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128-609: The term was introduced by Robert Göbl in the 1960s and is based on his study of coins. The term "Iranian Huns" coined by Göbl has been sometimes accepted in research, especially in German academia, and reflects how some of the namings and inscriptions of the Kidarites and Hephthalites used an Iranian language , and the bulk of the population they ruled was Iranian. Their origin is controversially discussed. Göbl describes four groups: Kidarites , Alchons , Nezaks , and Hephthalites as

256-625: A pictographic - acrophonic origin for the Brahmi script, on the model of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script. These ideas however have lost credence, as they are "purely imaginative and speculative". Similar ideas have tried to connect the Brahmi script with the Indus script , but they remain unproven, and particularly suffer from the fact that the Indus script is as yet undeciphered. The mainstream view

384-457: A "very old culture of writing" along with its oral tradition of composing and transmitting knowledge, because the Vedic literature is too vast, consistent and complex to have been entirely created, memorized, accurately preserved and spread without a written system. Opinions on this point, the possibility that there may not have been any writing scripts including Brahmi during the Vedic age, given

512-764: A Phoenician prototype". Discoveries made since Bühler's proposal, such as of six Mauryan inscriptions in Aramaic, suggest Bühler's proposal about Phoenician as weak. It is more likely that Aramaic, which was virtually certainly the prototype for Kharoṣṭhī, also may have been the basis for Brahmi. However, it is unclear why the ancient Indians would have developed two very different scripts. According to Bühler, Brahmi added symbols for certain sounds not found in Semitic languages, and either deleted or repurposed symbols for Aramaic sounds not found in Prakrit. For example, Aramaic lacks

640-754: A branch of the Hephthalites , during the last quarter of the 5th century. The Alchon Huns followed the Kidarites into India circa 500, invading Indian territory as far as Eran and Kausambi . The numismatic evidence as well as the so-called "Hephthalite bowl" from Gandhara , now in the British Museum , suggests a period of peaceful coexistence between the Kidarites and the Alchons, as it features two Kidarite noble hunters wearing their characteristic crowns, together with two Alchon hunters and one of

768-675: A clan of the Xionites, or somehow derived from them so that the two groups cannot be strictly distinguished. Both groups appear as serious opponents of the Persians. Priscus said that the Sasanids fought 'Kidarite Huns'. This was probably at the time of Bahram V (420–438) and certainly the time of Yazdegerd II (438–457). The Persians are known to have paid tribute to the Kidarites. The name Kidarites comes from their first known ruler, Kidara (circa 350–385). They made coins in imitation of

896-517: A connection to the Brahmi script. But in the second half of the 1st millennium CE, some inscriptions in India and Southeast Asia written in scripts derived from the Brahmi did include numerals that are decimal place value, and constitute the earliest existing material examples of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system , now in use throughout the world. The underlying system of numeration, however, was older, as

1024-400: A connection without knowing the phonetic values of the Indus script, though he found apparent similarities in patterns of compounding and diacritical modification to be "intriguing". However, he felt that it was premature to explain and evaluate them due to the large chronological gap between the scripts and the thus far indecipherable nature of the Indus script. The main obstacle to this idea

1152-492: A corresponding emphatic stop, p , Brahmi seems to have doubled up for the corresponding aspirate: Brahmi p and ph are graphically very similar, as if taken from the same source in Aramaic p . Bühler saw a systematic derivational principle for the other aspirates ch , jh , ph , bh , and dh , which involved adding a curve or upward hook to the right side of the character (which has been speculated to derive from h , [REDACTED] ), while d and ṭ (not to be confused with

1280-828: A great victory of Peroz I over their king Kunkhas. Their rule in Gandhara lasted until at least 477, for in that year they sent an embassy to the Northern Wei dynasty . They seem to have held out in Kashmir a little longer, and then all traces disappear. By this time the Hephthalites had established themselves in Bactria and the Alkhons had driven the Kidarites out of the land south of the Hindu Kush. The second wave

1408-475: A late date for Kharoṣṭhī. The stronger argument for this position is that we have no specimen of the script before the time of Ashoka, nor any direct evidence of intermediate stages in its development; but of course this does not mean that such earlier forms did not exist, only that, if they did exist, they have not survived, presumably because they were not employed for monumental purposes before Ashoka". Unlike Bühler, Falk does not provide details of which and how

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1536-720: A menace to the Gupta Empire (320–500). After a prolonged struggle (353–358) they were forced to conclude an alliance, and their king Grumbates accompanied Shapur II in the war against the Romans, agreeing to enlist his light cavalrymen into the Persian army and accompanying Shapur II. The presence of "Grumbates, king of the Chionitae" and his Xionites with Shapur II during campaigns in the Western Caspian lands, in

1664-548: A misunderstanding that the Mauryans were illiterate "based upon the fact that Megasthenes rightly observed that the laws were unwritten and that oral tradition played such an important part in India." Some proponents of the indigenous origin theories question the reliability and interpretation of comments made by Megasthenes (as quoted by Strabo in the Geographica XV.i.53). For one, the observation may only apply in

1792-437: A quarter century before Ashoka , noted "... and this among a people who have no written laws, who are ignorant even of writing, and regulate everything by memory." This has been variously and contentiously interpreted by many authors. Ludo Rocher almost entirely dismisses Megasthenes as unreliable, questioning the wording used by Megasthenes' informant and Megasthenes' interpretation of them. Timmer considers it to reflect

1920-408: A significant source for Brahmi. On this point particularly, Salomon disagrees with Falk, and after presenting evidence of very different methodology between Greek and Brahmi notation of vowel quantity, he states "it is doubtful whether Brahmi derived even the basic concept from a Greek prototype". Further, adds Salomon, in a "limited sense Brahmi can be said to be derived from Kharosthi, but in terms of

2048-584: A style marking some evolution compared to the art of Gandhara , have been suggested as belonging to the Kidarite period, such as the sculptures of Paitava . The Kidarites may have confronted the Gupta Empire during the rule of Kumaragupta I (414– c.  455 ) as the latter recounts some conflicts, although very vaguely, in his Mandsaur inscription. The Bhitari pillar inscription of Skandagupta , inscribed by his son Skandagupta ( c.  455  – c.  467 ), recalls much more dramatically

