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115-401: The Northern Satraps ( Brahmi : [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] , Kṣatrapa , " Satraps " or [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] , Mahakṣatrapa , "Great Satraps "), or sometimes Satraps of Mathura , or Northern Sakas , are a dynasty of Indo-Scythian (" Saka ") rulers who held sway over the area of Punjab and Mathura after

230-574: A mitre -like crown, and joining hands. The earliest types of "Kapardin" statuary (named after the "kapardin", the characteristic tuft of coiled hair of the Buddha) showing the Buddha with attendants are thought to be pre-Kushan, dating to the time of the "Kshatrapas" or Northern Satraps. Various broken bases of Buddha statues with inscriptions have been attributed to the Kshatrapas. A fragment of such

345-457: 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

460-764: 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

575-452: 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

690-492: 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

805-475: 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

920-600: 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

1035-437: 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

1150-689: A series, which is coherent with the Vrishni interpretation. They share some sculptural characteristics with the Yaksha statues found in Mathura and dating to the 2nd and 1st century BCE, such as the sculpting in the round, or the clothing style, but the actual details of style and workmanship clearly belong to the time of Sodasa. The Vrishni statues also are not of the colossal type, as they would only have stood about 1.22 meters complete. The Mora Vrishnis function as an artistic benchmark for in-the-round statues of

1265-408: 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

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1380-615: A stele was found with the mention of the name of the donor as a "Kshatrapa lady" named Naṃda who dedicated the Bodhisattva image "for the welfare and happiness of all sentient beings for the acceptance of the Sarvastivadas ", and it is considered as contemporary with the famous "Katra stele". One of these early examples shows the Buddha being worshipped by the Gods Brahma and Indra . The famous "Katra Bodhisattava stele"

1495-491: A way to show their attachment to Indian culture. According to Salomon "their motivation in promoting Sanskrit was presumably a desire to establish themselves as legitimate Indian or at least Indianized rulers and to curry the favor of the educated Brahmanical elite". The Sanskrit inscriptions in Mathura (Uttar Pradesh) are dated to the 1st and 2nd-century CE. The earliest of these, states Salomon, are attributed to Sodasa from

1610-523: A while before it died out in 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

1725-482: 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

1840-576: Is also an interesting example of the state of artistic attainment in the city of Mathura at the turn of our era. The capital portrays two lions reminiscent of the lions of the Pillars of Ashoka , but in a much cruder style. It also displays at its center a Buddhist triratana symbol, further confirming the involvement of Indo-Scythian rulers with Buddhism. The triratna is contained in a flame palmette , an element of Hellenistic iconography, and an example of Hellenistic influence on Indian art . The fact that

1955-547: Is also known from various inscriptions where he is mentioned as ruler in Mathura, such as the Kankali Tila tablet of Sodasa . In what has been described as "the great linguistical paradox of India", Sanskrit inscriptions first appeared much later than Prakrit inscriptions, although Prakrit is considered as a descendant of the Sanskrit language. This is because Prakrit, in its multiple variants, had been favoured since

2070-542: 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

2185-472: 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 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,

2300-552: Is considered as one of the main Northern Satraps. He was a Great Satrap ( Mahakshatrapa ) who ruled in the area of Mathura in northern India in the years around 10 CE, under the authority of the Indo-Scythian king Azilises . In Mathura, he sometimes used the term "Basileus" (king) next to his title of Satrap, which implies a higher level of autonomy from the Indo-Scythian center in northwestern India . On

2415-473: Is cruder and of local content: it represents a Lakshmi standing between two symbols on the obverse with an inscription around Mahakhatapasa putasa Khatapasa Sodasasa "Satrap Sodassa, son of the Great Satrap". On the reverse is a standing Abhiseka Lakshmi (Lakshmi standing facing a Lotus flower with twin stalks and leaves) anointed by two elephants sprinkling water, as on the coins of Azilises . Sodasa

