any form of Indo-European language which was immediately discredited by majority of historian on the basis of chronological grounds.

   M.V.S. Krishna Rao, in his book “Indus script Deciphered” has gone way beyond claiming Harappan lanaguage as Vedic Sanskrit and using principle of acriphony to decipher a number of Indus seals.

2. G. R. Hunter was first person to systematically study Indus seals. He analyzed them structurally with other writing system in the world. He had strong belief that Indus script has some connection with Brahmi script.

3. Spanish Jesuit cum archaeologist Father Henry Heras in his book studies in proto-Indo-Meditarranean cuture 1953, proposed a solution to Indus script. He connected Indus language with Proto-dravidian language but his linguistic approach was full of flaws.

4. Renowned Czech orientalist and Hittologist, Bedrich Hrozny, in his journal offered a solution based on consideration that Indus script was associated with Hittite language. His claim was although invalidated by number of experts on account of chronological reasons, aside from lack of sound procedure. Henry Diringer also pointed out that there was 1000 years gap in between these two scripts & languages.

5. Lawrence Waddel of British Indian Army and scottish explorer suggested in his book “Makers of civilization” (1929), early Sumerian as Aryan and that the Indus valley people were early Sumerian which was utterly disregarded on chronological data. In addition to this his methodology was highly questionable and show lack of linguistic sophistication.

6. Guillaume de hevesy in 1932 tried to make an interesting comparison of Indus script with Easter island Rongorongo script of 18^th century. Amazingly, He showed some 200 symbols matching exactly same with both scripts. But he failed to specify how two scripts separated by twenty thousand kms in distance and four thousand years in period had same script signs.

7. Swami Shankaranand in his book “Decipherment of ancient pictograph script of India” (1969). Interpreting Indus script signs with the symbols of Tantric code. He believes that the seals are product of Aryan culture and their langauge is sanskrit. He failed to justify huge time gap between Indus valley culture and emergence of Tantric culture.

8. A group of Soviet experts consisted of linguists of varying ability, ethnologist, mathematician and computer experts under the lead of Yuri. V. Knorozov, carried out various computer based analysis on Indus script during 1965 – 1979. based on these analysis they made some conclusions in series of research papers. According to them 1. Direction of the script is Right to left.

   2. Indus script is perhaps based on Dravidian lanaguage, 3. There is a hugh probability that Indus script is in logo -syllabic form.

   Expert Mouton de Gruyter reviewed these papers and individually pointed out flaws and limitations in the process adopted etc.

   In their paper they finally attempt in 1979 they tried to assign meaning to each Indus sign.

9. Irvatham Mahadevan, a civil servant who deciphered Tamil Brahmi script had also done a remarkable work in the field of decipherment of Indus script. He resigned from his job in 1980s. In 1977, he brought out very useful corpus and concordance of Indus script which eventually became most comprehensive record at the time and followed by many other experts. He brought forth series of alternative interpretation on Indus seals based on Dravidian reading hypothesis. He rejects the idea of any connection between Indus and Brahmi script.

10. S. R. Rao in his book “The decipherment of Indus script-1982” maintains that the Indus script is the basis of not only the Brahmi script but also of semitic consonant alphabets. Rao attempted to read Indus texts based on Archaic form of Aryan language close to Vedic Sanskrit.

11. In 1964, A team from Finland consist of renowned Assyriologist Simo parpola, Harappan archaeologist Asko Parpola and Computer expert Seppo Koskenniemi applied Computer based test on Indus script, they devised machine readable Indus copus and published computer based UNESCO concordance of Indus script in 1973. They also made several attempt on interpretation of Indus seals and advocated the idea of proto-Dravidian origin of Indus language.

12. Gregory L. Possehl, an archaeologist from university of Pennsylvania, USA in his book “Indus Age : the writing system – 1996” gives various conclusions based on previous observations and recent findings. Some of them are following

    > Script is to be read from right to left

    > Extensive use of prefix and suffix is not observed.

    > script is probably logo-syllabic

    > script perhaps be related to other writing system.

    > Script may have an India descendent.

    > Script may likely to emply any Indo-european language.

13. Rajesh N. Rao, a neurology scientist based in USA has also proposed computer based model for analysis of Indus script. In his papers in 2007-08 he has shown with the help of computer models that the entropy of Indus script very well lies with in the acceptable range of natural languages, that means Indus script represents real language. He also proposed Dravidian origin of Indus language.

14. Jonathan M. Kenoyer, prof. Of archaeology university of Wisconsin USA in his book “Indus seals – an overview of iconography – 2006, provides detail study of Indus seals and makes several different observations on Indus seals including its type, size, finding and structure. Some of his interesting remarks on Indus seal script are as follow.

    > Motif of the seals had been taken from earliers pottery motifs, petroglyphs and some other were invented or modified in later phase. That means it was of indigenous origin.

    > The symbols were not the pictographs but words or syllables.

    > Writing style is distinctive.

    > Some stylistic changes in Indus seal over the period of time is visible. Early Harappan carving was crude compare to later mature Harappan period, here Zebu bull depiction is the finest example.

15. Recently, A combined team of experts including Kenoyer, Nisha Yadav and Mayank Vahia from Tata institue of fundamental research are working together to decode the Indus script. They have applied various advance computer based application on this script and collected data on various aspect of the Indus seals, like recurring of pairs, triplets or quadruplets. Patterns, appearance and syntectical symmetry of the script. They also checked with randomized test on Indus data set to homogenity. Their computation model of Indus texts is able to make some remarkable work such as: reproduction the incomplete, distorted or damage seal data, generating statical model of sequence, grammar discovery, pattern recognistion etc.