2176-509: A wealthy Buddhist culture. Some aspects of the Buddhist art of Gandhara seem to have incorporated Zoroastrian elements conveyed by the Kidarites at that time, such as the depiction of fire altars on the bases of numerous Buddhist sculptures. It has been argued that the spread of Indian culture and religions as far as Sogdia corresponded to the rule of the Kidarites over the regions from Sogdia to Gandhara. Some Buddhist works of art, in

2304-474: A woman of low status instead. After some time Kunkhas found about Peroz's false promise, and then in turn tried to trick him, by requesting him to send military experts to strengthen his army. When a group of 300 military experts arrived to the court of Kunkhas at Balaam (possibly Balkh ), they were either killed or disfigured and sent back to Iran, with the information that Kunkhas did this due to Peroz's false promise. Around this time, Peroz allied himself with

2432-465: Is a writing system from ancient India that appeared as a fully developed script in the 3rd century BCE . Its descendants, the Brahmic scripts , continue to be used today across South and Southeastern Asia . Brahmi is an abugida and uses a system of diacritical marks to associate vowels with consonant symbols. The writing system only went through relatively minor evolutionary changes from

2560-427: Is a later alteration that appeared as it diffused away from the Persian sphere of influence. Persian dipi itself is thought to be an Elamite loanword. Falk's 1993 book Schrift im Alten Indien is a study on writing in ancient India, and has a section on the origins of Brahmi. It features an extensive review of the literature up to that time. Falk sees the basic writing system of Brahmi as being derived from

2688-497: Is a royal title. Under their king Khingila (died about 490) they attacked Gandhara and drove out the Kidarites. Their following attacks on Indian princes seem to have been unsuccessful. In the early sixth century they expanded from Gandhara to northwest India and practically destroyed the rule of the Guptas , whose coins they imitated. This claim of an Alkhon invasion is based entirely on coin-finds since Indian sources call all of

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2816-542: Is also not totally clear in the original Greek as the term " συντάξῃ " (source of the English word " syntax ") can be read as a generic "composition" or "arrangement", rather than a written composition in particular. Nearchus , a contemporary of Megasthenes , noted, a few decades prior, the use of cotton fabric for writing in Northern India. Indologists have variously speculated that this might have been Kharoṣṭhī or

2944-442: Is also recorded at the successful Siege of Amida in 359, in which Grumbates lost his son: "Grumbates, king of the Chionitae, went boldly up to the walls to effect that mission, with a brave body of guards; and when a skilful reconnoitrer had noticed him coming within shot, he let fly his balista, and struck down his son in the flower of his youth, who was at his father's side, piercing through his breastplate, breast and all; and he

3072-694: Is attested as "Khydhar", and was sometimes written wrongly as "Haydar" in Arabic. In effect, the name "Kydr" was quite popular in Usrushana, and is attested in many contemporary sources. The title Afshin used by the rulers of Usrushana is also attested in the Kidarite ruler of Samarkand of the 5th century named Ularg , who bore the similar title "Afshiyan" ( Bactrian script : αφϸιιανο). Seleucid Empire : Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Brahmi script Brahmi ( / ˈ b r ɑː m i / BRAH -mee ; 𑀩𑁆𑀭𑀸𑀳𑁆𑀫𑀻 ; ISO : Brāhmī )

3200-412: Is held by "nearly all" Western scholars, and Salomon agrees with Goyal that there has been "nationalist bias" and "imperialist bias" on the two respective sides of the debate. In spite of this, the view of indigenous development had been prevalent among British scholars writing prior to Bühler: a passage by Alexander Cunningham , one of the earliest indigenous origin proponents, suggests that, in his time,

3328-545: Is much fewer and of a lesser quality than that of his predecessors. The Kidarites were cut from their Bactrian nomadic roots by the rise of the Hephthalites in the 450s. The Kidarites also seem to have been defeated by the Sasanian emperor Peroz in 467 CE, with Peroz reconquering Balkh and issuing coinage there as "Peroz King of Kings". Since the foundation of the Sasanian Empire, its rulers had demonstrated

3456-518: Is no evidence to support this conjecture. The chart below shows the close resemblance that Brahmi has with the first four letters of Semitic script, the first column representing the Phoenician alphabet . According to the Semitic hypothesis as laid out by Bühler in 1898, the oldest Brahmi inscriptions were derived from a Phoenician prototype. Salomon states Bühler's arguments are "weak historical, geographical, and chronological justifications for

3584-537: Is often accepted that the term 'Hun' was often used, because of its fame, for various mixed groups and is not to be understood as the name of a concrete ethnic group. The Xionites were not included in Robert Göbl's classification because they left no coinage. More recent research has found a connection between the Xionites and Göbl's first wave of Iranian Huns. Ca. 350 a group called the Xionites began to attack

3712-491: Is supported by some Western and Indian scholars and writers. The theory that there are similarities to the Indus script was suggested by early European scholars such as the archaeologist John Marshall and the Assyriologist Stephen Langdon . G. R. Hunter in his book The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its Connection with Other Scripts (1934) proposed a derivation of the Brahmi alphabets from

3840-536: Is that Brahmi has an origin in Semitic scripts (usually Aramaic). This is accepted by the vast majority of script scholars since the publications by Albrecht Weber (1856) and Georg Bühler 's On the origin of the Indian Brahma alphabet (1895). Bühler's ideas have been particularly influential, though even by the 1895 date of his opus on the subject, he could identify no fewer than five competing theories of

3968-479: Is the lack of evidence for writing during the millennium and a half between the collapse of the Indus Valley civilisation around 1500 BCE and the first widely accepted appearance of Brahmi in the 3rd or 4th centuries BCE. Iravathan Mahadevan makes the point that even if one takes the latest dates of 1500 BCE for the Indus script and earliest claimed dates of Brahmi around 500 BCE, a thousand years still separates

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4096-727: Is thought that they were in firm possession of the region of Bactria by 360. Since this area corresponds roughly to Kushanshahr , the former western territories of the Kushans , Kidarite ruler Kidara called himself "Kidara King of the Kushans" on his coins. According to Priscus , the Sasanian Empire was forced to pay tribute to the Kidarites, until the rule of Yazdgird II (ruled 438–457), who refused payment. The Kidarites based their capital in Samarkand , where they were at

