Brahmi ( / ˈ b r ɑː m i / BRAH -mee ; 𑀩𑁆𑀭𑀸𑀳𑁆𑀫𑀻 ; ISO : Brāhmī ) 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 .
99-455: Samataṭa ( Brahmi script : [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] sa-ma-ta-ṭa ) was an ancient geopolitical division of Bengal in the eastern Indian subcontinent . The Greco-Roman account of Sounagoura is linked to the kingdom of Samatata. Its territory corresponded to much of present-day eastern Bangladesh (particularly Dhaka Division , Sylhet Division , Barisal Division and Chittagong Division ) and parts of
198-457: 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
297-764: 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
396-518: A common ancestry. They were all adopted sons of a king named Vali (Bali), born by a sage named Gautama Dirghatamas, who lived in Magadha close to the city of Girivraja. Other texts say that, because king Bali had no descendants, this deputed rishi Dirghatamaas to give birth of the children through Niyoga and thus five sons were born from the womb of the wife of Bali. The Kashmiras , the Daradas ,
495-452: 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
594-492: 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
693-475: 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
792-600: 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
891-463: A part of the trans-Meghna region. In a book edited by Patrick Olivelle , Chakrabarti states "It appears that Wari-Bateshwar belongs to the Samatata tract. Till now this is the only early historic site reported from this tract, but the very fact that it existed as early as the mid-fifth century BCE in this part of Bangladesh shows the geographical unit of Samatata, although inscriptionally documented in
990-437: 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
1089-618: A role in the spread of Mahayana Buddhism in Southeast Asia. Bronze sculptures may have been imported by Java from Samatata. The Srivijaya Empire 's embassies to the Pala court may have passed through the ports of southeastern Bengal. Arab accounts also note trade routes with Orissa and Sri Lanka . 10th century shipwrecks in Indonesia provide evidence of maritime contact with Bengal. Samatata continued to play an important role in
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#17327752542031188-408: 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
1287-732: A trading post called Souanagoura in the eastern part of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta . The archaeologist Sufi Mostafizur Rahman believes the riverside citadel in the Wari-Bateshwar ruins was the city-state of Sounagoura . According to Ptolemy, Sounagoura was located on the bank of the Brahmaputra River and was an "emporium", which is a term used by the Roman Empire to refer to a trading colony set up by Roman merchants. The Brahmaputra River flowed down from
1386-628: A war with the Chandra dynasty of Samatata region of Bengal . After the Muslim conquest of Bengal , the region was referred to as Bangalah , which may have evolved from Vangala . The names are the precursors of the modern terms Banga and Bangla . The core region of Vanga lay between the Padma - Meghna river system in the east and the Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system in the west. In
1485-523: 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
1584-482: 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
1683-542: 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
1782-472: 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,
1881-522: Is mentioned as the ruler of Vanga at (8:22). Probably all these rulers had a stake in the territory of Vanga. All of them were mentioned as ruling the neighbouring kingdoms of Vanga, in other passages in Mahabharata. Bhagadatta was the ruler of Pragjyotisha kingdom to the north of Vanga. Paundraka Vasudeva ruled Pundra kingdom to the east of Vanga and Karna ruled Anga kingdom to the west of Vanga. Kings of Kalinga and Vanga were mentioned as attending
1980-528: 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,
2079-518: 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
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#17327752542032178-491: 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
2277-474: 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,
2376-479: 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
2475-716: The Bengal region. It was located in southern Bengal. Vanga features prominently in the epics and tales of ancient India as well as in the history of Sri Lanka . Vanga was probably the center of the Gangaridai Empire mentioned by numerous Greco-Roman writers. The exact capital of ancient Vanga kingdom could not be identified. After the rule of the Gupta Empire , ancient Bengal was divided into two independent kingdoms – Gauda and Vanga. Historically, Chandraketugarh , present-day Berachampa , has been identified as
2574-1192: The Kaurava army at (7:158). Many foremost of combatants skilled in elephant-fight, belonging to the Easterners, the Southerners, the Angas, the Vangas, the Pundras, the Magadhas, the Tamraliptakas, the Mekalas, the Koshalas, the Madras , the Dasharnas , the Nishadas united with the Kalingas (8:22). Satyaki , pierced the vitals of the elephant belonging to the king of the Vangas (8:22). Bhagadatta
2673-1194: The Kuntis , the Kshudrakas, the Malavas , the Angas , the Vangas , the Kalingas , the Videhas , the Tamraliptakas, the Rakshovahas, the Vitahotras, the Trigartas , the Martikavatas were all vanquished by Bhargava Rama (7:68). Karna captured the Angas, and the Vangas, and the Kalingas, and the Mandikas, and the Magadhas. the Karkakhandas; and also included with them the Avasiras, Yodhyas, and
2772-567: 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
