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Brahmic scripts

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105-630: The Brahmic scripts , also known as Indic scripts , are a family of abugida writing systems . They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent , Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia . They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used by various languages in several language families in South , East and Southeast Asia : Indo-Aryan , Dravidian , Tibeto-Burman , Mongolic , Austroasiatic , Austronesian , and Tai . They were also

210-742: A Hindu. After Malaysia gained its independence from British colonial empire in 1957, it declared its official state religion as Islam and adopted a discriminatory constitution as well as the Sedition Act of 1971 which limited public debate on Malaysia's treatment of religion, language and citizenship policies. In recent decades, there have been increasing reports of religious persecution of Hindus, along with other minority religions, by various state governments of Malaysia and its Sharia courts. Hindu temples built on private property, and built long before Malaysian independence, have been demolished by Malaysian government officials in recent years. Since

315-413: A change to writing the two consonants side by side. In the latter case, this combination may be indicated by a diacritic on one of the consonants or a change in the form of one of the consonants, e.g. the half forms of Devanagari. Generally, the reading order of stacked consonants is top to bottom, or the general reading order of the script, but sometimes the reading order can be reversed. The division of

420-457: A conjunct. This expedient is used by ISCII and South Asian scripts of Unicode .) Thus a closed syllable such as phaṣ requires two aksharas to write: फष् phaṣ . The Róng script used for the Lepcha language goes further than other Indic abugidas, in that a single akshara can represent a closed syllable: Not only the vowel, but any final consonant is indicated by a diacritic. For example,

525-473: A default vowel consonant such as फ does not take on a final consonant sound. Instead, it keeps its vowel. For writing two consonants without a vowel in between, instead of using diacritics on the first consonant to remove its vowel, another popular method of special conjunct forms is used in which two or more consonant characters are merged to express a cluster, such as Devanagari, as in अप्फ appha. (Some fonts display this as प् followed by फ, rather than forming

630-520: A diacritic, but writes all other vowels as full letters (similarly to Kurdish and Uyghur). This means that when no vowel diacritics are present (most of the time), it technically has an inherent vowel. However, like the Phagspa and Meroitic scripts whose status as abugidas is controversial (see below), all other vowels are written in-line. Additionally, the practice of explicitly writing all-but-one vowel does not apply to loanwords from Arabic and Persian, so

735-617: A king's rule. The cult enabled the Khmer kings to embark on massive architectural projects, constructing majestic monuments such as Angkor Wat and Bayon to celebrate the king's divine rule on earth. The empire's official religions included Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism until Theravada Buddhism prevailed, even among the lower classes, after its introduction from Sri Lanka in the 13th century. Since then, Hinduism slowly declined in Cambodia, and finally being replaced by Theravadan Buddhist as

840-436: A letter modified to indicate the vowel. Letters can be modified either by means of diacritics or by changes in the form of the letter itself. If all modifications are by diacritics and all diacritics follow the direction of the writing of the letters, then the abugida is not an alphasyllabary. However, most languages have words that are more complicated than a sequence of CV syllables, even ignoring tone. The first complication

945-469: A letter representing just a consonant (C). This final consonant may be represented with: In a true abugida, the lack of distinctive vowel marking of the letter may result from the diachronic loss of the inherent vowel, e.g. by syncope and apocope in Hindi . When not separating syllables containing consonant clusters (CCV) into C + CV, these syllables are often written by combining the two consonants. In

1050-515: A minority in Singapore, comprising about 10.1 percent of its citizens and permanent residents in 2010. Among 15 years or older population, there were about 558,000 Hindus; 37% of all Hindus in Singapore speak Tamil at home, another 42% speak English. Deepavali is a major Hindu festival and a public holiday observed in Singapore. A number of Hindus remain in Thailand , mostly in cities. In

1155-573: A newly excavated temple building which they wish to see restored as a site of active Hindu worship. The temple is to be dedicated to Gajah Mada, the man attributed with transforming the small Hindu kingdom of Majapahit into an empire. Although there has been a more pronounced history of resistance to Islamization in East Java, Hindu communities are also expanding in Central Java near the ancient Hindu monuments of Prambanan. On 9 to 12 November 2019,

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1260-413: A particular vowel, and in which diacritics denote other vowels". (This 'particular vowel' is referred to as the inherent or implicit vowel, as opposed to the explicit vowels marked by the 'diacritics'.) An alphasyllabary is defined as "a type of writing system in which the vowels are denoted by subsidiary symbols, not all of which occur in a linear order (with relation to the consonant symbols) that

1365-791: A profound impact on the region's cultural development and its history . As the Indic scripts were introduced from the Indian subcontinent , people of Southeast Asia entered the historical period by producing their earliest inscriptions around the 1st to 5th century CE. Today, Hindus in Southeast Asia are mainly Overseas Indians and Balinese . There are also Javanese (also other minorities of Indonesia) and Balamon Cham minority in Cambodia and south central Vietnam who also practice Hinduism. Hindu civilization, which itself formed from various distinct cultures and peoples, including also early Southeast Asian, specifically Mon Khmer influence,

1470-416: A result of the spread of writing systems, independent vowels may be used to represent syllables beginning with a glottal stop , even for non-initial syllables. The next two complications are consonant clusters before a vowel (CCV) and syllables ending in a consonant (CVC). The simplest solution, which is not always available, is to break with the principle of writing words as a sequence of syllables and use