4224-560: Is unclear. The first written accounts come from the early seventh century. Some place their foundation in the late sixth century after the fall of the Hephthalites. The coins imply a foundation in the late fifth century. If we accept the early dating they were under pressure from the Hephthalites, but by the later dating they profited from the Hephthalite collapse. Their coins are strongly based on Sassanid models but are clearly recognizable by their distinctive bulls-head crowns which allow

4352-659: The Samavāyāṅga Sūtra (3rd century BCE). These Jain script lists include Brahmi at number 1 and Kharoṣṭhi at number 4, but also Javanaliya (probably Greek ) and others not found in the Buddhist lists. While the contemporary Kharoṣṭhī script is widely accepted to be a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet , the genesis of the Brahmi script is less straightforward. Salomon reviewed existing theories in 1998, while Falk provided an overview in 1993. Early theories proposed

4480-705: The Spet Xyon ("White Xionites"). In a recently discovered seal with the image of a ruler similar to those of the Kidarite coins, the ruler named himself in Bactrian "King of the Huns and Great Kushan Shah" ( uonano shao o(a)zarko (k)oshanoshao ). The discovery was reportedly made in Swat . The name of their eponymous ruler Kidara ( fl. 350–385) may be cognate with the Turkic word Kidirti meaning "west", suggesting that

4608-586: The Chionites and the Hephthalites , before adopting the Bactrian language . The Kidarites were depicted as mounted archers on the reverse of coins. They were also known to practice artificial cranial deformation . The Kidarites appear to have been synonymous with the Karmir Xyon ("Red Xionites" or, more controversially, "Red Huns"), – a major subdivision of the Chionites (Xionites), alongside

4736-454: The Hephthalites who arrived in the mid fifth century. As with the other groups an exact chronology is difficult to establish. From later Perso-Arabic sources such as Al-Tabari it appears that they were opponents of the Persians already in the first half of the fifth century, although the sources use the vague term “Turk”. The few reports of Greco-Roman authors, who often had little knowledge of events so far east, made little distinction between

4864-672: The Huns under Attila in Europe, leading to their defeat at the Catalaunian Plains in 451. It is almost as if the imperialist empire in the east and west had combined their response to a simultaneous Hunnic threat across Eurasia. In the end, Europe succeeded in repelling the Huns, and their power there quickly vanished, but in the east, both the Sasanian Empire and the Gupta Empire were left much weakened. A few gold coins of

4992-589: The Huns who invaded Eastern Europe during a similar period. They are entirely different from the Hephthalites , who replaced them about a century later. The Kidarites were named after Kidara (Chinese: 寄多羅 Jiduoluo , ancient pronunciation: Kjie-ta-la ) one of their main rulers. The Kidarites appear to have been a part of a Huna horde known in Latin sources as the "Kermichiones" (from the Iranian Karmir Xyon ) or "Red Huna". The Kidarites established

5120-629: The Kushano-Sasanids who had previously ruled the area. Many coin-hoards have been found in the Kabul area which allows us to date the start of their rule to about 380. Kidarite coins found in Gandhara suggest that their rule sometimes extended into northern India. Their coins are inscribed in Bactrian, Sogdian and Middle Persian and in the Brahmi script . Their power fell in the later fifth century. Their capital, Balkh, fell in 467 probably after

5248-609: The Lipisala samdarshana parivarta, lists 64 lipi (scripts), with the Brahmi script starting the list. The Lalitavistara Sūtra states that young Siddhartha, the future Gautama Buddha (~500 BCE), mastered philology, Brahmi and other scripts from the Brahmin Lipikāra and Deva Vidyāsiṃha at a school. A list of eighteen ancient scripts is found in the early Jaina texts , such as the Paṇṇavaṇā Sūtra (2nd century BCE) and

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5376-536: The Mauryan period (3rd century BCE) down to the early Gupta period (4th century CE), and it is thought that as late as the 4th century CE, a literate person could still read and understand Mauryan inscriptions. Sometime thereafter, the ability to read the original Brahmi script was lost. The earliest (indisputably dated) and best-known Brahmi inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dating to 250–232 BCE. The decipherment of Brahmi became

5504-567: The Old Persian dipi , in turn derived from Sumerian dup . To describe his own Edicts, Ashoka used the word Lipī , now generally simply translated as "writing" or "inscription". It is thought the word "lipi", which is also orthographed "dipi" in the two Kharosthi -version of the rock edicts, comes from an Old Persian prototype dipî also meaning "inscription", which is used for example by Darius I in his Behistun inscription , suggesting borrowing and diffusion. Scharfe adds that

5632-577: The Sanskrit language, it is a feminine word meaning literally "of Brahma" or "the female energy of the Brahman ". In popular Hindu texts such as the Mahabharata , it appears in the sense of a goddess, particularly for Saraswati as the goddess of speech and elsewhere as "personified Shakti (energy) of Brahma , the god of Hindu scriptures Veda and creation". Later Chinese Buddhist account of

5760-671: The Sasanian Empire , but later served as mercenaries in the Sassanian army, under which they fought the Romans in Mesopotamia, led by a chief named Grumbates (fl. 353–358 CE). Some of the Kidarites apparently became a ruling dynasty of the Kushan Empire, leading to the epithet "Little Kushans". The first evidence are gold coins discovered in Balkh dating from the mid-4th century. The Kushano-Sasanian ruler Varahran during

5888-424: The grammar of the Vedic language probably had a strong influence on this development. Some authors – both Western and Indian – suggest that Brahmi was borrowed or inspired by a Semitic script, invented in a short few years during the reign of Ashoka, and then used widely for Ashokan inscriptions. In contrast, some authors reject the idea of foreign influence. Bruce Trigger states that Brahmi likely emerged from