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2530-704: Is derived from the Indo-Greek types of Strato II . Rajuvula conquered the last remaining Indo-Greek kingdom, under Strato II , around 10 CE, and took his capital city, Sagala . Numerous coins of Rajuvula have been found in company with the coins of the Strato group in the Eastern Punjab (to the east of the Jhelum ) and also in the Mathura area: for example, 96 coins of Strato II were found in Mathura in conjunction with coins of Rajuvula , who also imitated

2645-609: Is described as "a great center of Śaka culture in India". Little is known precisely from that period on terms of artistic creation. The Indo-Scythian Rajuvula , ruler of Mathura, created coins which were copies of the contemporary Indo-Greek ruler Strato II , with effigy of the king and representation of Athena on the obverse. Indo-Scythians are known to have sponsored Buddhism, but also other religions, as visible from their inscriptions and archaeological remains in northwestern and western India, as well as from their contributions to pre-Kushana sculpture in Mathura. Mathura became part of

2760-469: Is known through his coinage as well as through his relations with other Indo-Scythian rulers whose dates are known, means that Sodasa functions as a historic marker to ascertain the sculptural styles at Mathura during his rule, in the first half of the 1st century CE. These inscriptions also correspond to some of the first known epigraphical inscriptions in Sanskrit . The next historical marker corresponds to

2875-528: 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 the Lipisala samdarshana parivarta, lists 64 lipi (scripts), with the Brahmi script starting the list. The Lalitavistara Sūtra states that young Siddhartha,

2990-518: 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

3105-491: 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

3220-474: Is that learners of 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,

3335-479: 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

3450-587: Is the only fully intact image of a "Kapardin" Bodhisattva remaining from the Kshatrapa period, and is considered as the foundation type of the "Kapardin" Buddha imagery, and is the "classical statement of the type". In conclusion, the canonical type of the seated Bodhisattva with attendants commonly known as the "Kapardin" type, seems to have developed during the time the Indo-Scythian Northern Satraps were still ruling in Mathura, before

3565-462: Is thought that the images of Jain saints, which can be seen in Mathura from the 1st century BCE, were prototypes for the first Mathura images of the Buddha, since the attitudes are very similar, and the almost transparent very thin garment of the Buddha not much different visually from the nakedness of the Jinas . Here the Buddha is not wearing the monastic robe which would become characteristic of many of

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3680-662: Is used chiefly for making coins , medals , and token coins . The word comes from the French bille , which means 'log'. The use of billon coins dates from ancient Greece and continued through the Middle Ages . During the sixth and fifth centuries BC, some cities on Lesbos used coins made of 60% copper and 40% silver. In both ancient times and the Middle Ages, leaner mixtures were adopted, with less than 2% silver content. Billon coins are perhaps best known from

3795-731: The Sarvastivada vinaya (rules of the early Buddhist school of the Sarvastivada ): ""Since it is not permitted to make an image of the Buddha's body, I pray that the Buddha will grant that I can make an image of the attendant Bodhisattva. Is that acceptable?" The Buddha answered: "You may make an image of the Bodhisattava"" . However the scenes in the Isapur Buddha and the later Indrasala Buddha (dated 50-100 CE), refer to events which are considered to have happened after

3910-687: The Indo-Scythians are thought to have conquered the area of Mathura over Indian kings, presumably the Datta dynasty , around 60 BCE. Due to being under the scrutiny of the Kushan Empire , as a satrapy and not wholly independent, they were called the Northern Satraps. Some of their first satraps were Hagamasha and Hagana , they were in turn followed by Rajuvula who gained the title Mahakshatrapa or great satrap. However, according to some authors, Rajuvula may have been first. Rajuvula

4025-506: The Mitra dynasty and the Datta dynasty of local Indian rulers in Mathura. The Northern Satraps were probably displaced by, or became vassals of, the Kushans from the time of Vima Kadphises , who is known to have ruled in Mathura in 90–100 CE, and they are known to have acted as Satraps and Great Satraps in the Mathura region for his successor Kanishka (127–150 CE). In central India,