2871-611: The Rakhine State of Myanmar . The area covers the trans- Meghna part of the Bengal delta . It was a center of Buddhist civilisation before the resurgence of Hinduism, and Muslim conquest in the region. Archaeological evidence in the Wari-Bateshwar ruins , particularly punch-marked coins , indicate that Samataṭa was a province of the Mauryan Empire . The region attained a distinct Buddhist identity following
2970-577: 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
3069-664: 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
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3168-414: 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
3267-443: 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
3366-430: 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
3465-615: 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 . Vanga Kingdom Vaṅga was an ancient kingdom and geopolitical division within the Ganges delta in the Indian subcontinent . The kingdom is one of the namesakes of
3564-482: 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
3663-867: The Ahikshatras (3:252). The Angas, the Vangas, the Kalingas, the Magadhas, the Kasis , the Kosalas , the Vatsyas , the Gargyas, the Karushas and the Paundras were mentioned to be vanquished by Vasudeva Krishna (7:11). Arjuna defeated the countries of the Vangas, the Pundras, and the Kosalas (14:82) in his military campaign after Kurukshetra War . The kings of Anga, Vanga and Pundra were mentioned as attending
3762-859: 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
3861-610: 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
3960-628: The Bangladeshi Channel Islands of Hatia and Sandwip ; as well as the islands of Bhola , Maheshkhali , Kutubdia and St. Martin's . It included parts of Tripura (in present-day Northeast India ), Bangladesh's Chittagong and Cox's Bazar districts; and northern Arakan (present-day Rakhine State , Myanmar ). Samatata's erstwhile neighbours included the geopolitical divisions of Vanga (Southwest Bengal), Pundravardhana (North Bengal), and parts of Kamarupa (historical Assam). The Roman geographer Ptolemy wrote about
4059-486: 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
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4158-454: 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
4257-462: 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
4356-662: 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
4455-651: 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
4554-756: The Chandras, who were also an important Buddhist dynasty and ruled over Samatata, Vanga and Arakan (Burma). The Chandras were powerful enough to withstand the Pala Empire to the northwest. Samatata was a flourishing center of Buddhism. As devout Tantric Buddhists, the Devas and the Chandras established their religious and administrative center in the archaeological site of Mainamati . The Chandras were also notable for seafaring networks. The ports of Samatata were linked to ports in present-day Myanmar, Thailand , Indonesia and Vietnam . The Chandras may have played
4653-692: The Himalayas and to the east of Wari-Bateshwar before joining the Meghna River on its way to the Bay of Bengal . Ptolemy's account places Sounagoura near the old course of the Brahmaputra River. The Brahmaputra changed its course following an earthquake in 1783. Excavations in Wari-Bateshwar reveal an urban and monetary civilisation since the pre-Mauryan period. Archaeologist and historian Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti also considers Wari-Bateshwar to be
4752-468: 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
4851-428: 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
4950-399: The Kalingas, the Magadhas, the Tamraliptas, the Supundrakas, the Dauvalikas, the Sagarakas, the Patrornas, the Saisavas, and innumerable Karnapravaranas, were found waiting at the gate (2:51). Vanga army was skilled in handling war elephants . They sided with the Kauravas . Vangas sided with Duryodhana in the Kurukshetra War (8:17) along with the Kalingas. They are mentioned as part of
5049-523: The Khadga king Rajabhatta places the royal capital of Karmanta-vasaka (identified with Barakamata village in Comilla) in Samatata. After the Khadgas, the Devas gained power and started ruling over the kingdom from their capital Devaparvata (identified with Kotbari area in Mainamati near Comilla City . The Devas were devout Buddhists and constructed many temples, muras and vihara in Devaparvata including Shalban Vihara , Ananda Vihara , Bhoj Vihara , Itakhola Mura , Rupban Mura etc. They were succeeded by
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#17327752542035148-402: 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
5247-427: 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
5346-426: The Mauryan Empire declined and the eastern part of Bengal became the state of Samatata. The rulers of the erstwhile state remain unknown. During the Gupta Empire , the Indian emperor Samudragupta recorded Samatata as a "frontier kingdom" which paid an annual tribute. This was recorded by Samudragupta's inscription on the Allahabad pillar, which states the following in lines 22–23. "Samudragupta, whose formidable rule
5445-412: 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
5544-416: 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
5643-422: 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
5742-404: The Vanga kingdom remain mostly unknown. After the 2nd century BCE, the territory became part of successive Indian empires, including Mauryans , Guptas , Shashanka 's reign, Khadgas , Palas , Chandras , Senas and Devas . The term Vangala was often used to refer to the territory. For example, an inscription of the South Indian Chola dynasty referred to the region as Vangaladesha during