Conclusion :

The task of deciphering an unknown language and unknown script is formidable if not impossible and the inscription left to us are far too short and too limited to infer any language. Nevertheless to say, that the names of the civilization is also lost to us, as proper names usually provide the keystone in deciphering any language. Thus the possibility of breaking the script is extremely unlikely.

What we have inferred till now is limited to certain structural conclusions. Such as, its nature as logo-syllabic, direction of writing and possibly its numeral signs.

Its connection with another known sript is also possible but as it is pictographic script, consclusive rigourous evidence would necessary to prove that the resemblance is not mere fortutious incident between Indus script and any other script.

What we need today for a successful decipherment of the script is either bilingual text or longer inscriptions containing names, place name with some pictorial representation. Unless we find something this The Indus valley script will remain a big challenge to us.

 

 

Antiquity of writing in India

The earliest evidence for written documents in India is no doubt from Harappan seals which takes back writing in India to 3^rd millenium BCE. Unfortunately, we have still not able to decipher Indus script, Therefore origin and features of this script is remained unknown. With the disappearance of this higly developed civilization and till the advent of Ashoka Maurya, there is a wide gap of around 1500 years in history of writing in India. It is not known what script was prevalent if there was any and what material was used to express thoughts and ideas in concrete visual form.

It is only Ashokan era, we start to see engraved records of Ashoka edicts on imperishable rock or stone pillars, written in the script known as Brahmi. In this context it is worthwhile to enquire, whether, the people of Vedic and Post-Vedic period with the vast amount of religious literature were aware of any form of writing.

There is no archaeological evidence available to prove writing existed before Ashokan era while there are many indirect references of writing in ancient literature.

Hence, the development and early history of writing in India of the historical period (i.e. after the time of the Indus Valley Civilization) has long been a controversial topic. Basically, arguments turn around three main issues:

 The sources and origins of the Indian scripts of the historical period, i.e. Kharoṣṭhī and especially Brāhmī.

 The date at which these scripts, or their prototypes, first came into use.

 The relationship, if any, of the historical scripts to the writing of the proto-historic Indus Valley Civilization and the explanation of the long gap between them

Opinions regarding the antiquity of writing in India

Western Indologist Max Muller, George Buhler have denied any existence of writing in Vedic era. Since, Harappa civilization was not discovered by that time George Buhler put knowledge of writing in India upto 6-8 BC.

Max Muler writes about antiquity of Indian writing and puts history of writing in India to later than 9^th century BCE, He says there is no evidence in Panini's Ashtadhyayi not a single reference about writing

A.C. Burnell opined that the Indian Brahmi was a derivative of the Phoenician script which was introduced in India not earlier than the 4th or 5th century B.C.

While Indian scholars G. S. Ojha, R. B. Pandey, D. R. Bhandarkar are disagree with such opinion and give contrary proofs from these literature that Vedic Aryans were aware of writing.

Pt. G. H. Ojha has pointed out the word Akshara occured in Chandogya Upnishad, Varna and Matra in Tattriya Upanishad. Aitreya Aranyaka shows knowledge of the interpretation of words and consonents.

C. S. Upasak , “The script, when we first meet in Ashokan inscription is already a beautiful and finished alphabet and exibhits no signs of adoloscence or imperfection.” This fact also leads us to infer that writing had a long history before Ashokan inscription.”

Foreign observations :

Foreign writers give reference of Nearchus (Alexander Admiral) that Indians used to make papers from the waste of cotton and rugged clothes. If paper was made it was surely used as writing material.

Megasthnese in his book Indica mentions about Milestone which were put in between buddhists shrine to show the distance. He also talks about Varshaphala (Horoscope) and Judgement delivered at court were recorded.

Fahien states that Buddhist monasteries in India were in possession of many copper plates charters, some of which belonged to the period of Buddha.

Chinese encyclopedia fan-wa-shu-lin (6^th AD) describes origin of Brahmi to Brahma and Saraswati

Yuan Chwangs (Huen-tsang) account of his travels in India, and writes existence of writing in India from a very early times.

According to Greek writer Curtius, Indians used to cut bark from tree and then used to write on them.

Indian scripture and literature :

Because of the virtual absence of actual documentary evidence for writing in the blank period, many historians and epigraphists have addressed the question of the possibility of literacy in pre-Mauryan India through the examination of literary and other evidence.

One of the reasons for the assumption by the foreign scholars that script did not exist in ancient India is the practice of oral transmission of the Vedas and allied literature

Yajnavalhya considers those who learn from the written works as much inferior and calls them ‘Pathakadhamas’. Even the teachers who teach with the help of books were considered inferior. This clearly proves the existence of writing in India in the ancient period.

There are number of references in Rigveda which allude to the art of writing. In one verse of Rigveda (Rgv 10-62-7) mentions cows being ‘marked’ by an ‘eight’ which shows that ancients possessed the art of writing.

Rigveda mentions word like Chhidya (Inscribed)

Atharvaveda (18 Mandal 62 Sukta), “We have kept copies of Veda to where it belongs to.”

This indicates that by the time of Atharva veda, Vedas was available in written form

The Vajasaneya – Samhita of the Yajurveda mention the following high numbers.

Parardha and Anamta

The Satapatabrahmana gives the minute divided of the day which is as follows – Firstly the day is divided into two parts, viz., day and night. The entire day (including night) is divided into 30 ‘muhurtas’, each ‘muhurta’ is divided into 15 ‘kshipras’, each ‘khipra’ into 15 ‘etarhis’; each ‘etarhi’ into 15 ‘ idanims’; each ‘idanim’ into 15 ‘pranas’. That is in a day there are 15, 18, 250 ‘pranas

The Pamchavimsa – Brahmana of the Samaveda mention the high numbers such as 12, 24, 48, 96, 192.