1575-409: A segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary, similar to a diacritical mark . This contrasts with a full alphabet , in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad , in which vowel marking is absent, partial , or optional – in less formal contexts, all three types of

1680-502: A syllable with the default vowel, in this case ka ( [kə] ). In some languages, including Hindi, it becomes a final closing consonant at the end of a word, in this case k . The inherent vowel may be changed by adding vowel mark ( diacritics ), producing syllables such as कि ki, कु ku, के ke, को ko. In many of the Brahmic scripts, a syllable beginning with a cluster is treated as a single character for purposes of vowel marking, so

1785-613: A symbol of the monarchy. Reliefs in temple walls, such as the 12th-century Prasat Sikhoraphum in Surin Province , show a dancing Shiva, with smaller images of Parvati , Vishnu , Brahma and Ganesha. The Devasathan is a Hindu temple established in 1784 by King Rama I . The temple is the centre of Brahminism in Thailand. The royal court Brahmins operate the temple, they perform several royal ceremonies per year. An annual Giant Swing ceremony known as Triyampavai-Tripavai

1890-439: A term in linguistics was proposed by Peter T. Daniels in his 1990 typology of writing systems . As Daniels used the word, an abugida is in contrast with a syllabary , where letters with shared consonant or vowel sounds show no particular resemblance to one another. Furthermore, an abugida is also in contrast with an alphabet proper, where independent letters are used to denote consonants and vowels. The term alphasyllabary

1995-420: A vowel can be written before, below or above a consonant letter, while the syllable is still pronounced in the order of a consonant-vowel combination (CV). The fundamental principles of an abugida apply to words made up of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. The syllables are written as letters in a straight line, where each syllable is either a letter that represents the sound of a consonant and its inherent vowel or

2100-470: A vowel marker like ि -i, falling before the character it modifies, may appear several positions before the place where it is pronounced. For example, the game cricket in Hindi is क्रिकेट krikeṭ ; the diacritic for /i/ appears before the consonant cluster /kr/ , not before the /r/ . A more unusual example is seen in the Batak alphabet : Here the syllable bim is written ba-ma-i-(virama) . That is,

2205-403: A word into syllables for the purposes of writing does not always accord with the natural phonetics of the language. For example, Brahmic scripts commonly handle a phonetic sequence CVC-CV as CV-CCV or CV-C-CV. However, sometimes phonetic CVC syllables are handled as single units, and the final consonant may be represented: More complicated unit structures (e.g. CC or CCVC) are handled by combining

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2310-536: Is Pura Mandaragiri Sumeru Agung, located on the slope of Mt. Semeru , Java's highest mountain. Another Hindu temple, built on a site with minor archaeological remnants attributed to the Kingdom of Blambangan , the last Hindu polity on Java, and Pura Loka Moksa Jayabaya (in the village of Menang near Kediri ), where the Hindu king and prophet Jayabaya is said to have achieved spiritual liberation ( moksa ). Another site

2415-522: Is a matter of nationalist pride. Next to Indonesian Balinese, today, the Balamon Cham are the only surviving native (non-Indic) Hindus in Southeast Asia. In Vietnam there are roughly 160,000 members of the Cham ethnic minority, majority of them adheres to Islam while some are Hindus. After centuries being dominated by Kinh (Vietnamese), today there are some effort to revive Cham culture. Hinduism

2520-518: Is a minority religion of Southeast Asia with a sizeable population in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Myanmar. Indonesia has the fourth largest hindu population of the world. Cambodia was first influenced by Hinduism during the beginning of the Kingdom of Funan . Hinduism was one of the Khmer Empire 's official religions. Angkor Wat , the largest temple complex in the world (now Buddhist)

2625-463: Is a non-segmental script that indicates syllable onsets and rimes , such as consonant clusters and vowels with final consonants. Thus it is not segmental and cannot be considered an abugida. However, it superficially resembles an abugida with the roles of consonant and vowel reversed. Most syllables are written with two letters in the order rime–onset (typically vowel-consonant), even though they are pronounced as onset-rime (consonant-vowel), rather like

2730-672: Is a significant cultural, linguistic, and political Mon-Khmer (Austroasiatic) influence on early Indian culture and traditions. India is seen a melting pot of western, eastern and indigenous traditions. Indian scholars wrote about the Dwipantara or Jawa Dwipa Hindu kingdom in Java and Sumatra around 200 BC. "Yawadvipa" is mentioned in India's earliest epic, the Ramayana . Sugriva , the chief of Rama 's army dispatched his men to Yawadvipa,

2835-601: Is also found among the Cham minority in Southern Vietnam and Cambodia : just like the Javanese, the majority of them are Muslims but a minority are Hindu. In other parts of Indonesia, the term Hindu Dharma is often loosely used as an umbrella category to identify native spiritual beliefs and indigenous religions such as Hindu Kaharingan professed by Dayak of Kalimantan . The resurgence of Hinduism in Indonesia

2940-560: Is called Withano , and others. Many of these ideas are part of thirty-seven Nat or deities found in Burmese culture. Before the arrival of Islam in Sulu in 1450 and Christianity with Ferdinand Magellan , who sailed from Spain in 1521, the chiefs of many communities across the islands were called Rajas , and the script was derived from Brahmi . The concept of karma is readily understood across various Philippine peoples as part of