4140-567: 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

4255-511: The Roman Empire , where progressive debasements of the Roman denarius and the Roman provincial tetradrachm in the third century AD led to declining silver and increasing bronze content in these denominations of coins. Eventually, by the third quarter of the third century AD, these coins were almost entirely bronze, with only a thin coating or even a wash of silver. An example of

4370-522: 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

4485-664: 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

4600-414: 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 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

4715-443: The 1895 date of his opus on the subject, he could identify no fewer than five competing theories of 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

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4830-555: The 1st century CE, describes in kharoshthi the gift of a stupa with a relic of the Buddha, by Queen Nadasi Kasa , the wife of the Indo-Scythian ruler of Mathura, Rajuvula . The capital describes, among other donations, the gift of a stupa with a relic of the Buddha , by Queen Ayasia , the "chief queen of the Indo-Scythian ruler of Mathura , satrap Rajuvula ". She is mentioned as the "daughter of Kharahostes " (See: Mathura Lion Capital inscriptions). The lion capital also mentions

4945-430: 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

5060-528: The 6th century CE also supports its creation to the god Brahma , though Monier Monier-Williams , Sylvain Lévi and others thought it was more likely to have been given the name because it was moulded by the Brahmins . Billon (alloy) Billon ( / ˈ b ɪ l ən / ) is an alloy of a precious metal (most commonly silver , but also gold ) with a majority base metal content (such as copper ). It

5175-482: 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 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

5290-859: 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

5405-610: 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

5520-486: 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 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

5635-454: 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 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

5750-462: The Brahmi script in both the graphic form and the structure has been extensive. It is also widely accepted that theories about 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

5865-452: The Brahmi script was adopted in the rest of the subcontinent of the next half century. The "new-pen-style" initiated a rapid evolution of the script from the 1st century CE, with regional variations starting to emerge. From around the 2nd-1st century BCE at Bharhut and Sanchi , scenes of the life of the Buddha, or sometimes of his previous lives, had been illustrated without showing the Buddha himself , except for some of his symbols such as

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5980-662: 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 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

6095-456: The Buddha sculptures of the following century, and may represent one of the first attempts to create a human icon, marking an evolution from the splendid aniconic tradition of Buddhist art in respect to the person of the Buddha, which can be seen in the art of Sanchi and Bharhut. This depiction of the Buddha is highly similar to Jain images of the period, such as the relief of Jina Parsvanatha on an ayagapata , also dated to circa 15 CE. It

6210-525: The Buddha's enlightenment, and therefore probably represent the Buddha rather than his younger self as a Bodhisattava, or a simple attendant Bodhisattva. The Buddhist "Indrasala architrave", dated 50-100 CE, with a scene of the Buddha at the Indrasala Cave being attended by Indra , and a scene of devotion to the Bodhi Tree on the other side, is another example of the still hesitant handling of

6325-651: 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 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

6440-468: 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

6555-552: 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

6670-459: The Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts are "much greater than their similarities", and "the overall differences between 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

6785-531: 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

6900-519: The Kushan Empire from the reign of Vima Kadphises (90-100 CE) and then became the southern capital of the Kushan Empire. Some works of art dated to the end of the 1st century BCE show very delicate workmanship, such as the sculptures of Yakshis. A the very end of this period the Indo-Scythian ruler Rajuvula is also known for the famous Mathura lion capital which records events of the Indo-Scythian dynasty as well as their support of Buddhism. It

7015-464: The Mathura lion capital is inscribed in Kharoshthi , a script used in the far northwest around the area of Gandhara , attests to the presence of northwestern artists at that time in Mathura. The abundance of dedicatory inscriptions in the name of Sodasa , the Indo-Scythian ruler of Mathura, and son of Rajuvula (eight such inscriptions are known, often on sculptural works), and the fact that Sodasa

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7130-539: 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