Similarly the Vedas mention different metres like Gayatri, Anushtubh, Pankti, Devipada, Tripada which are in compositional lines in meter and specific number of words in line. It will take a tremendous amount of mental effort to compose and commit to memory of the vast amount of lines with all the intricacies involved. Hence Ojha, G.S., correctly suggests that the practice of writing was very much in vogue in India during the vedic period itself (Prachina Bharatiya Lipi Mala).

The Aitareya Aranyaka sates that ‘Om’ is the result of the combination of a, u and m. these example also prove that ancient India’s was using scripts.

According to some smrits like the Narada and Brihaspati the god Brahma himself presented writing to mankind in order to present preserve the ancient literature

The Ashtadhyayi of Panini for the first time mentions the words ‘lipi’ and ‘lipikara’. Panini also mentions the Greek ‘Yavanani lipi’ which is interpreted by Katyayana and Patanjali as ‘the Greek scripts’. He mentions “Grantha” the equivalent for written or bound book in the later day in India. The work also mentions the words ‘akshara, kanda, patala’ and ‘svarita’ a mark in writing. We also learn from the Ashtadhyayi that marking the ears of the cows with the marks like ‘Svastika’ was in practice in ancient India. All those evidence proves that Maxmuller’s statement that not even a single word suggesting the existence of the practice of writing is found in Panini’s work is incorrect.

Kautilya’s Arthasastra provides abundant evidence to the antiquity of writing in India. In fact one full section of this work deals with the method of drafting documents. Here the qualifications of writer, the ways to avoid errors in writings, etc., are discussed. The statements like ‘the king should obtain the opinions of his ministers in writing’, ‘the boys should be initiated into ‘bearing to write letters’ (aksharabhyasa), ‘spies should adopt signs and writing for their use’ found in the Arthasastra clearly prove that writing had an important place in ancient India

Buddhist Pitakas also refer to writing. Vinaya pitak – Lekhaka (writer), Lekhapeti (Caused to be written), Digha Nikaya - Aksharika (letter game), Likhitika Chora (written/proscribed thief),

Anguttara Nikaya – Akhara, Lekhani ....

in Udana - Lekhasippa (writing craft),

JATAKA PALI LANGUAGE– Lekhani, lekha, likha, Potthaka (book), Phalaka (writing board), aya-potthaka (ledger), Ina-panna (Debt book)

Pitakas itself means basket, which indicates something written material kept in basket.

The time of pitakas is generally began after the death of Buddha and completed by the time of Ashoka.

According to the ‘Bhikkupacitya’ the knowledge of writing is respected in all the countries.

The Vinaya-pitaka recommends that the profession of writing was the best one for earning one’s livelihood’. It also mentions a wooden board for writing and ‘panna’ (palm leaf for the same purpose).

Indian culture gives origin of script to the lord Brahma, Narad Smriti, Brihspati Varttika on Manu

According to Buddhist literature (6th-7^th BC) Buddhist disciple should not play “Akkharika” game (charade) which was a kind of pantomine in which the spectator had to guess the correct word which was mimiced by performer.

Buddhist traditions tell that Lord Buddha learnt to write with Golden pen.

Jain tradition speaks of the Teerthankara who invented Brahmi script to teach his daughter whose name was Brahmi.

In Vedantas, (1000 BC), There is discussion on educational tradition

The tradition of Prose in vedas indicates existence of writing tradition.

story of Uddalak and Aruni in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and Chandogya Upanishad indicates existence of writing in 10^th Century BCE.

Summary

In short, two schools of thought are dominant with regard to the problem of the antiquity of writing in historical India. One side sees no cogent archaeological or literary evidence for the existence of writing, and particularly of Brahmi script, before the Mauryan period. The other camp finds this hard to accept on pragmatic grounds,and moreover put forward other literature souces to prove that writing existed in pre mauryan period. The issue remains unresolved, though it may be hoped that further discussions and examinations of the new evidence may ultimately lead to a consensus.

KHAROSTHI SCRIPT:

1. Discovery of script/Decipherment attempt :

Large number of coins of Indo-Greeks, Indo-scythians and Kushans found in North western part of India bearing Greek and Kharosthi inscriptions, Later Kushna period inscription found from Manikyala, Than Ashokan edict in Kharosthi found from Shahbazgarhi. Both James Prinsep and a comparatively less known scholar named C.L. Grotefend deserve equal credit for revealing the mystery of this unique script written from right to left, as they worked on the identical type of sources (a set of biscriptual Indo-Greek

coins inscribed on one side with and the other with Greek letters) and ended up with almost identical results, rightly identifying many of the early Kharosthi letters

100. Lassen, A. Cunningham and E. Norris by the middle of the nineteenth century completely deciphered Kharosthi.

Origin of name

Sylvain Levi (1902) - Chinese encylopedia, Fan-Wan-Shu-Lin (668 AD), mentions kharosthi (K’(i)a-lu-she-t’o) as one of the Indian Script, which was written from right to left.

in the Lalitavistara, Kharostī and Kharāstrī in the Mahavastu etc.

1. Connected with Kharoshtha (Khar Ushtha = Ass Lips) Foreign Kings used this mostly, for Indians had hate for this script. Used to indicate the barbaric people, Turks and Tibetans on the North western boundaries of India

2. R. Saloman suggests that this is an old Iranian term but later Sanskritized to the extent that could not be connect to any word, although it should mean “Sovereign”

3. Connected with the Sanskrit name of Kashgar. Kharosthi was kept used in Kasgar region for long, Most ancient Kharosthi manuscript has been found in khotan.