3045-499: Is congruent with their temporal order in speech". Bright did not require that an alphabet explicitly represent all vowels. ʼPhags-pa is an example of an abugida because it has an inherent vowel , but it is not an alphasyllabary because its vowels are written in linear order. Modern Lao is an example of an alphasyllabary that is not an abugida, for there is no inherent vowel and its vowels are always written explicitly and not in accordance to their temporal order in speech, meaning that

3150-495: Is difficult to draw a dividing line between abugidas and other segmental scripts. For example, the Meroitic script of ancient Sudan did not indicate an inherent a (one symbol stood for both m and ma, for example), and is thus similar to Brahmic family of abugidas. However, the other vowels were indicated with full letters, not diacritics or modification, so the system was essentially an alphabet that did not bother to write

3255-442: Is named after Ayodhya, the birthplace of Rama . Numerous rituals derived from Brahmanism are preserved in rituals, such as the use of holy strings and pouring of water from conch shells. Furthermore, Hindu deities are worshipped by many Thais alongside Buddhism, such as Brahma at the famous Erawan Shrine , and statues of Ganesh , Indra , and Shiva , as well as numerous symbols relating to Hindu deities are found, e.g., Garuda ,

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3360-872: Is not only people of Indian descent who practice Hinduism; Hinduism still survives as the major religion in Bali , where native Indonesians , the Balinese people , adheres to Agama Hindu Dharma , a variant of Hinduism derived from ancient Java-Bali Hindu traditions developed in the island for almost two millennia that often incorporates native spiritual elements. Other than the Balinese, a small enclave of Javanese Hindu minorities are also can be found in Java , such as around Tengger mountain ranges near Bromo and Semeru volcanoes, Karanganyar Regency in Central Java , and near Prambanan , Yogyakarta . Similarly, Hinduism

3465-688: Is occurring in all parts of the country. In the early 1970s, the Toraja people of Sulawesi were the first to be identified under the umbrella of 'Hinduism', followed by the Karo Batak of Sumatra in 1977 and the Ngaju Dayak of Kalimantan in 1980. In an unpublished report in 1999, the National Indonesian Bureau of Statistics admitted that around 100,000 people had officially converted or 'reconverted' from Islam to Hinduism over

3570-718: Is one of the most notable Tamil Hindu temples in Ho Chi Minh City. Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan Provinces are where most of the Cham ethnic group (≈65%) in Vietnam reside according to the last population census. Cham Balamon (Hindu Cham) in Ninh Thuan numbered 7,000 in 2002 inhabiting 6 of 34 Cham villages. If this population composition is typical for the Balamon Cham population of Vietnam as a whole then approximately 10% of Balamon Chams in Vietnam are Hindu. Hinduism

3675-476: Is syllables that consist of just a vowel (V). For some languages, a zero consonant letter is used as though every syllable began with a consonant. For other languages, each vowel has a separate letter that is used for each syllable consisting of just the vowel. These letters are known as independent vowels , and are found in most Indic scripts. These letters may be quite different from the corresponding diacritics, which by contrast are known as dependent vowels . As

3780-486: Is the case for syllabaries, the units of the writing system may consist of the representations both of syllables and of consonants. For scripts of the Brahmic family, the term akshara is used for the units. In several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea, abugida traditionally meant letters of the Ethiopic or Ge‘ez script in which many of these languages are written. Ge'ez is one of several segmental writing systems in

3885-480: Is the new Pura Pucak Raung in East Java, which is mentioned in Balinese literature as the place from where Maharishi Markandeya took Hinduism to Bali in the 14th century. An example of resurgence around major archaeological remains of ancient Hindu temple sites was observed in Trowulan near Mojokerto , the capital of the legendary Hindu empire Majapahit . A local Hindu movement is struggling to gain control of

3990-670: Is with North Indic scripts, used in Northern India, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, and Russia; and Southern Indic scripts, used in South India , Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia . South Indic letter forms are more rounded than North Indic forms, though Odia , Golmol and Litumol of Nepal script are rounded. Most North Indic scripts' full letters incorporate a horizontal line at the top, with Gujarati and Odia as exceptions; South Indic scripts do not. Indic scripts indicate vowels through dependent vowel signs (diacritics) around

4095-520: Is worshipped whose origins are in the Hindu god Indra . Burmese literature has also been enriched by Hinduism, including the Burmese adaptation of the Ramayana, called Yama Zatdaw . Many Hindu gods are likewise worshipped by many Burmese people, such as Saraswati (known as Thuyathadi in Burmese), the goddess of knowledge, who is often worshipped before examinations; Shiva is called Paramizwa ; Vishnu

4200-664: The Aceh area of Sumatra in the 12th century. Medieval Indian scholars also referred to the Philippines as "Panyupayana" (The lands surrounded by water). Examples of the Hindu cultural influence found today throughout the Southeast Asia owe much to the legacy of the Chola dynasty . For example, the great temple complex at Prambanan in Indonesia exhibit a number of similarities with the South Indian architecture. According to

4305-597: The Brahmi alphabet . Today they are used in most languages of South Asia (although replaced by Perso-Arabic in Urdu , Kashmiri and some other languages of Pakistan and India ), mainland Southeast Asia ( Myanmar , Thailand , Laos , Cambodia , and Vietnam ), Tibet ( Tibetan ), Indonesian archipelago ( Javanese , Balinese , Sundanese , Batak , Lontara , Rejang , Rencong , Makasar , etc.), Philippines ( Baybayin , Buhid , Hanunuo , Kulitan , and Aborlan Tagbanwa ), Malaysia ( Rencong ). The primary division