7245-416: 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

7360-557: 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

7475-401: 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

7590-688: The Western Satrap, is also thought to have been the result of the influence of the Northern Satraps on their western relatives. Several successors are known to have ruled as vassals to the Kushans, such as the Mahakshatrapa ("Great Satrap") Kharapallana and the Kshatrapa ("Satrap") Vanaspara , who are known from an inscription discovered in Sarnath, and dated to the 3rd year of Kanishka (c. 130 CE), in which Kanishka mentions they are

7705-549: 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 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

7820-452: 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

7935-425: 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

8050-1167: The arrival of the Kushans. This type continued during the Kushan period, down to the time of Huvishka , before being overtaken by fully-dressed types of Buddha statuary depicting the Buddha wearing the monastic coat "Samghati". Jayadaman Rudradaman I Damajadasri I Jivadaman Rudrasimha I Satyadaman Jivadaman Rudrasena I Bagamira Arjuna Hvaramira Mirahvara Vāsishka (c. 140 – c. 160) Huvishka (c. 160 – c. 190) Vasudeva I (c. 190 – to at least 230) Samghadaman Damasena Damajadasri II Viradaman Isvaradatta Yasodaman I Vijayasena Damajadasri III Rudrasena II Visvasimha Miratakhma Kozana Bhimarjuna Koziya Datarvharna Datarvharna INDO-SASANIANS Ardashir I , Sassanid king and "Kushanshah" (c. 230 – 250) Peroz I , "Kushanshah" (c. 250 – 265) Hormizd I , "Kushanshah" (c. 265 – 295) Kanishka II (c. 230 – 240) Vashishka (c. 240 – 250) Kanishka III (c. 250 – 275) Hormizd II , "Kushanshah" (c. 295 – 300) Brahmi Brahmi

8165-605: The attributes, if not the style, of the later "Kapardin" statues, except for the absence of a halo . Besides the hero cult of the Vrishni heroes or the cross-sectarian cult of the Yakshas , Hindu art only started to develop fully from the 1st to the 2nd century CE, and there are only very few examples of artistic representation before that time. The three Vedic gods Indra , Brahma and Surya were actually first depicted in Buddhist sculpture, as attendants in scenes commemorating

8280-568: 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

8395-547: 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

8510-568: The decline of the Indo-Greeks , from the end of the 1st century BCE to the 2nd century CE. They are called "Northern Satraps" in modern historiography to differentiate them from the " Western Satraps ", who ruled in Sindh , Gujarat and Malwa at roughly the same time and until the 4th century CE. They are thought to have replaced the last of the Indo-Greek kings in the Punjab region, as well as

8625-546: The designs of Strato II in the majority of his issues. The coinage of the period, such as that of Rajuvula, tends to become very crude and barbarized in style. It is also very much debased, the silver content becoming lower and lower, in exchange for a higher proportion of bronze, an alloying technique ( billon ) suggesting less than wealthy finances. The Mathura lion capital , an Indo-Scythian sandstone capital in crude style, from Mathura in Central India, and dated to

8740-458: The earliest indigenous origin proponents, suggests that, in his time, 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

8855-687: The early years of 1st-century CE. Of the Mathura inscriptions, the most significant is the Mora Well Inscription . In a manner similar to the Hathibada inscription, the Mora well inscription is a dedication inscription and is linked to the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism. It mentions a stone shrine (temple), pratima (murti, images) and calls the five Vrishnis as bhagavatam . There are many other Mathura Sanskrit inscriptions overlapping

8970-636: The empty throne, or the Chankrama pathway. This artistic device ended with the sudden appearance of the Buddha, probably rather simultaneously in Gandhara and Mathura , at the turn of the millennium. Possibly the first known representation of the Buddha (the Bimaran casket and the Tillya Tepe Buddhist coin are other candidates), the "Isapur Buddha" is also dated on stylistic grounds to