4. Jean Przyluski refer to mahamyuri , Indian corruption of Kharaosta or Kharaposta (Khara - Ass, Posta (Iranian) - Skin) implying use of Ass-skins for writing. This script was perhaps written on Ass skin perchment

5. Ludwig - origin from Aramaic word harottha,

6. Humbeg, H. Falk - king Kharaosta known from the Mathura Lion Capital inscription and some coins.

2. Geographical Distribution :

North west India, Gandhara, Swat Valley, kabul valley modern Afghanistan, later Bactria, kunduz, uzbekistan, tajikistan, Central Asia, Kashgar, Khotan.... Some inscribed material found from Delhi, Mathura, Bihar, Karnataka .....West coast of India Kshatrappa Nahapana -Chastana

3. Period

4^th - 3^rd Bc beginning, 2^nd BC Ashoka edict, Shabazgarhi, Mansera. 1^st Bc - 1^st AD Scythians, Indo-bactrian, 2^nd - 3^rd AD Indo Kushana upto 4^th AD

4. nature of document

   Inscriptions, Buddhist donation and foundation of stupas, coin legends, Manuscript Buddhist Dharmmapada

5. Language

   Gandhari Prakrit, North west Prakrit – list hard words are used.

6. origin : different theories

Was Kharosthi, an Indian script ?

Most experts consider Kharosthi as foreign script, (S.r. Mangalam – Kharosthi Script, Raj Bali Pandey – Indian Paleography)

Most experts have shown similarity between Armaic script

Armaic was written from Right to left so was Kharosthi. Ashokas inscription fround from Mansera and Shahbajgarhi indicate prevalence of Kharosthi in those areas.

Dipi word was most frequently used in Armaic script and same is found in Kharosthi

Short vowels are generally not denoted in Armaic script and similar fashion is followed in Kharosthi.

During 7-6^th century BCE, North Western frontiers of Indian sub continent was under control of Iranian Kings and hence, a form of Armaic spread in these areas.

B. N. Mukharjee - 5^th BC from Aramaic

Aleph – Aa

Kaph – Ka

Qaph – Kha

Gimmel – Ga

Refutation:

1. Armaic and Kharosthi are not similar

2. From right to left many other script are written which do not prove that Kharosthi had any connection with Armaic

3. Dipi word is originally from Sanskrit, hence conception based on Dipi can safely be disregarded

4. Khotan was center point for silk route and Indian religion and culture was spread to east by way of Khotan, hence in this view it is quite possible that Kharosthi was spread to Khotan by way of India.

5. Singloi coins found from Pakistan and Afganishtan points to Indian origin of Kharosthi.

6. The Armaic theory is presented for Kharosthi, while Arabic and Persian script Armaic theory is quite different. One of the inscription of Ashoka is in Armaic.

7. Writing Technique

   Right to left, No short vowel marks

   Kushana script vertically thin out gradually due to use of pen.

   In stone inscription loop becomes triangle.

   Vowel system follows Aramaic system.

   Different in grammar and phonology of local language made required changes in Armaic before adoption.

   U becomes loop.

8. General Characterstics

Specific relation with Armaic

Brahmi Connection

Not extensive due to limited geographical distribution, only for 5 century

Does not have clear variety

Central Asian Kharosthi in manuscript was more cursive in nature.

Dental Sa changed over the period and hence is used to ascertain the period for script.

BRAHMI SCRIPT ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION :

Although we find earliest record of individual attempts for decipherment of Brahmi script such as Firuz Shah Tughlaq and then Mughal emperor Akbar but none of them was successful. It was only when British started to take interest in antiquites and began to collect coins and inscriptions at large scale then a collective work to decipher ancient Indian script began. With the establishment of Royal Asiatic society in 1784 by Sir william jones, there was significant advancement in the decipherment of Indian scripts which was finally achieved by James Princep who successfully deciphered Brahmi script in 1846 AD.

The earliest mention of Brahmi script is found in below mention literature:

1. Later Buddhist scripture, Lalitvistara refer to 64 scripts among which Brahmi heads the list.

2. Pannavana and Samavyanga, Jain Suttas mentions 18 scripts prevalent in India and among which Brahmi was topmost.

3. Bhagvati sutra begins with salutation to Bambi lipi.

4. Chinese encyclopedia Fan-Wan-Su-Lin (668 AD) mentions Brahmi (fan, brahma) written left to right, Kharosthi (kia-lu) as one of Indian script which was written from left to right.

5. Jain origin: According to Jain scriptures, Jain Teerthankar Rishabhnath (aadinath) invented Brami script to teach his daughter whoese name was Bammi. Bhawati Sutta “Namo Bammi Likhiye”

All of these early scriptures refer to Brahmi script and early form of script are quite later to the Ashokan period. Whereas the script we see in Ashokan period is fully developed. Hence, it's origin and invention is unknown and matter of debate amond scholars. there have been numerous hypothesis behind the origin of Brahmi which can be broadly categorize in two opposing groups.

1. Propounding origin from a foreign source

2. Propounding origin from indigenous innovation.

Various claims under foreign origin category :

Greek origin: This is proposed by various scholars like James princep, Otfried Mueller, Emile Senart, Alfred Wagner based on similarity in Phonology, and shape of characters. Wilson also suggested that Ashokan Script might have been derived from either Greek or Phoenecian model. A more refined theory of Greek derivation was later proposed by J. Halevy. But george Buhler completely discarded such connection. Since, there are philological difficulties and lack of any literature, linguistic and palaeographic evidences to support this theory.

Chinese origin : Terrain de la couperie suggested the Brahmi originated from Chinese pictographic system of writing. The difficulty in accepting this hypothesis is, Chinese characters are ideograms which never attained syllabic stage while Brahmi is fully developed Alphabetic script.