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4410-490: The Ge'ez abugida (or fidel ), the base form of the letter (also known as fidel ) may be altered. For example, ሀ hä [hə] (base form), ሁ hu (with a right-side diacritic that does not alter the letter), ሂ hi (with a subdiacritic that compresses the consonant, so it is the same height), ህ hə [hɨ] or [h] (where the letter is modified with a kink in the left arm). In the family known as Canadian Aboriginal syllabics , which

4515-643: The Kadamba , Pallava and Vatteluttu scripts, which in turn diversified into other scripts of South India and Southeast Asia. Brahmic scripts spread in a peaceful manner, Indianization , or the spread of Indian learning. The scripts spread naturally to Southeast Asia, at ports on trading routes. At these trading posts, ancient inscriptions have been found in Sanskrit, using scripts that originated in India. At first, inscriptions were made in Indian languages, but later

4620-583: The Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī scripts ; the abjad in question is usually considered to be the Aramaic one, but while the link between Aramaic and Kharosthi is more or less undisputed, this is not the case with Brahmi. The Kharosthi family does not survive today, but Brahmi's descendants include most of the modern scripts of South and Southeast Asia . Ge'ez derived from a different abjad, the Sabean script of Yemen ;

4725-818: The Khmer Empire in Indochina , Langkasuka Kingdom and Old Kedah in the Malay Peninsula , the Sriwijayan kingdom on Sumatra , the Mataram Kingdom , Singhasari and the Majapahit Empire based in Java , Bali and parts of the Philippine archipelago. The civilisation of India influenced the languages, scripts, written tradition, literatures, calendars, beliefs system and artistic aspects of these peoples and nations. A reason for

4830-600: The Royal Ploughing Ceremony to ensure a good harvest. The importance of Hinduism cannot be denied, even though much of the rituals has been combined with Buddhism. According to the Thai Census of 2005, there are 52,631 Hindus living in Thailand, making up just 0.09% of the total population. The first recorded religion of the Champa was a form of Shaiva Hinduism , brought by sea from India. Hinduism

4935-533: The Thai king . According to T.P. Meenakshisundaram, the name of the festival indicates that Thiruppavai might have been recited as well. The swinging ceremony depicted a legend about how the god created the world. Outside shops, particularly in towns and rural areas, statues of Nang Kwak as the deity of wealth, fortune and prosperity (version of Lakshmi ) are found. The elite, and the royal household, often employ Brahmins to mark funerals and state ceremonies such as

5040-536: The aksharas ; there is no vowel-killer mark. Abjads are typically written without indication of many vowels. However, in some contexts like teaching materials or scriptures , Arabic and Hebrew are written with full indication of vowels via diacritic marks ( harakat , niqqud ) making them effectively alphasyllabaries. The Arabic scripts used for Kurdish in Iraq and for Uyghur in Xinjiang , China, as well as

5145-575: The 1970s, there has been large scale emigration of Hindus (along with Buddhists and Christians) from Malaysia. Malaysian Hindus celebrate Deepavali (festival of lights), Thaipusam (Lord Murugan festival), Pongal (harvest festival) and Navaratri (Durga festival). Hinduism in Burma is practised by about 840,000 people, though a reliable census data is unavailable Most Hindus in Myanmar are Burmese Indians . In modern Myanmar, most Hindus are found in

5250-611: The 7th or 8th century, include Nagari , Siddham and Sharada . The Siddhaṃ script was especially important in Buddhism , as many sutras were written in it. The art of Siddham calligraphy survives today in Japan . The tabular presentation and dictionary order of the modern kana system of Japanese writing is believed to be descended from the Indic scripts, most likely through the spread of Buddhism . Southern Brahmi evolved into

5355-520: The Hebrew script of Yiddish , are fully vowelled, but because the vowels are written with full letters rather than diacritics (with the exception of distinguishing between /a/ and /o/ in the latter) and there are no inherent vowels, these are considered alphabets, not abugidas. The Arabic script used for South Azerbaijani generally writes the vowel /æ/ (written as ə in North Azerbaijani) as

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5460-634: The Indic scripts, the earliest method was simply to arrange them vertically, writing the second consonant of the cluster below the first one. The two consonants may also merge as conjunct consonant letters, where two or more letters are graphically joined in a ligature , or otherwise change their shapes. Rarely, one of the consonants may be replaced by a gemination mark, e.g. the Gurmukhi addak . When they are arranged vertically, as in Burmese or Khmer , they are said to be 'stacked'. Often there has been

5565-734: The Malay chronicle Sejarah Melayu , the rulers of the Malacca Sultanate claimed to be descendants of the kings of the Chola Empire.Chola rule is remembered in Malaysia today as many princes there have names ending with Cholan or Chulan, one such being Raja Chulan , the Raja of Perak . The Chola school of art also spread to Southeast Asia and influenced the architecture and art of Southeast Asia. Some scholars have pointed out that