6016-664: The phonetic retroflex feature that appears among Prakrit dental stops, such as ḍ , and in Brahmi the symbols of the retroflex and non-retroflex consonants are graphically very similar, as if both had been derived from a single prototype. (See Tibetan alphabet for a similar later development.) Aramaic did not have Brahmi's aspirated consonants ( kh , th , etc.), whereas Brahmi did not have Aramaic's emphatic consonants ( q, ṭ, ṣ ), and it appears that these unneeded emphatic letters filled in for some of Brahmi's aspirates: Aramaic q for Brahmi kh, Aramaic ṭ (Θ) for Brahmi th ( ʘ ), etc. And just where Aramaic did not have

6144-430: The 22 North Semitic characters, though clearly, as Bühler himself recognized, some are more confident than others. He tended to place much weight on phonetic congruence as a guideline, for example connecting c [REDACTED] to tsade 𐤑 rather than kaph 𐤊, as preferred by many of his predecessors. One of the key problems with a Phoenician derivation is the lack of evidence for historical contact with Phoenicians in

6272-530: The 4th and 5th centuries. The Kidarites belonged to a complex of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna , and in Europe as the Chionites (from the Iranian names Xwn / Xyon ), and may even be considered as identical to the Chionites . The 5th century Byzantine historian Priscus called them Kidarite Huns, or "Huns who are Kidarites". The Huna/Xionite tribes are often linked, albeit controversially, to

6400-507: The Alchons inside a medallion. At one point, the Kidarites withdrew from Gandhara, and the Alchons took over their mints from the time of Khingila . By 520, Gandhara was definitely under Hephthalite (Alchon Huns) control, according to Chinese pilgrims. Anania Shirakatsi states in his Ashkharatsuyts , written in 7th century, that one of the Bulgar tribes, known as the Kidar were part of

6528-582: The Altai during the 4th century caused various tribes to migrate westward and southward. Contemporary Chinese and Roman sources suggest that, during the 4th century, the Kidarites began to encroach on the territory of Greater Khorasan and the Kushan Empire – migrating through Transoxiana into Bactria , where they were initially vassals of the Kushans and adopted many elements of Kushano-Bactrian culture. The Kidarites also initially put pressure on

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6656-859: The Aramaic alphabet. Salomon regards the evidence from Greek sources to be inconclusive. Strabo himself notes this inconsistency regarding reports on the use of writing in India (XV.i.67). Kenneth Norman (2005) suggests that Brahmi was devised over a longer period of time predating Ashoka's rule: Support for this idea of pre-Ashokan development has been given very recently by the discovery of sherds at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka , inscribed with small numbers of characters which seem to be Brāhmī. These sherds have been dated, by both Carbon 14 and Thermo-luminescence dating , to pre-Ashokan times, perhaps as much as two centuries before Ashoka. However, these finds are controversial, see Tamil Brahmi § Conflicting theories about origin since 1990s . He also notes that

6784-454: The Aramaic script (with extensive local development), but there is no evidence of a direct common source. According to Trigger, Brahmi was in use before the Ashoka pillars, at least by the 4th or 5th century BCE in Sri Lanka and India, while Kharoṣṭhī was used only in northwest South Asia (eastern parts of modern Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan) for a while before it died out in

6912-610: The Aramaic script being the prototype for Brahmi has been the more preferred hypothesis because of its geographic proximity to the Indian subcontinent, and its influence likely arising because Aramaic was the bureaucratic language of the Achaemenid empire. However, this hypothesis does not explain the mystery of why two very different scripts, Kharoṣṭhī and Brahmi, developed from the same Aramaic. A possible explanation might be that Ashoka created an imperial script for his edicts, but there

7040-513: The Byzantine capital of Constantinople , where the victory over the Kidarites was announced. The Sasanian embassy sent to the Northern Wei in 468 may have likewise done the same. Although the Kidarites still controlled some places such as Gandhara and Punjab , they would never be an issue for the Sasanians again. But in India itself, the Kidarites may also have been losing territory to

7168-577: The European Huns led by Attila . A few reports exist from Late antiquity , coming from China and India where they are referred to as Hunas . Much of the information comes from the study of coins, of which many have been found. These coins raise many problems of chronology and interpretation. Furthermore, coins of the Iranian Huns cannot always be assigned to a definite ruler. In the fourth century various central Asian tribes began to attack

7296-428: The Gupta Empire had greatly benefited from. The Guptas had been exporting numerous luxury products such as silk , leather goods, fur, iron products, ivory , pearl or pepper from centers such as Nasik , Paithan , Pataliputra or Benares etc. The Huna invasion probably disrupted these trade relations and the tax revenues that came with it. These conflicts exhausted the Gupta Empire : the gold coinage of Skandagupta

7424-403: The Gupta Empire, following the victories of Skandagupta of 455. This created a power vacuum, which the Alchon Huns were then able to fill, allowing them to reclaim the lost territories of the Kidarites. There is an astounding synchronism between, on the one hand, the conflicts between the Kidarite Huns and the Sasanian Empire and the Gupta Empire , and, on the other hand, the campaigns of

7552-421: The Hephthalites or the Alchon Huns of Mehama , the ruler of Kadag in eastern Bactria. With their help, he finally vanquished Kidarites in 466, and brought Bactria briefly under Sasanian control, where he issued gold coins of himself at Balkh. The style of the gold coin was largely based on the Kidarite coins, and displayed Peroz wearing his second crown. The following year (467), a Sasanian embassy arrived to

7680-468: The Indus script, the match being considerably higher than that of Aramaic in his estimation. British archaeologist Raymond Allchin stated that there is a powerful argument against the idea that the Brahmi script has Semitic borrowing because the whole structure and conception is quite different. He at one time suggested that the origin may have been purely indigenous with the Indus script as its predecessor. However, Allchin and Erdosy later in 1995 expressed

7808-428: The Indus valley and adjacent areas in the third millennium B.C. The number of different signs suggest a syllabic script, but all attempts at decipherment have been unsuccessful so far. Attempts by some Indian scholars to connect this undeciphered script with the Indian scripts in vogue from the third century B.C. onward are total failures." Megasthenes , a Greek ambassador to the Mauryan court in Northeastern India only

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7936-477: The Iranian Huns based on numismatic evidence available at his time. But recent descriptions also put the Xionites as a fifth group. In recent research, it is debated whether the new arrivals came as one wave or several waves of different peoples. They are roughly equivalent to the Hunas . Related to the Iranian Huns are the Uar , Hunas and uncertain terms from various languages like "White Hun", "Red Hun" and others. The Iranian Huns are not to be confused with