Semitic script : Sir William Jones was the first person to propound that Brahmi was originated from Semitic script. Later a group of linguists and philologist too suggested semitic connection. This can be broadly categorize in three parts. 1. Phoenician, 2. North Semitic, 3. South Semitic

Phoenician : This was first brought out by Ulrich Friedrich Kopp as early as 1821, later Albrecht Weber elaborated this theory by making through comparison between phoenician and Brahmi alphbets in 1851. They suggested that about 1/3 of Phoenecian characters tally wtih the earliest forms of the Brahmi signs and another 1/3 are somewhat similar and remaining can be more or less harmonized. A. C. Burnell and R. C. Cust also upheld the view that all available information suggest to Phoenician-Armaic origin of Indian Script. but there is no chronological similarity between two scripts, also there is no effect of phoenicians on their neigbhouring Mesopotamian culture, how can they have effect on far eastern cultures where we do not find any maritime relation between the two cultures.

North Semitic : An Aramaic origin of Brahmi was first suggested by A.C. Burnell in the year 1874. David diringer and George Buhler also supported the theory, Ahmed Hasan Dani in his book Indian Paleography in 1968 also supported the same. Buhler shows similarity between Aramaic Alphabets with 22 letters of Brahmi stating that “The idea of a representative vowel and consonant sounds by symbols of a pure alphabetic character was derived from Western Asia beyond any resonable doubt”. For this he depicted exampls of Mesha stone inscription, Assyrian weights et cetera. on the question of difference in direction of writing the assyrian script and left to right Brahmi inscription, Buhler indicates reveresed letters in ashokan inscription like Dha and Ta and reversal stype of Eran coin inscription, Yerragudi and Duvegala at Shri Lanka. Where he tried to show that Brahmi was originally written right to left.

Indian scholars like C. S. Upasak had rejected such postulation stating that Buhler's 22 letters of Brahmi, many must have any intermediate forms, since there phonetic value do not correspond with the phonetic value of early phoenecian semitic script. Also, there is no archaeological evidence of presence of semitic script in Indian Subcontinent ever. Earliest example of right to left Brahmi script are very meagre and untenable as scholars consider them engravers mistakes.

According to David Diringer, “ All historical and cultural evidence is best co-ordinated by the theory which considers the early Armaic Alphabet as the proto type of the Brahmi script. The achnowledged resemblance of the Brahmi signs to the Phoenician letters also applied to the early Armaic letters, while in my opinion there can be no doubt that of all the Semetics, the Aramaic traders were the first who came first in direct communication with the Indo-Aryan merchants.”

G. S Ojha declines any resemblance of Brahmi with Armaic, stating that to depict similarity between two script scholars have tried to make some changes in the shape of the characters. If this much liberty is taken by the experts, then similarity between contemporary Latin Alphabets and Brahmi can be achieved.

South Semitic : Deecke, Rhys Davids and Cannon Isaac Taylor suggested that Brahmi derived from Cuneiform through South Semitic. The contention was that semitic and Brahmi both had common precursor which was written in left to right direction from which both scripts evolved. But scholars have not found and pre-semitic script to verify this suggestion. Some others have tried to find similarity with Iranian scripts but there is a large difference in characters itself.

Richard Salomon believes that if there was an issue of sponsorship under Asoka, its origin might be hidden in an inspiration from the Old Persian Cuneiform, understandably as a result of continued cultural contacts between the South Asian and Persian polities. Although, Rajbali Pandey declines any such connection with the south Semitic as no cultural or litrature evidence have ever been found.

A L Basham opines that the art of writing was unknown to the Rigvedic Aryans and the evolution of Brahmi started in the later Vedic period under the impact of the Semitic West.

INDIGENOUS ORIGIN :

Indus origin : Gadd Langdon, G. R. Hunter and others suggested Harappan origin of Brahmi on the basis of figural similarity. B. B. Lal has also tried to put some archaeological evidence like Graffiti engraving on potsherd from Vikramkhol region to make a connection with the Brahmi script. But opposite direction and undeciphered Indus script is a big hurdle to prove this postulation. Also, the large chronological difference between Brahmi and Indus script prevents possiblity of Brahmi to be the direct descendent of Indus script.

R. B. Pandey in his book Indian Palaeography, believes that “Brahmi characters were invented by genious of Indian people and were derived from pictographs, ideographs and phonetic signs, earliest specimen of which can be found in indus valley script. D. C. Sircar endorses to such postulation.

T. P. Verma (The palaeography of the Brahmi script in North India) concedes that the possbility of a pre Brahmi script in India can not be ruled out.

Dravidian origin :

First put by Lassen then Edward Thomas who associated origin of Brahmi with Dravidian culture, T. N. Subrahmanyan is another staunch protagonist of this theory. this theory was based on assumption that before the advent of Aryans, Dravidians were inhabitant of entire Indian subcontinent and were culturally more advance than Aryans. But this presumption has not gain much popularity among scholars.

But there are some problems regarding this theory,

a> Earliest evidence are from North India

b> No common opinion about original habitat of Tamilians

c>difference phonetic structure between Tamil and Brahmi

Pictographic origin:

This was followed by General Cunningham and he assumbed pictographic origin of Brahmi alphabets. The development of the Brahmi was based on the symbols representing objects with which they were familiar in their everyday life. The phonetic value of each letter of the Brahmi letter was devised from the sound value of the first letter of the objects, names etc. The theory has some limitation and long been discarded by scholars.