5670-947: The Nagavamshi Kshatriya caste (pronounced in Cham (?) as "Satrias"), and claim to be the descendants of the Champa Empire. In any case a sizeable proportion of the Balamon Hindu Cham are considered Brahmins . Hindu temples are called Bimong in the Cham language and the priests are called Halau Tamunay Ahier . The exact number of Hindus in Vietnam are not published in Government census, but there are estimated to be at least 10,000 Balamon Hindus, with another 4,000 Hindus living in Ho Chi Minh City ; most of whom are of Indian ( Tamil ) or of mixed Indian-Vietnamese descent. The Mariamman Temple

5775-728: The Philippine population at 34,634 Today, there is a Hindu temple (attended mostly by Sindhīs ) on Mahatma Gandhi Street, and the Khalsa Diwan Indian Sikh Temple gurdwāra on United Nations Avenue. Both are in the traditionally Indian enclaves of Paco and Pandacan , two districts of the City of Manila , and are some 15 minutes away from each other by foot. There are currently around 22 gurdwāras nationwide, with most congregants being Indians, Sri Lankans and Nepalese. There are also various Hare Krishna groups in

5880-547: The Philippines mainly due to the presence of Indians, such as Tamil people , who migrated from the Indian subcontinent to Southeast Asia in past centuries. One notably Southeast Asian aspect of Tamil Hinduism is the festival of Thaipusam , while other Hindu religious festivals such as Diwali are also well-observed by Hindus in the region. In Thailand and Cambodia, Thai and Khmer people practised Hindu rituals and traditions along with their Buddhist faith, and Hindu gods such as Brahma are still widely revered. In Indonesia, it

5985-496: The acceptance of Indian culture and religious traditions in Southeast Asia was because Indian culture already some striking similarities to indigenous cultures of Southeast Asia, which can be explained by earlier Southeast Asian (specifically Austroasiatic , such as early Munda and Mon Khmer groups) and Himalayan ( Tibetic ) cultural and linguistic influence on local Indian peoples. Several scholars, such as Professor Przyluski, Jules Bloch, and Lévi, among others, concluded that there

6090-587: The advent of vowels coincided with the introduction or adoption of Christianity about AD 350. The Ethiopic script is the elaboration of an abjad. The Cree syllabary was invented with full knowledge of the Devanagari system. The Meroitic script was developed from Egyptian hieroglyphs , within which various schemes of 'group writing' had been used for showing vowels. Hinduism in Southeast Asia Hinduism in Southeast Asia had

6195-714: The ancient and medieval era. A large number of Hindus from South India were brought to Malaysia by British colonial empire during the 19th and 20th century, as indentured labourers to work on coffee and sugarcane plantations and tin mining; later they were deployed in large numbers, along with Chinese Buddhists , on rubber plantations. The British kangani system of recruitment, designed to reduce labour turnover and enhance labour stability, encouraged Hindu workers to recruit friends and family from India to work in British operations in Malaysia. The kangani system brought numerous Tamil Hindus into Malaysia by early 1900s. By 1950s, about 12.8% of Malaysian population professed to be

6300-425: The building of Dravidian temples throughout the island, and the beginnings of a vibrant Hindu culture. The first temple is Sri Mariamman Temple in Singapore's Chinatown . There are currently about thirty main temples in Singapore, dedicated to various gods and goddesses from the Hindu pantheon. Today, two government bodies deal with Hindu affairs: The Hindu Endowments Board and The Hindu Advisory Board. Hindus are

6405-463: The consonants to the point that they must be considered modifications of the form of the letters. Children learn each modification separately, as in a syllabary; nonetheless, the graphic similarities between syllables with the same consonant are readily apparent, unlike the case in a true syllabary . Though now an abugida, the Ge'ez script , until the advent of Christianity ( ca. AD 350 ), had originally been what would now be termed an abjad . In

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6510-428: The consonants, often including a sign that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel. If a consonant has no vowel sign, this indicates a default vowel. Vowel diacritics may appear above, below, to the left, to the right, or around the consonant. The most widely used Indic script is Devanagari , shared by Hindi , Bihari , Marathi , Konkani , Nepali , and often Sanskrit . A basic letter such as क in Hindi represents

6615-417: The country that are gaining in popularity, as well as the presence of Ananda Marga and Brahma Kumaris communities, among others. The introduction of Hinduism to Singapore dates back to the early 10th century, during the Chola period. Immigrants from Southern India , mostly Tamils , arrived as labourers for the British East India Company , bringing with them their religion and culture. Their arrival saw

6720-720: The early Hindu states established in the region. The notable ancient Indonesian Hindu kingdoms are Mataram Kingdom (famous for the construction of the majestic 9th-century Trimurti Prambanan temple) followed by Kediri , Singhasari and the 14th-century Majapahit , the last and largest among Hindu-Buddhist Javanese empires. The Hindu civilisations have left their marks on Indonesian culture . The epics Mahabharata and Ramayana , became enduring traditions among Indonesian art forms, expressed in wayang shadow puppet and dance performances . Many Indonesian names are Sanskrit-based, and Bahasa Indonesia contains loads of loanwords of Sanskrit origin . The vehicle of Vishnu, Garuda ,

6825-406: The examples above to sets of syllables in the Japanese hiragana syllabary: か ka , き ki , く ku , け ke , こ ko have nothing in common to indicate k; while ら ra , り ri , る ru , れ re , ろ ro have neither anything in common for r , nor anything to indicate that they have the same vowels as the k set. Most Indian and Indochinese abugidas appear to have first been developed from abjads with