8064-405: The Iranian Huns, except possibly the Xionites, we can recognize definite Iranian elements, notably the Bactrian language as an administrative language and coin inscriptions. Göbl's first group were the Kidarites who near the end of the fourth century were involved in the aftermath of the fall of the Kushan Empire (after 225, see Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom ). Recent research has the Kidarites as

8192-427: The Kharoṣṭhī script, itself a derivative of Aramaic. At the time of his writing, the Ashoka edicts were the oldest confidently dateable examples of Brahmi, and he perceives in them "a clear development in language from a faulty linguistic style to a well honed one" over time, which he takes to indicate that the script had been recently developed. Falk deviates from the mainstream of opinion in seeing Greek as also being

8320-516: The Kidarite ruler Peroz , and raised ribbons were added around the crown ball under the Kidarite ruler Kidara . In effect, Varahran has been described as a "puppet" of the Kidarites. By 365, the Kidarite ruler Kidara I was placing his name on the coinage of the region, and assumed the title of Kushanshah. In Gandhara too, the Kidarites minted silver coins in the name of Varahran, until Kidara also introduced his own name there. Archaeological, numismatic, and sigillographic evidence demonstrates

8448-419: The Kidarites ruled a realm just as refined as that of the Sasanians. They swiftly adopted Iranian imperial symbolism and titulature, as demonstrated by a seal; "Lord Ularg, the king of the Huns, the great Kushan-shah, the Samarkandian, of the Afrigan (?) family." Most other data we currently have on the Kidarite kingdom are from Chinese and Byzantine sources from the middle of the 5th century. The Kidarites were

8576-407: The Kidarites seem to have retained the western part of the Gupta Empire, particularly central and western Punjab , until they were displaced by the invasion of the Alchon Huns at the end of the 5th century. While they still ruled in Gandhara , the Kidarites are known to have sent an embassy to China in 477. The Huna invasion are said to have seriously damaged Indo-Roman trade relations , which

8704-411: The Kidarites were also found as far as Hungary and Poland in Europe, as a result of Asiatic migrations. Many small Kidarite kingdoms seem to have survived in northwest India, and are known through their coinage. They were particularly present in Jammu and Kashmir , such as king Vinayaditya , but their coinage was much debased. They were then conquered by the Alchon Huns , sometimes considered as

8832-406: The Kidarites were originally the westernmost of the Xionites, and the first to migrate from Inner Asia. Chinese sources suggest that when the Uar (滑 Huá ) were driven westward by the Later Zhao state, circa 320, from the area around Pingyang (平陽; modern Linfen , Shanxi ), it put pressure on Xionite-affiliated peoples, such as the Kidarites, to migrate. Another theory is that climate change in

8960-467: The Kidarites. The Kidar took part in Bulgar migrations across the Volga into Europe . Remnants of the Kidarites in Eastern Sogdiana may have been associated with the Principality of Ushrusana . The Kidarites may have survived and possibly established a Kidarite kingdom in Usrushana . This connection may be apparent from the analysis of the coinage, and in the names of some Ushrusana rulers such as Khaydhar ibn Kawus al-Afshin , whose personal name

9088-453: The Persian Sasanian Empire . The sources sometimes call these people 'Huns', but their origin is unclear. It is probable that they were not related to the Huns who appeared on the south Russian steppe about 375 and attacked the Roman Empire. The two terms should be clearly separated. Like 'Scythian', ‘Hun’ in its various forms was used loosely by ancient historians to refer to various steppe tribes of which they knew little. In modern research, it

9216-417: The Persians. Syrian and Armenian sources report repeated Sassanid attempts to secure their northeast border which led to disaster for Peroz I who had previously defeated the Kidarites. According to Procopius they had an effective ruling system with a king at the top and, at least after the conquest of Bactria and Sogdia, were no longer nomads. They used Bactrian language as an administrative language and used

9344-539: The Prakrit/Sanskrit word for writing itself, lipi is similar to the Old Persian word dipi , suggesting a probable borrowing. A few of the Ashoka edicts from the region nearest the Persian empire use dipi as the Prakrit word for writing, which appears as lipi elsewhere, and this geographic distribution has long been taken, at least back to Bühler's time, as an indication that the standard lipi form

9472-526: The Sasanian Emperor Shapur II (ruled 309 to 379) had to interrupt his conflict with the Romans, and abandon the siege of Nisibis , in order to face nomadic threats in the east: he was attacked in the east by Scythian Massagetae and other Central Asian tribes. Around this time, Xionite / Huna tribes, most likely the Kidarites, whose king was Grumbates , make an appearance as an encroaching threat upon Sasanian territory as well as

9600-654: The Sassanid Empire. They conquered Bactria, but Shapur II eventually reconciled them. Later they allied with the Persians, participated in the Roman-Persian War and joined in the Siege of Amida (359) under their king Grumbates . Written reports come from Ammianus Marcellinus , among others. The Middle Persian term Xyon seems to be related to both 'Xionite' and 'Hun' but does not imply that all groups with this name were related or ethnically homogenous. Among

9728-416: The Semitic emphatic ṭ ) were derived by back formation from dh and ṭh . The attached table lists the correspondences between Brahmi and North Semitic scripts. Bühler states that both Phoenician and Brahmi had three voiceless sibilants , but because the alphabetical ordering was lost, the correspondences among them are not clear. Bühler was able to suggest Brahmi derivatives corresponding to all of

9856-557: The Semitic hypothesis are similar to Gnanadesikan's trans-cultural diffusion view of the development of Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī, in which the idea of alphabetic sound representation was learned from the Aramaic-speaking Persians, but much of the writing system was a novel development tailored to the phonology of Prakrit. Further evidence cited in favor of Persian influence has been the Hultzsch proposal in 1925 that

9984-401: The Vedic hymns may well have been achieved orally, but that the development of Panini's grammar presupposes writing (consistent with a development of Indian writing in c. the 4th century BCE). Several divergent accounts of the origin of the name "Brahmi" (ब्राह्मी) appear in history. The term Brahmi (बाम्भी in original) appears in Indian texts in different contexts. According to the rules of