Va from Vina

Ta from Tan (stretch), Tala (Palm tree), taranga (wave), Tri (3)

ka from Katar or Kripan

Ma from Mean (Fish)

G. S. Ojha was in opined that Brahmi letters were evolved indigenously by pictographic symbols and had no foreign influence.

Tantric Origin :

R. Shamsastri opined that Brahmi was derived from the several symbols and signs used to indicate Devas and Called Devanagari (City of Gods), His assumptions based on only sanskrit Tantric text of late origin, this theory is very ambiguous and obscure and hence been discarded.

Vidyalankara suggests that the Brahmi script was perfected by Subalaka Panchala, a minister of the king Brahmadaatta of Kanyakubja who flourished about eight generations earlier than the Bharata war (1550 BCE)

Vedic origin :

Jow Dawson, supported indigenous origin of Brahmi Script. He pointed out some special features that are peculiar to Indian alphabets alone and are no where found in any script of the world. Jayaswal, upheld the Dawson view added that the phonetical analysis of sound into radical elements Akshara (the permanant ones) had been discovered by Hindus as early as Rigveda period.

Brahmins invented Brahmi to write down Vedas. According to Raj Bali Pandey original Vedic script was different to later Brahmi.

C. S. Upasak in his book History and Paleography of Brahmi script, write that the formation of Brahmi script perhaps is acredited to the sanskrit grammarians who developed such a sophisticated simple script based on extant sanskrit grammar rules using vriddhi and Guna sandhis. This can easily be discerned on vowels. Like A, I, E, U

According to S. P. Gupta/K. S. Ramachandran in their book The origin of Brahmi script state that Brahmi was originated from simple geometrical figures but it is not clear when and by whom it was invented. These figures can be classified in three different groups first is cross enclosed by square and second one is circle and verticle lines and third group is triangle attached to a vertical line.

Ashokan invention :

S. R. Goyal from Jodhpur University, in his article, state that Brahmi script is an invention of Early Mauryan Period, perhaps from the time of Bindusara or Ashoka. For this he revisits various facts as universality of Ashokan Brahmi through out India, simple Geometrical forms for which we do not find proof of any evolutionary traits like cursiveness and assignment of Brahmi letters as per existing phonological charts already in vogue predefined by early excellent Brahmin Grammarians. To corroborate his claim, he also gives testimony of Megasthnese and an example of invention of Tibetan script.

DIRECTION OF BRAHMI :

Airan Dhammpal coin is reverse order hence, Brahmi was written right to left

Yeraguddi Rock edict is in boustroperous form.

In Brami script, the letters are written up-down and also there are some mistakes in making compound letters.

Salient features :

1. The Brahmi writing system as we observe from Ashokan Edicts, are based on consonantal-syllabic form (Akshara) that is diacritically modified syllabic form. Which makes it quite different from other contemporary writing systems. (Richard saloman).

2. The Characters in Brahmi script have angular form, as it evolved these angular shapes were gradually replaced by cursive shapes.

3. The Brahmi script is generally written in left to right direction. Although there are a few instances where we see Boustrophedon type of writing like Yerragudi minor rock edict.

4. The earliest Brahmi alphabet consisted of 6 Vowels, 1 Anusvara sign and 32 consonants.

5. Brahmi characters are classified and arranged in the groups based on pronunciation. They are also written on the basis of pronunciation.

6. The script uses Anuswara (), Anunasika () and Visarga ()

7. The script is uniform in shape and size through out all regions, although some scholars have tried to classify them according to the regional variation which has been discarded now.

8. Conjunct and ligature were generally made with the combination of two or more letters in which latter akshara is joined with former in vertical manner. in order to adjust this larger compund letter the size was generally reduced.

9. The orthography was not properly developed and standardized in system of writing. A large number of orthographic pecularity continued to characterize the script even in the later period too. Which became a prime reason in difference in north and south Indian writing system.

EVOLUTION OF BRAHMI SCRIPT

ASHOKA ERA BRAHMI SCRIPT :

The Bramhi script has been employed to write Ashokan Rock Edict, Pillars, caves. there were other scripts employed in Ashokan incriptions but majority of Stone pillars and Rock edicts have Brahmi Script.

Mansera – Kharosthi

Sahbazgarhi – Kharosthi

Sarkoona Afganisthan – Armaic + Greek

Ashoka used this writing as official edicts for religious pupose, that is why he called it Dhamma-lipi, some of the basic features of these inscription are as below :

1. The inscription were used to spread Dharma

2. Ashoka wanted to make his messages eternal, that is why he engraved them on Rocks.

3. There is only one stone plate at Kolkata (Bairat). Others are made on stone pillar, rock or caves.

4. Ashokan pillars are smooth and well polished while rocks and caves inscriptions are on rough and uneven surface.

5. Armaic script was used to denote Armaic language, Greek script was used to represent Greek. Bramhi script was used to represent Prakrit and Pali language.

6. The Brahmi Alphabet contained 39 Alphabet in which 32 Consonants,1 Anuswara and 6 Vowels.

7. The Brahmi was known as Imperial Brahmi, since we only find King Ashoka Edicts.

8. The script was written on rough and uneven rock surface which was not made clean and plain, hence shape of letters slightly changed/distorted due to the uneven medium.

9. Ashokan Brahmi script is made from simple geometrical figures. Basic shape of letter was angluar, downward. Although, some cursive shape letters are also present.

10. In compound letters, the first pronounce letter was generally employed first thenafter latter character (Akshara) followed. The size of compound letters were reduced in order to adjust entire compound letter in single line.

11. Ashokan scipt letters length is roughly double of its width. (2:1)

12. Letters are generally open at bottom while going up straight upwards. Exception Ma and Jha

13. Headlines are open, no serif in Ashokan Brahmi.

14. Ashokan script was first written with round shape pen and ink and then incribed with the help of round shaped metal nail.