6930-469: The grand Abhiṣeka sacred ceremony was performed in this temple compound. This Hindu ritual was held for the first time after 1,163 years after the Prambanan temple was founded on 856. The Abhiṣeka ceremony was meant to cleanse, sanctify and purify the temple, thus signify that the temple is not merely an archaeological and tourism site, but also restored to its original function as a focus of Hindu religious activity. Hinduism makes up less than 0.1% of

7035-409: The island of Java, in search of Sita . It was hence referred to by the Sanskrit name "yāvaka dvīpa" (dvīpa = island). Southeast Asia was frequented by traders from eastern India, particularly Kalinga , as well as from the kingdoms of South India. The Indianised Tarumanagara kingdom was established in West Java around 400s, produced among the earliest inscriptions in Indonesian history . There

7140-403: The legends of Ikshvaku and Sumati may have their origin in the Southeast-Asian myth of the birth of humanity from a bitter gourd . The legend of Sumati, the wife of King Sagar , tells that she produced offspring with the aid of a bitter gourd. Today, vibrant and diverse Hindu communities spread across Southeast Asia remain especially in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Medan (Indonesia) and

7245-408: The lowest social level are slaves. The extensive irrigation projects provided rice surpluses that could support a large population. The state religion was Hinduism but influenced by the cult of Devaraja , elevating the Khmer kings as possessing the divine quality of living gods on earth, attributed to the incarnation of Vishnu or Shiva. In politics, this status was viewed as the divine justification of

7350-438: The major faith in the kingdom. Despite this, Hindu rituals continue to play an important role in the kingdom. Like in neighboring Thailand, the ceremony of coronation is conducted mostly by royal Brahmins, during which the sovereign swears in front of the idols of gods Vishnu and Shiva to maintain the ancient national traditions. Today in Indonesia, Hinduism is practised by 1.7% of the total population. Hindus constitute 83.29% of

7455-445: The majority religion in the Indonesian archipelago. The influence of Hinduism has profoundly left its marks on the culture of Bali, Java, and Sumatra. Bali has become the last remnant of once Hindu dominated region. Hindu influences reached the Indonesian Archipelago as early as first century. In 4th-century, the kingdom of Kutai in East Kalimantan , Tarumanagara in West Java , and Holing ( Kalingga ) in Central Java , were among

7560-462: The more southern part of what is today Central Vietnam , and was a highly Indianized Hindu Kingdom, practising a form of Shaivite Hinduism brought by sea from India. Mỹ Sơn , a Hindu temple complex in central Vietnam built by the Cham people is still standing albeit in ruins in Quảng Nam Province , in Vietnam. Since the 15th century under the growing Vietnamese kingdom from the north, Champa

7665-405: The most common vowel. Several systems of shorthand use diacritics for vowels, but they do not have an inherent vowel, and are thus more similar to Thaana and Kurdish script than to the Brahmic scripts. The Gabelsberger shorthand system and its derivatives modify the following consonant to represent vowels. The Pollard script , which was based on shorthand, also uses diacritics for vowels;

7770-455: The past, the nation came under the influence of the Khmer Empire , which had strong Hindu roots. Despite the fact that today Thailand is a Buddhist majority nation , many elements of Thai culture and symbolism demonstrates Hindu influences and heritage. For example, the popular epic, Ramakien , is based on the Ramayana . The Emblem of Thailand depicts Garuda , the vahana (vehicle) of Vishnu. The Thai city, Ayutthaya near Bangkok,

7875-423: The placements of the vowel relative to the consonant indicates tone . Pitman shorthand uses straight strokes and quarter-circle marks in different orientations as the principal "alphabet" of consonants; vowels are shown as light and heavy dots, dashes and other marks in one of 3 possible positions to indicate the various vowel-sounds. However, to increase writing speed, Pitman has rules for "vowel indication" using

7980-400: The population of Bali and 5.75% of the population of Central Kalimantan, as of the 2010 census. However, between the 4th century to 15th century, Hinduism and Buddhism was adhered by the majority of the population, along with native indigenous animism and dynamism beliefs that venerated natural and ancestral spirits . By 15th to 16th-century Islam had supplanted Hinduism and Buddhism as

8085-583: The population of Laos. Approximately 7,000 People of Laos are Hindus . Ancient Laos used to be a part of Hindu Khmer Empire. The Wat Phou is one of the last influences of that period. The Laotian adaptation of the Ramayana is called Phra Lak Phra Lam . Hinduism is the fourth largest religion in Malaysia. About 1.78 million Malaysian residents (6.3% of the total population) are Hindus, according to 2010 Census of Malaysia. Most Malaysian Hindus are settled in western parts of Peninsular Malaysia . Indian Hindus and Buddhists began arriving in Malaysia during

8190-401: The position of the /i/ vowel in Devanagari, which is written before the consonant. Pahawh is also unusual in that, while an inherent rime /āu/ (with mid tone) is unwritten, it also has an inherent onset /k/ . For the syllable /kau/ , which requires one or the other of the inherent sounds to be overt, it is /au/ that is written. Thus it is the rime (vowel) that is basic to the system. It