9085-784: The era of Indo-Scythian Northern Satraps and early Kushanas, although they are still dwarfed by the number of contemporary inscriptions in Prakrit . Other significant 1st-century inscriptions in reasonably good classical Sanskrit include the Vasu Doorjamb Inscription and the Mountain Temple inscription . The early ones are related to the Brahmanical and possibly Jain traditions, as in the case of an inscription from Kankali Tila , and none are Buddhist. The development of Sanskrit epigraphy in western India under

9200-515: The exact identity of these Mathura statues, some claiming that they are only statues of Bodhisattavas , which is indeed the exact term used in most of the inscriptions of the statues found in Mathura. Only one or two statues of the Mathura type are known to mention the Buddha himself. This could be in conformity with an ancient Buddhist prohibition against showing the Buddha himself in human form, otherwise known as aniconism in Buddhism , expressed in

9315-521: The first known Mathura images of the Buddha. Many of them were found around the Kankali Tila Jain stupa in Mathura. Notable among the design motifs in the ayagapatas are the pillar capitals displaying "Persian-Achaemenian" style, with side volutes, flame palmettes, and recumbent lions or winged sphinxes. A decorated doorjamb, the Vasu doorjamb , dedicated to deity Vāsudeva , also mentions

9430-638: The five Jain heroes led by Akrūra , which are well attested in Jain texts. In fact, the cult of the Vrishnis may have been cross-sectarian, much like the cult of the Yakshas. The two uninscribed male torsos that were discovered are both of high craftsmanship and in Indian style and costume. They are bare-chested but wear a thick necklace, as well as heavy hearrings. The two torsos that were found are similar with minor variations, suggesting they may have been part of

9545-635: 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 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

9660-503: The genealogy of several Indo-Scythian satraps of Mathura. It mentions Sodasa , son of Rajuvula, who succeeded him and also made Mathura his capital. Sodasa , son of Rajuvula, seems to have replaced his father in Mathura, while Bhadayasa ruled as Basileus in Eastern Punjab . Bhadayasa has some of the nicest coins of the Northern Satraps, in direct inspiration from the coins of the last Indo-Greek kings. The coinage of Sodasa

9775-570: The governors of the eastern parts of his Empire, while a "General Lala" and Satraps Vespasi and Liaka are put in charge of the north. The inscription was discovered on an early statue of a Boddhisattva , the Sarnath Bala Boddhisattva , now in the Sarnath Museum . From around 70 BCE, the region of Mathura fell to the Indo-Scythian Northern Satraps under Hagamasha , Hagana and then Rajuvula . During this time, Mathura

9890-517: The grapevine design had been introduced from the Gandhara area in the northwest, and maybe associated with the northern taste of the Satrap rulers. These designs may also be the result of the work of northern artists in Mathura. The grapevine designs of Gandhara are generally considered as originating from Hellenistic art . The calligraphy of the Brahmi script had remained virtually unchanged from

10005-412: The human icon of the Buddha in the Buddhist art of Mathura. The Buddhist character of this architrave is clearly demonstrated by the depiction of the Bodhi Tree inside its specially built temple at Bodh Gaya , a regular scene of Buddhist since the reliefs of Bharhut and Sanchi . The depiction of the Buddha in meditation in the Indrasala Cave is also characteristically Buddhist. The Buddha already has

10120-415: 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 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

10235-461: The idea of foreign influence. Bruce Trigger states that Brahmi likely emerged from 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

10350-496: 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

10465-426: The indigenous view are fringe Indian scholars, whereas the theory of Semitic origin 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

10580-455: 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

10695-417: 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

10810-420: The later Buddha images. The cross-legged sitting posture may have derived from earlier reliefs of cross-legged ascetics or teachers at Bharhut, Sanchi and Bodh Gaya . It has also been suggested that the cross-legged Buddhas may have derived from the depictions of seated Scythian kings from the northwest, as visible in the coinage of Maues (90-80 BCE) or Azes (57-10 BC). There has been a recurring debate about