15. Space were generally left after each word, sometimes punctuation marks were also employed.

16. Artistic approach is very nicely manifested in Pillar inscriptions. Systematic arrangement of words, lines clear and deep engraving suggest that the art was well developed and high level of excellence was attained.

Some experts have tried to categorized difference of shape as per region.

George Buhler in his book India Paleography spoke of North and South Brahmi. tried to make 8 categories. R. B. Pandey had suggested regional sub-variation in Ashokan edicts but he gave no reason nor did he suggested any example to support his views.

Dani in his book Indian Paleography made 3 categories.

G. H. Ojha accepted variation in Mauryan Brahmi only partially. While for most of other variation he ascribed to different artists.

Indian experts like C. S Upasak (Girnar and Sopara example for letter A), D. C. Sircar refuted this claim.

1. Coomarswamy (History of India and Indonesian arts) thinks that there were difference between royal or court engravers and indigenous engravers. Royal engravers were expert artist who engraved Pillar inscriptions while indigenous engravers were poor artists who engraved regional rock edicts. V. A. Smith has similar views.

2. Style of writing differs from hand to hand. Different hands are noticeable in almost all the inscriptions. Many varieties of letter found in a particular inscription may suggest different hands used for engraving the same inscription. for example, Girnar rock has 9 variants of A, 4 forms of Ra, 6 types of Ja.

3. Even the surface of material on which the record is engraved contributed in shape of characters. for we see craftmanship in engraving the smooth surface of pillars is generally superior to that of the uneven surface of rocks.

Brahmi script of later Mauryan Period :

there are a few inscription found which could be ascribed to later Mauryan period

Nagarjuni cave : Close of Barabar Hills (Gaya, Bihar) three caves were cut and donated to Ajivikas by Devanampiya Dasaratha, the grandson of Ashoka.

The character of these inscription does not appear to differ much from those of Barabar cave inscription of Ashoka.

beginning of evolution which took place in later Brahmi script. Cursiveness can be noticed in La, Ha, Da etc. , there is slight change in the shape of the alphabet. Letters are more tend to become cursive, angular, the ratio between lenght and bredth reduces from 2:1.

Piprahwa Vase Inscription : All the letters employed in it are from Ashokan period, there is no slight difference in the Vase inscription. Hence, it is assumed that the vase was from Ashokan period.

Mahasthan stone Plaque inscription

Barli fragmentary Stone

Copper plate of Sohgaura

Casket inscription of Bhattiprolu

The size of character is reduced especially upper part is made short, the shape of characters are becoming more of cursive in nature. O medial signs(matra) is now in a horizontal line.

Shunga period Brahmi

Maurya empire dismembered in Shunga period. Small principality come up with in the Erstwhile Mauryan empire. At this time knowledge of writing diffused among different people, the fashion of writing individual inscription began. Generally mentioning temple donation and construction of religion sites.

The pace of writing on stone slabs/pillars etc increased in this period, and due to political diversions there were many regional variation we start to observe. Foreign powers like Saka Satrapas, Yavanas and other invaders also started to rule North western region of India, they employed script in coins. Shunga kings Inscriptions, Satvahana inscriptions, Kharvel Hathigumpa inscription etc are major epigraphic records of this period. These inscriptions are made with some regional variation although prime factors of Mauryan Brahmi was noneoftheless retained.

Various time period for Brahmi script

1. Maurya period (Dani) - Mahasthan, Sohgaura copper plate, Ashokan rock edict, pillar

2. 2^nd century BCE – Heliodoras pillar, Kharvel Hathigumpa,

3. 1^st century BCE – Sanchi, Barhut, Amravati, Ghosundi Stone inscription,

4. 2-3^rd Century AD – Kaushambi school and Mathura school

5. Bhattiprolu – South India Tamil-Brahmi

6. 4^th Century Ad – Gupta North, Pallava – Vakataka in South

Kharvela Hathi Gumpa inscription :

There were some various observed in Hathigumpa Inscription

1. Lower part of Characters became more thick compare to earlier forms

2. In the straight line characters, the upper portion became think. (Ga, and Ta)

3. Anuswara was marked in left side ( )

4. diacritic for Aa was marked in between the characters.

Shaka Satrapa Brahmi evolution :

Main variation :

1. Shaka satrapa technological advancement a new type of pen which was called wedge shaped reed pen. The typical characterstic of this is the varied thickness of characters due to the twist of the pen and a peculiar head mark or serif is visible in Shaka period Brahmi.

2. We also see tringular headmark in these type of script, example Va

3. We see angularity in cursive characters like Ma, Va, Kha, Ga, Ja, cha, Pa, Pha

4. Chha is no more elliptical but in infinite double loop form.

5. The character Na, base is little bend downwards, Ra is slightly bend towards left.

6. Some of the letters verticals were elongated . Aa, Ka, Ra

7. Tendency to equalize the verticals, gha, pa, la, sa, ha

8. change in writing style of vowel marking. Dash style Aa, I was round and ornated.

9. There was some changes noticed due to adjusting with Sanskrit language. New Vowel sound were denoted with new symbols. (EE, Au, Ao, Ri, Li)

10. Special ligatures made of combined letters were more frequently used (ksh and Gya)

Kushana Brahmi :

From 1-4^th century, in the rule of Kushanas Brahmi evolved in new forms, by the time more and more people become interested in recording their donation. different center of economic and religious activities became independent nuclei of regions, they developed their own local cultures which gave way to the regional development of Brahmi script. This can be traceable from 4-5th century AD onwards. Dr. Dani suggest some more reasons for further evolution in Brahmi script :

1. Predilection for cursive forms dictated by the swift flow of reed pen deformed the shape of characters gave rise to cursive forms

2. The desire for ornamentation which paved way for new shapes eg. Bijayagarh inscription, Nagarjunkonda

3. Symmetry in lines, ornamentation of letter forms and medial signs. Individual habits and mannerism and methods of writing letter also contributed in the formation of styles.