10112-452: The actual forms of the characters, the differences between the two Indian scripts are much greater than the similarities". Falk also dated the origin of Kharoṣṭhī to no earlier than 325 BCE, based on a proposed connection to the Greek conquest. Salomon questions Falk's arguments as to the date of Kharoṣṭhī and writes that it is "speculative at best and hardly constitutes firm grounds for

10240-425: The appearance of the Brahmi and scripts up into the third century CE. These graffiti usually appear singly, though on occasion may be found in groups of two or three, and are thought to have been family, clan, or religious symbols. In 1935, C. L. Fábri proposed that symbols found on Mauryan punch-marked coins were remnants of the Indus script that had survived the collapse of the Indus civilization. Another form of

10368-483: The area of Corduene , is described by the contemporary eyewitness Ammianus Marcellinus : Grumbates Chionitarum rex novus aetate quidem media rugosisque membris sed mente quadam grandifica multisque victoriarum insignibus nobilis . "Grumbates, the new king of the Xionites, while he was middle aged, and his limbs were wrinkled, he was endowed with a mind that acted grandly, and was famous for his many, significant victories." The presence of Grumbates alongside Shapur II

10496-425: The beginning of the sixth century they controlled a significant area in Bactria and Sogdia. The Hephthalites had many conflicts with the Persians. In 484 Peroz I fell in battle against the Hephthalites, who had defeated him before. In 498/99 they restored Kavadh I to the throne. The Persians seem to have paid tribute, at least some of the time. Among the Iranian Huns the Hephthalites were the most serious threat to

10624-568: The best evidence is that no script was used or ever known in India, aside from the Persian-dominated Northwest where Aramaic was used, before around 300 BCE because Indian tradition "at every occasion stresses the orality of the cultural and literary heritage", yet Scharfe in the same book admits that "a script has been discovered in the excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization that flourished in

10752-514: The center of Central Asian trade networks, in close relation with the Sogdians . The Kidarites had a powerful administration and raised taxes, rather efficiently managing their territories, in contrast to the image of barbarians bent on destruction given by Persian accounts. Kafir-kala is an ancient fortress 12 kilometers south of the city center of Samarkand in Uzbekistan , protecting

10880-476: The characters to stick figures . It was known by a variety of other names, including "lath", "Laṭ", "Southern Aśokan", "Indian Pali" or "Mauryan" ( Salomon 1998 , p. 17), until the 1880s when Albert Étienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie , based on an observation by Gabriel Devéria , associated it with the Brahmi script, the first in a list of scripts mentioned in the Lalitavistara Sūtra . Thence

11008-431: The coins may suggest some kind of suzerainty at a time when the remnants of Kushan power were torn between these two powers. The "Gadahara" issues seem to come chronologically just before the issues of the famous Kidarite ruler Kidara . It seems Buddhism was rather unaffected by Kidarite rule, as the religion continued to prosper. The Chinese pilgrim Fa-hsien visited the region c.  400 CE , and described

11136-555: The coins to be divided into types. It seems that returning Alkhon groups met the Nizaks and produced an Alkhon-Nizak mixed language. It is certain that they expanded to Gandhara and minted coins there. Chinese sources from the early seventh century prove that their capital was Kapisa . Their remnants south of the Hindu Kush seem to have been destroyed by the Arab conquest in the late seventh century. The fourth and most important wave were

11264-547: The context of the kingdom of "Sandrakottos" (Chandragupta). Elsewhere in Strabo (Strab. XV.i.39), Megasthenes is said to have noted that it was a regular custom in India for the "philosopher" caste (presumably Brahmins) to submit "anything useful which they have committed to writing" to kings, but this detail does not appear in parallel extracts of Megasthenes found in Arrian and Diodorus Siculus . The implication of writing per se

11392-515: The different groups and it seems more probable that they referred to other Iranian Huns who arrived before the Hephthalites proper. They were called "White Huns" by Procopius who gives some information. Their coins are based on current Persian models. To the end of the fifth century they had spread from eastern Tocharistan (Bactria) and brought several neighboring areas under control. They expanded not to India but to Transoxana. The Hunas reported from Indian sources were probably Alkhons (see above). By

11520-432: The earliest attested orally transmitted example dates to the middle of the 3rd century CE in a Sanskrit prose adaptation of a lost Greek work on astrology . The Brahmi script is mentioned in the ancient Indian texts of the three major Dharmic religions : Hinduism , Jainism , and Buddhism , as well as their Chinese translations . For example, the 10th chapter of the Lalitavistara Sūtra (c. 200–300 CE), titled

11648-481: The end of the rule of Gupta Emperor Chandragupta II or beginning of the rule of Kumaragupta I . It is probably the rise of the Hephthalites and the defeats against the Sasanians which pushed the Kidarites into northern India. The Kidarites issued gold coins on the model of Kushan coinage, inscribing their own names but still claiming the Kushan heritage by using the title "Kushan". The volume of Kidarite gold coinage

11776-716: The first Huna to bother India. Indian records note that the Hūna had established themselves in modern Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province by the first half of the 5th century, and the Gupta emperor Skandagupta had repelled a Hūna invasion in 455. The Kidarites are the last dynasty to regard themselves (on the legend of their coins) as the inheritors of the Kushan empire, which had disappeared as an independent entity two centuries earlier. Around 350,

11904-786: The first of four major Xionite/Huna states in Central Asia, followed by the Alchon , the Hephthalites and the Nezak . In 360–370 CE, a Kidarite kingdom was established in Central Asian regions previously ruled by the Sasanian Empire , replacing the Kushano-Sasanians in Bactria . Thereafter, the Sasanian Empire roughly stopped at Merv . Next, circa 390-410 CE, the Kidarites invaded northwestern India, where they replaced

12032-716: The focus of European scholarly attention in the early 19th-century during East India Company rule in India , in particular in the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta . Brahmi was deciphered by James Prinsep , the secretary of the Society, in a series of scholarly articles in the Society's journal in the 1830s. His breakthroughs built on the epigraphic work of Christian Lassen , Edwin Norris , H. H. Wilson and Alexander Cunningham , among others. The origin of