8295-553: The positioning or choice of consonant signs so that writing vowel-marks can be dispensed with. As the term alphasyllabary suggests, abugidas have been considered an intermediate step between alphabets and syllabaries . Historically, abugidas appear to have evolved from abjads (vowelless alphabets). They contrast with syllabaries, where there is a distinct symbol for each syllable or consonant-vowel combination, and where these have no systematic similarity to each other, and typically develop directly from logographic scripts . Compare

8400-568: The posthumous King Suryavarman II as Vishnu. Hindu ceremonies and rituals performed by Brahmins (Hindu priests), typically only remained among the ruling elites of the king's family, nobles, and the ruling class . The Khmer Empire has developed a complex society where sophisticated culture, art, and architecture flourish. The Khmer king and his officials were in charge of irrigation management and water distribution, which consisted of an intricate series of hydraulics infrastructure, such as canals, moats, and massive reservoirs called barays . Society

8505-431: The previous two decades. The Ministry of Religious Affairs, as of 2007 estimates there to be at least 10 million Hindus in Indonesia. The growth of Hinduism has been driven also by the famous Javanese prophecies of Sabdapalon and Jayabaya . Many recent converts to Hinduism had been members of the families of Sukarno 's PNI, and now support Megawati Sukarnoputri . This return to the 'religion of Majapahit (Hinduism)

8610-471: The same Brahmi glyph. Accordingly: The transliteration is indicated in ISO 15919 . Vowels are presented in their independent form on the left of each column, and in their corresponding dependent form (vowel sign) combined with the consonant k on the right. A glyph for ka is an independent consonant letter itself without any vowel sign, where the vowel a is inherent . Notes Notes The Brahmi script

8715-472: The script does not have an inherent vowel for Arabic and Persian words. The inconsistency of its vowel notation makes it difficult to categorize. The imperial Mongol script called Phagspa was derived from the Tibetan abugida, but all vowels are written in-line rather than as diacritics. However, it retains the features of having an inherent vowel /a/ and having distinct initial vowel letters. Pahawh Hmong

8820-508: The script may be termed "alphabets". The terms also contrast them with a syllabary , in which a single symbol denotes the combination of one consonant and one vowel. Related concepts were introduced independently in 1948 by James Germain Février (using the term néosyllabisme ) and David Diringer (using the term semisyllabary ), then in 1959 by Fred Householder (introducing the term pseudo-alphabet ). The Ethiopic term "abugida"

8925-430: The scripts were used to write the local Southeast Asian languages. Hereafter, local varieties of the scripts were developed. By the 8th century, the scripts had diverged and separated into regional scripts. Some characteristics, which are present in most but not all the scripts, are: Below are comparison charts of several of the major Indic scripts, organised on the principle that glyphs in the same column all derive from

9030-516: The source of the dictionary order ( gojūon ) of Japanese kana . Brahmic scripts descended from the Brahmi script . Brahmi is clearly attested from the 3rd century BCE during the reign of Ashoka , who used the script for imperial edicts . Northern Brahmi gave rise to the Gupta script during the Gupta period , which in turn diversified into a number of cursives during the medieval period . Notable examples of such medieval scripts, developed by

9135-536: The southern group the Vatteluttu and Kadamba / Pallava scripts with the spread of Buddhism sent Brahmic scripts throughout Southeast Asia. As of Unicode version 16.0, the following Brahmic scripts have been encoded: Abugida An abugida ( / ˌ ɑː b uː ˈ ɡ iː d ə , ˌ æ b -/ ; from Ge'ez : አቡጊዳ , 'äbugīda ) – sometimes also called alphasyllabary , neosyllabary , or pseudo-alphabet  – is

9240-435: The syllable [sok] would be written as something like s̥̽, here with an underring representing /o/ and an overcross representing the diacritic for final /k/ . Most other Indic abugidas can only indicate a very limited set of final consonants with diacritics, such as /ŋ/ or /r/ , if they can indicate any at all. In Ethiopic or Ge'ez script , fidels (individual "letters" of the script) have "diacritics" that are fused with

9345-564: The traditional worldview, and derived concepts exist such as kalma in Pampangan language , and Gabâ in Visayan languages . The names of precolonial deities, such as Bathala , ultimately come from Hinduism as do many other religious terms and ideas, even as most Filipinos today are Christian. The vocabulary of all Philippine languages reflect different degrees of Hindu influence. The number of followers of Hinduism today stand at 0.3% of

9450-526: The urban centres of Yangon and Mandalay . Ancient Hindu temples are present in other parts of Burma, such as the 11th century Nathlaung Kyaung Temple dedicated to Vishnu in Bagan . Hinduism in Myanmar has also been influenced by Buddhism with many Hindu temples in Myanmar housing statues of the Buddha. Aspects of Hinduism continue in Burma today, even in the majority Buddhist culture. For example, Thagyamin

9555-630: The various techniques above. Examples using the Devanagari script There are three principal families of abugidas, depending on whether vowels are indicated by modifying consonants by diacritics, distortion, or orientation. Lao and Tāna have dependent vowels and a zero vowel sign, but no inherent vowel. Indic scripts originated in India and spread to Southeast Asia , Bangladesh , Sri Lanka , Nepal , Bhutan , Tibet , Mongolia , and Russia . All surviving Indic scripts are descendants of

9660-424: The vowel diacritic and virama are both written after the consonants for the whole syllable. In many abugidas, there is also a diacritic to suppress the inherent vowel, yielding the bare consonant. In Devanagari , प् is p, and फ् is ph . This is called the virāma or halantam in Sanskrit. It may be used to form consonant clusters , or to indicate that a consonant occurs at the end of a word. Thus in Sanskrit,