As per A. H. Dani, linking particular style of Brahmi with a dynasty is fallacious, since regional variation developed independent of any dynastic rule. It was developed around a socio-cultural center which worked as hub for the distinct style. During Kushana period and later, major sub variation occured at least at four different places.

1. North-western type – Mathura, Taxila and nearby areas

2. Eastern type – Kaushambi, Sarnath and Bodhgaya (Magadha)

3. Western type – Central India, Gujarat and Maharastra

4. Southern type – Tamilnadu and Andhra

Southern type of Brahmi was already began to evolve independently in later Mauryan period. While rest of the type started to visible in the beginning of Kushana Period. There were further improvement in wedge shape pen which made more distinct broad and thick shape characters.

4. According to Dr. Buhler, Pen was also used to write in artistic manner, the size of character reduced vertically while expanded horizontally.

5. Long vowels were employed more frequently in the sentences, this was due to use of Sanskrit language.

6. 1-2 century AD, following Indo-Greeks, Indians also used to inscribe their coins with name and Legends. Due to this a new trend started, to save the space the size of characters reduced by reducing their height. Long upward lines were removed. Tapering of vertical is salient feature of this peiod. (Yodheya, Naga, Audambaras coins) and hence, ratio of 2:1 reduced to 1:1 between length and width.

7. Mathura style continued to use headmark but eastern style is devoid of head marks. Although there is change in medial vowels signs.

8. I symbol is simplified and instead of showing it with three dots, short lines were used.

9. Base of character become more of flat and bent downward for example Ma, Va, Ha, La, Pa

10. Sanskrit Anuswara and Visargas were more commonly employed in the writing.

11. New symbol was introduced to represent Lri ( ) sound.

12. Introduction of Halanta sign, in which the last character was made smaller then the rest. SIDDHAM, NGA, NGHA

13. Matra (Diacritical) medial sign mark to consonant also changed. (Aa, i, U, o,)

14. Ri was used very frequently in the sentences.

15. Head Mark became in more triangular shape. And tapering which started in Shaka Kshatrappa period continued to be used more prominently in Kushana period. It continued to be used in western Kshatrapa and Satavahana Deccan, ultimately took a different form.

16. 
    

Gupta Brahmi Script :

With the coming of Gupta (4^th -6^th AD) we further see evolution in Brahmi script at various regional levels. These are broadly classified in four types.

Eastern Indian Style – Kaushambi Bengal and Bihar (Allahabad Pillar, bhita inscription)

Western Sytle - Mathura

Malwa style - Madhya pradesh boxshape headmark (Eran inscription, Sanchi, Udayagiri inscription)

Gujarat and Deccan style - Gujarat, maharastra

During 5^th Century AD, Kaushambi style became predominant style of writing in Gangetic Valley and continued to be flourished while other styles continued to be used occasionaly in local inscriptions.

Kausambi style

The Kausambi style of the fourth century A.D. can be best studied in the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudra Gupta. The writing in this inscription showed a further development from the Kausambi style of the second to third century A.D. The head formation has a definite line mark, which in some cases appears to be notched.

The initial a has only the angular form with its lower left stroke drawn at an agle the initial I has the dot, one above the other and a vertical on the right : 1 ; The initial u rounds its angle ; ka has its horizontal bent, the triangular base of kha is prominent ; the right arms of ga, ta, bha and sa are promonged a practice seen in all the North India inscriptions. The limbs of kha, ga and sa have base foot marks.

The Eastern Malwa style

The eastern Malwa style of the fourth century A.D. is the continuation of the ornamental style that was seen in this region in the earlier century. The Eran inscription of Samudra Gupta and the Udayagiri cave inscriptions of Chandra Gupta II, generally exhibits solid triangular head marks on the whole the forms are generally in the Malwa style.

It may be stated that the early Gupta inscriptions carry further the regional styles of the third century A.D. They differ from the earlier inscriptions in the formations of the head – mark, in the evolution of the uniform medial vowel marks, and in the development of a few letters.

Head Mark were found of two types, on account of South and north india. The inscription in South Vakataka Inscription has square box-head mark, while Gupta script had tringular shape head mark.

Vakataka Boxhead Brahmi : -

All along the late Brahmi inscriptions of Gupta, their contemporary and feudatory Vakataka rulers developed a distinct style of writing, known as Box headed characters. We have a large number of copper plate inscriptions written in Box head characters. Rulers of Central India continued to use this script like Panduvamsi, Somavamsis and Sarabhapuriya rulers. Along with Box head character we also find Nail Head characters used by rulers of Parivrajaka dynasty and other rulers of Central India in 6th and 7th Century A.D. Further, from late Brahmi, we find the origin and development of Siddhamatrika or Kutila script, and its matured form to be seen in 7th Century A.D.

The medium of writing used in Northen part of India was Bark of birch tree (Bhoj Patra), generally Reed with ink was used to write on these Bhoja patra. This was major factor in shaping the character as we see in Gupta period. While The medium of writing used in southern part of India was palm leaf, generally metal nail was used to write on the palm leaf. This was major factor in shaping the character as we see in Inscription from south India.

Rounded letters were preferable as long straight strokes by metal nail may tear the leaf. Therefore, in the coastal regions where palm leaf and metal needle was prominent the script took shape of more rounded characters.