12160-496: The indigenous origin theory is that Brahmi was invented ex nihilo , entirely independently from either Semitic models or the Indus script, though Salomon found these theories to be wholly speculative in nature. Pāṇini (6th to 4th century BCE) mentions lipi , the Indian word for writing scripts in his definitive work on Sanskrit grammar, the Ashtadhyayi . According to Scharfe, the words lipi and libi are borrowed from

12288-402: The indigenous origin was a preference of British scholars in opposition to the "unknown Western" origin preferred by continental scholars. Cunningham in the seminal Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum of 1877 speculated that Brahmi characters were derived from, among other things, a pictographic principle based on the human body, but Bühler noted that, by 1891, Cunningham considered the origins of

12416-489: The inscription have disappeared: "(Skandagupta), by whose two arms the earth was shaken, when he, the creator (of a disturbance like that) of a terrible whirlpool, joined in close conflict with the Hûnas ; . . . . . . among enemies . . . . . . arrows . . . . . . . . . . . . proclaimed . . . . . . . . . . . . just as if it were the roaring of (the river) Ganga , making itself noticed in (their) ears." Even after these encounters,

12544-455: The interaction between the Indic and the Semitic worlds before the rise of the Semitic scripts might imply a reverse process. However, the chronology thus presented and the notion of an unbroken tradition of literacy is opposed by a majority of academics who support an indigenous origin. Evidence for a continuity between Indus and Brahmi has also been seen in graphic similarities between Brahmi and

12672-417: The late Indus script, where the ten most common ligatures correspond with the form of one of the ten most common glyphs in Brahmi. There is also corresponding evidence of continuity in the use of numerals. Further support for this continuity comes from statistical analysis of the relationship carried out by Das. Salomon considered simple graphic similarities between characters to be insufficient evidence for

12800-417: The name was adopted in the influential work of Georg Bühler , albeit in the variant form "Brahma". The Gupta script of the 5th century is sometimes called "Late Brahmi". From the 6th century onward, the Brahmi script diversified into numerous local variants, grouped as the Brahmic family of scripts . Dozens of modern scripts used across South and South East Asia have descended from Brahmi, making it one of

12928-652: The near-annihilation of the Gupta Empire, and recovery though military victories against the attacks of the Pushyamitras and the Hunas . The Kidarites are the only Hunas who could have attacked India at the time, as the Hephthalites were still trying to set foot in Bactria in the middle of the 5th century. In the Bhitari inscription, Skandagupta clearly mentions conflagrations with the Hunas, even though some portions of

13056-403: The northern invaders 'Hunas', including perhaps the Hephthalites. Under Toramana and his son Mihirakula (515-540/50?) they were especially aggressive. Mihirakula is portrayed negatively and is accused of persecuting Buddhists. Around the middle of the sixth century their power in north India broke down. Mihirakula suffered a serious defeat in 528 and thereafter his power was limited. His capital

13184-417: The opinion that there was as yet insufficient evidence to resolve the question. Today the indigenous origin hypothesis is more commonly promoted by non-specialists, such as the computer scientist Subhash Kak , the spiritual teachers David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein , and the social anthropologist Jack Goody . Subhash Kak disagrees with the proposed Semitic origins of the script, instead stating that

13312-427: The origin, one positing an indigenous origin and the others deriving it from various Semitic models. The most disputed point about the origin of the Brahmi script has long been whether it was a purely indigenous development or was borrowed or derived from scripts that originated outside India. Goyal (1979) noted that most proponents of the indigenous view are fringe Indian scholars, whereas the theory of Semitic origin

13440-472: The particular Semitic script, and the chronology of the derivation have been the subject of much debate. Bühler followed Max Weber in connecting it particularly to Phoenician, and proposed an early 8th century BCE date for the borrowing. A link to the South Semitic scripts , a less prominent branch of the Semitic script family, has occasionally been proposed, but has not gained much acceptance. Finally,

13568-561: The phonemic analysis of the Sanskrit language achieved by the Vedic scholars is much closer to the Brahmi script than the Greek alphabet". As of 2018, Harry Falk refined his view by affirming that Brahmi was developed from scratch in a rational way at the time of Ashoka , by consciously combining the advantages of the pre-existing Greek script and northern Kharosthi script. Greek-style letter types were selected for their "broad, upright and symmetrical form", and writing from left to right

13696-549: The presumptive prototypes may have been mapped to the individual characters of Brahmi. Further, states Salomon, Falk accepts there are anomalies in phonetic value and diacritics in Brahmi script that are not found in the presumed Kharoṣṭhī script source. Falk attempts to explain these anomalies by reviving the Greek influence hypothesis, a hypothesis that had previously fallen out of favor. Hartmut Scharfe, in his 2002 review of Kharoṣṭī and Brāhmī scripts, concurs with Salomon's questioning of Falk's proposal, and states, "the pattern of

13824-400: The quantity and quality of the Vedic literature, are divided. While Falk (1993) disagrees with Goody, while Walter Ong and John Hartley (2012) concur, not so much based on the difficulty of orally preserving the Vedic hymns, but on the basis that it is highly unlikely that Panini's grammar was composed. Johannes Bronkhorst (2002) takes the intermediate position that the oral transmission of

13952-527: The relevant period. Bühler explained this by proposing that the initial borrowing of Brahmi characters dates back considerably earlier than the earliest known evidence, as far back as 800 BCE, contemporary with the Phoenician glyph forms that he mainly compared. Bühler cited a near-modern practice of writing Brahmic scripts informally without vowel diacritics as a possible continuation of this earlier abjad-like stage in development. The weakest forms of

14080-532: The remnants of the Kushan Empire in the area of Punjab . A nomadic people, the Kidarites appear to have originated in the Altai Mountains region. On Kidarite coins their rulers are depicted as beardless or clean-shaven – a feature of Altaic cultures at the time (as opposed, for example, to the Iranian cultures of South Central Asia). They may have been Oghuric speakers originally, as may have been

14208-412: The script is still much debated, with most scholars stating that Brahmi was derived from or at least influenced by one or more contemporary Semitic scripts . Some scholars favour the idea of an indigenous origin or connection to the much older and as yet undeciphered Indus script but the evidence is insufficient at best. Brahmi was at one time referred to in English as the "pin-man" script, likening