9765-530: The world, others include Indic/Brahmic scripts and Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics . The word abugida is derived from the four letters, ' ä, bu, gi, and da , in much the same way that abecedary is derived from Latin letters a be ce de , abjad is derived from the Arabic a b j d , and alphabet is derived from the names of the two first letters in the Greek alphabet , alpha and beta . Abugida as

9870-497: Was a marked Buddhist influence starting about 425 in the region. Around the 6th century, Kalingga Indianized kingdom was established on the northern coast of Central Java . The kingdom name was derived from Kalinga east coast of India. These Southeast Asian seafaring peoples engaged in extensive trade with India and China. Which attracted the attention of the Mongols , Chinese and Japanese, as well as Islamic traders , who reached

9975-440: Was adopted and assimilated into the indigenous social construct and statehood of Southeast Asian regional polity. Through the formation of Indianized kingdoms , small indigenous polities led by petty chieftain were transformed into major kingdoms and empires led by a Maharaja with statecraft akin to India. It gave birth to the former Champa civilisation in southern parts of South Central Vietnam , Funan in Southern Vietnam ,

10080-660: Was adopted as both national emblem Garuda Pancasila and flag carrier national airline named Garuda Indonesia . Today, the Indonesian government has recognised Hinduism as one of the country's six officially sanctioned religions, along with Islam, Protestantism , Roman Catholicism , Buddhism and Confucianism . The Hindu communities in Java tend to be concentrated around built temples ( pura ) or around archaeological temple sites ( candi ) which are being reclaimed as places of Hindu worship. An important Hindu temple in eastern Java

10185-534: Was already divided into regional variants at the time of the earliest surviving epigraphy around the 3rd century BC. Cursives of the Brahmi script began to diversify further from around the 5th century AD and continued to give rise to new scripts throughout the Middle Ages. The main division in antiquity was between northern and southern Brahmi . In the northern group, the Gupta script was very influential, and in

10290-470: Was an important religion among the Cham people (along with Buddhism, Islam, and indigenous beliefs) until the sixteenth century. Numerous temples dedicated to Shiva were constructed in the central part of what is now Vietnam. The mainly Hindu Óc Eo archeological site in Mekong River Delta in southern Vietnam, dates back to the 7th century and earlier. The Champa civilisation was located in

10395-495: Was arranged in a hierarchy reflecting the Hindu caste system , where the commoners – rice farmers and fishermen – formed the large majority of the population. The kshatriyas – royalty, nobles, warlords, soldiers, and warriors – formed a governing elite and authorities. Other social classes included brahmins (priests), traders, artisans such as carpenters and stonemasons, potters, metalworkers, goldsmiths, and textile weavers, while on

10500-469: Was chosen as a designation for the concept in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels . In 1992, Faber suggested "segmentally coded syllabically linear phonographic script", and in 1992 Bright used the term alphasyllabary , and Gnanadesikan and Rimzhim, Katz, & Fowler have suggested aksara or āksharik . Abugidas include the extensive Brahmic family of scripts of Tibet, South and Southeast Asia, Semitic Ethiopic scripts, and Canadian Aboriginal syllabics . As

10605-649: Was conquered and reduced as a polity. The Chams were subsequently absorbed by the Vietnamese and today are recognised as one of the many ethnic minorities of Vietnam . The Chams Balamon (Hindu Brahmin Chams) form a minority of the Cham population in Vietnam while most of the Chams are known to follow Islam and are known as Cham Bani . The term Balamon is considered to have been derived from Brahmin, however, another study suggests that 70% are considered to descend from

10710-407: Was held in major cities of Thailand until 1935, when it was abolished for safety reasons. The name of the ceremony was derived from the names of two Tamil language Hindu chants: Thiruvempavai and Thiruppavai . It is known that Tamil verses from Thiruvempavai — poet pratu sivalai ("opening the portals of Shiva's home") — were recited at this ceremony, as well as the coronation ceremony of

10815-438: Was inspired by the Devanagari script of India, vowels are indicated by changing the orientation of the syllabogram . Each vowel has a consistent orientation; for example, Inuktitut ᐱ pi, ᐳ pu, ᐸ pa; ᑎ ti, ᑐ tu, ᑕ ta . Although there is a vowel inherent in each, all rotations have equal status and none can be identified as basic. Bare consonants are indicated either by separate diacritics, or by superscript versions of

10920-541: Was once a Hindu temple. The main religion adhered to in Khmer kingdom was Hinduism, followed by Buddhism in popularity. Initially, the kingdom followed Hinduism as its main state religion. The Mahadeva's Vishnu and Shiva were the most revered deities worshipped in Khmer Hindu temples. Temples such as Angkor Wat are actually known as Preah Pisnulok ( Vara Vishnuloka in Sanskrit) or the realm of Vishnu, to honour

11025-489: Was suggested for the Indic scripts in 1997 by William Bright , following South Asian linguistic usage, to convey the idea that, "they share features of both alphabet and syllabary." The formal definitions given by Daniels and Bright for abugida and alphasyllabary differ; some writing systems are abugidas but not alphasyllabaries, and some are alphasyllabaries but not abugidas. An abugida is defined as "a type of writing system whose basic characters denote consonants followed by

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