10925-480: The letter were "neat and well-formed". The probable introduction of ink and pen writing, with the characteristic thickenned start of each stroke generated by the usage of ink, was reproduced in the calligraphy of stone inscriptions by the creation of a triangle-shaped form at the beginning of each stroke. This new writing style is particularly visible in the numerous dedicatory inscriptions made in Mathura, in association with devotional works of art. This new calligraphy of

11040-529: The life of the Buddha, even when the Buddha himself was not yet shown in human form but only through his symbols , such as the scenes of his Birth, his Descent from the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven , or his retreat in the Indrasala Cave. These Vedic deities appear in Buddhist reliefs at Mathura from around the 1st century CE, such as Indra attending the Buddha at Indrasala Cave, where Indra is shown with

11155-664: The obverse of his coinage, he often uses in the Greek script the title "King of Kings, the Saviour". In Mathura, Rajuvula established the famous Mathura lion capital , now in the British Museum , which confirms the presence of Northern Satraps in Mathura, and sheds some light on the relationships between the various satraps of Northern India. His coins are found near Sankassa along the Ganges and in Eastern Punjab . Their style

11270-417: 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

11385-460: The origins of 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

11500-472: 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,

11615-467: The period. Many of the sculptures from this period are related to the Jain religion, with numerous relief showing devotional scenes, such as the Kankali Tila tablet of Sodasa in the name of Sodasa. Most of these are votive tablets, called ayagapata . Jain votive plates, called " Ayagapatas ", are numerous, and some of the earliest ones have been dated to circa 50-20 BCE. They were probably prototypes for

11730-505: 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

11845-549: 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

11960-400: 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

12075-410: The reign of Kanishka under the Kushans, whose reign began circa 127 CE. The sculptural styles at Mathura during the reign of Sodasa are quite distinctive, and significantly different from the style of the previous period circa 50 BCE, or the styles of the later period of the Kushan Empire in the 2nd century CE. Several examples of in-the-round statuary have been found from the period of Sodasa, such as

12190-481: The reign of Sodasa, circa 15 CE; he is shown on a relief in a canonical scene known as " Lokapalas offer Alms Bowls to the Buddha Sakyamuni" . The symbolism of this early statue is still tentative, drawing heavily on the earlier, especially Jain, pictural traditions of Mathura, still far from the exuberant standardized designs of the Kushan Empire . It is rather unassuming and not yet monumental compared to

12305-527: 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

12420-508: The rule of Sodasa, and has similar carving to the Mora doorjamb, found in relation with the Mora well inscription in a similar chronological and religious context. The decoration of these and many similar doorjambs from Mathura consists in scrolls of grapevines . They are all dated to the reign of Sodasa, circa 15 CE and constitute a secure dated artistic reference for the evaluation of datation of other Mathura sculptures. It has been suggested that

12535-521: The time of the Maurya Empire to the end of the 1st century BCE. The Indo-Scythians, following their establishment in northern India introduced "revolutionary changes" in the way Brahmi was written. In the 1st century BCE, the shape of Brahmi characters became more angular, and the vertical segments of letters were equalized, a phenomenon which is clearly visible in coin legends and made the script visually more similarly to Greek. In this new typeface,

12650-476: The time of the influential Edicts of Ashoka (circa 250 BCE). Besides a few examples from the 1st century BCE, most of the early Sanskrit inscriptions date to the time of the Indo-Scythian rulers, either the Northern Satraps around Mathura for the earliest ones, or, slightly later, the closely related Western Satraps in western and central India. It is thought that they became promoters of Sanskrit as

12765-516: The torsos of " Vrishni heroes ", discovered in Mora, about 7 kilometers west of Mathura. These statues are mentioned in the Mora Well Inscription nearby, made in the name of the Northern Satrap Sodasa circa 15 CE, in which they are called Bhagavatam . The statue fragments are thought to represent some of the five Vrishni heroes, possibly ancient kings of Mathura later assimilated to Vishnu and his avatars, or, equally possible,

12880-466: 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

12995-536: 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

13110-406: 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

13225-592: 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 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

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