14336-616: The script uncertain. Most scholars believe that Brahmi was likely derived from or influenced by a Semitic script model, with Aramaic being a leading candidate. However, the issue is not settled due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhī, and Brahmi. Though Brahmi and the Kharoṣṭhī script share some general features, the differences between the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts are "much greater than their similarities", and "the overall differences between

14464-416: The second phase of his reign, had to introduce the Kidarite tamga ( [REDACTED] ) in his coinage minted at Balkh in Bactria , circa 340-345. The tamgha replaced the nandipada symbol which had been in use since Vasudeva I , suggesting that the Kidarites had now taken control, first under their ruler Kirada . Then ram horns were added to the effigy of Varahran on his coinage for a brief period under

14592-454: The source alphabet recite the sounds by combining the consonant with an unmarked vowel, e.g. /kə/, /kʰə/, /gə/ , and in the process of borrowing into another language, these syllables are taken to be the sound values of the symbols. They also accepted the idea that Brahmi was based on a North Semitic model. Many scholars link the origin of Brahmi to Semitic script models, particularly Aramaic. The explanation of how this might have happened,

14720-691: The southern border of the Samarkand oasis. It consists in a central citadel built in mud-bricks and measuring 75 × 75 meters at its base has six towers and is surrounded by a moat, still visible today. Living quarters were located outside the citadel. The citadel was first occupied by the Kidarites in the 4th-5th century, whose coinage and bullae have been found. The Kidarites consolidated their power in Northern Afghanistan before conquering Peshawar and parts of northwest India including Gandhara probably sometime between 390 and 410, around

14848-401: The sovereignty and power of their realm through collection of tribute, particularly from the Romans. However, the Sasanian efforts were disrupted in the early 5th century by the Kidarites, who forced Yazdegerd I ( r.  399–420 ), Bahram V ( r.  420–438 ), and/or Yazdegerd II ( r.  438–457 ) to pay them tribute. Although this did not trouble the Sasanian treasury, it

14976-404: The third century. According to Salomon, evidence of the use of Kharoṣṭhī is found primarily in Buddhist records and those of Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian, and Kushana dynasty era. Justeson and Stephens proposed that this inherent vowel system in Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī developed by transmission of a Semitic abjad through the recitation of its letter values. The idea is that learners of

15104-416: The two render a direct linear development connection unlikely", states Richard Salomon. Virtually all authors accept that regardless of the origins, the differences between the Indian script and those proposed to have influenced it are significant. The degree of Indian development of the Brahmi script in both the graphic form and the structure has been extensive. It is also widely accepted that theories about

15232-466: The two. Furthermore, there is no accepted decipherment of the Indus script, which makes theories based on claimed decipherments tenuous. A promising possible link between the Indus script and later writing traditions may be in the megalithic graffiti symbols of the South Indian megalithic culture, which may have some overlap with the Indus symbol inventory and persisted in use up at least through

15360-399: The urban centers of their realm, notably Gorgo (location?) and Balkh. Around 560 their realm was destroyed by an alliance of Persians and Gokturks. Hephthalite remnants lasted until the Arab conquest in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Kidarites The Kidarites , or Kidara Huns , were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and South Asia in

15488-536: The variations seen in the Asokan edicts would be unlikely to have emerged so quickly if Brahmi had a single origin in the chancelleries of the Mauryan Empire. He suggests a date of not later than the end of the 4th century for the development of Brahmi script in the form represented in the inscriptions, with earlier possible antecedents. Jack Goody (1987) had similarly suggested that ancient India likely had

15616-432: The world's most influential writing traditions. One survey found 198 scripts that ultimately derive from it. Among the inscriptions of Ashoka ( c.  3rd century BCE ) written in the Brahmi script a few numerals were found, which have come to be called the Brahmi numerals . The numerals are additive and multiplicative and, therefore, not place value ; it is not known if their underlying system of numeration has

15744-575: Was Sakala in Punjab which was once an important Indo-Greek center. After his death (550?) they stopped pressing their attacks. Despite its short duration the Huna invasion was politically and culturally devastating for India. Later some of the Alkhons seem to have returned to Bactria. Göbl's third wave were the Nezak Huns who settled around Kabul. Early scholars called them 'Napki'. The exact chronology

15872-469: Was a prince who in stature and beauty was superior to all his comrades. " Later the alliance fell apart, and by the time of Bahram IV (388–399) the Sasanians had lost numerous battles against the Kidarites. The migrating Kidarites then settled in Bactria , where they replaced the Kushano-Sasanids , a branch of the Sasanids that had displaced the weakening Kushans in the area two centuries before. It

16000-406: Was also adopted for its convenience. On the other hand, the Kharosthi treatment of vowels was retained, with its inherent vowel "a", derived from Aramaic , and stroke additions to represent other vowel signs. In addition, a new system of combining consonants vertically to represent complex sounds was also developed. The possibility of an indigenous origin such as a connection to the Indus script

16128-521: Was nevertheless humiliating. Yazdegerd II eventually refused to pay tribute, which would later be used as the casus belli of the Kidarites, who declared war against the ruling Sasanian king Peroz I in c. 464. Peroz lacked manpower to fight, and therefore asked for financial aid by the Byzantine Empire, who declined his request. He then offered peace to the king of the Kidarites, Kunkhas, and offered him his sister in marriage, but sent

16256-639: Was nevertheless much smaller than that of the Great Kushans, probably owing to a decline of commerce and the loss of major international trade routes. Coins with the title or name Gadahara seem to be the first coins issued by the invading Kidarites in the Kushan realm in India. The additional presence of the names of foreign rulers such as the Kushano-Sassanian Piroz or the Gupta Empire Samudragupta on

16384-461: Was the Alkhons who established themselves in the Kabul area around 400. Their history must be reconstructed almost exclusively from coin-hoards. Their coins are based on Sassanid models, probably because they took over the Persian mint at Kabul. The Bactrian word "Alxanno" is stamped on their coins, from which we derive the name "Alkhon". It is not clear whether this word means a tribe, or a ruler, or

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