5841-423: The Vangas, however, quickly jumping down from that elephant, alighted on the ground (6:93). At (2:29) two rulers Samudrasena and Chadrasena were mentioned. It is not clear if they were rulers of Vanga kingdom. Karna is mentioned as the ruler of Anga and Vanga at (2:43). Paundraka Vasudeva, an ally of Jarasandha and enemy of Vasudeva Krishna is mentioned as king of Vanga, Pundra and the Kiratas at (2:14). Bhagadatta
5940-401: 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
6039-430: 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
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#17327752542036138-400: 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
6237-425: 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
6336-471: The basis of the evidence provided by inscriptions, Chinese writings, and archaeological evidence, it can be deduced that Samatata covered the trans-Meghna territories. It included areas along the banks of the Meghna River and its tributaries; including the modern Bangladeshi districts of Sylhet , Maulvi Bazar , Habiganj , Sunamganj , Narsindi , Narayanganj , Munshiganj , Brahmanbaria , Chandpur , Comilla , Noakhali , Feni and Lakshmipur . It included
6435-409: 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
6534-410: The capital of the Vanga kingdom. Indian and Greco-Roman writers referred to the region's war elephants . In Indian history, Vanga is notable for its strong navy . There are numerous references to Vanga in the Hindu epic Mahabharata , which is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of India. The other epic, the Ramayana , mentions the kingdom as an ally of Ayodhya . The Vanga kingdom emerged in
6633-526: The collapse of Mauryan rule. The Allahabad pillar inscriptions of the Indian emperor Samudragupta describe Samataṭa as a tributary state . Samataṭa gained prominence as an important region of Bengal during the reigns of the Gauda Kingdom , Khadga dynasty , First Deva dynasty , Chandra dynasty and Varman dynasty between the 6th and 11th centuries. During this period, the rulers of Samataṭa also reigned over parts of Arakan , Tripura and Kamarupa . Chinese travellers provide an elaborate description of
6732-442: 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
6831-416: The court of Yudhishthira at (2:4). The Vangas, Angas, Paundras, Odras , Cholas , Dravidas and Andhrakas were mentioned to be giving tribute to Yudhishthira (3:51). The Angas, the Vangas, the Punras, the Sanavatyas, and the Gayas—these good and well-born Kshatriyas distributed into regular clans and trained to the use of arms, brought tribute unto king Yudhishthira by hundreds and thousands. The Vangas,
6930-458: 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
7029-400: The east, it encompassed the modern Bangladeshi Khulna Division excluding pre-1947 Jessore District i.e. Upa Vanga which is in Paschim (West) Vanga and Barisal Division , as well as the southwestern part of Dhaka Division . In the west, it included Presidency Division of West Bengal and may have extended to Burdwan Division and Medinipur division . Its neighbors included Samatata in
7128-900: The east; Pundravardhana in the north; and Magadha , Anga , Suhma and Radha in the west. The Vanga kingdom encompassed the many islands of the Ganges delta and the Sundarbans mangrove forest. Chandraketugarh and Wari-Bateshwar ruins are the major archaeological site of the kingdom. At (6:9), Anga , Vanga, and Kalinga were mentioned as close kingdoms in Bharata Varsha (Ancient India). All regions of sacred waters and all other holy palaces there were in Vanga and Kalinga, Arjuna visited all of them, during his pilgrimage lasting for 12 years throughout ancient India . The founders of Angas , Vangas, Kalingas , Pundras and Suhmas shared
7227-504: The end of his journey in ancient India. He called the kingdom San-mo-ta-ch'a . Xuanzang found 30 Buddhist monasteries with 2000 monks in Samatata. Xuanzang also provided descriptions of the regions' geography, including the harbour of Chittagong and nearby Burmese kingdoms. A later Chinese traveller Yijing observed that there were 4000 Buddhist monks and nuns in Samatata. 23°30′N 91°00′E / 23.5°N 91.0°E / 23.5; 91.0 Brahmi script Brahmi
7326-464: The fourth century CE, has a much earlier antiquity which touches the Mahajanapada period. Secondly, on the basis of the fact that Wari-Bateshwar is a fortified settlement, we argue that in addition to its character as a manufacturing and trading center, it was also an administrative center and most likely to be the ancient capital of the Samatata region". Soon after the death of emperor Ashoka ,
7425-635: 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
7524-524: The history of the region until the 13th century. During the Muslim conquest of Bengal, Samatata served as the last refuge of the Sena kings. Its decline coincided with the decline of Buddhism in India . The Chinese pilgrim and traveller Xuanzang, who made his way across the Silk Road from northern China into the subcontinent through present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh; visited Samatata at
7623-415: 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
7722-514: 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
7821-496: 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
7920-426: 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
8019-455: 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
8118-601: The kingdom during the 7th century. Xuanzang visited the kingdom. Records of the Sena dynasty include mention of Samataṭa as a haven for Sena kings who escaped the Muslim conquest of western Bengal during the 13th century. The area was eventually absorbed by the forces of the Delhi Sultanate . Samataṭa has been described by various similar names, including Samatat / Samata / Saknat / Sankat / Sankanat .In Sanskrit , sama means equal and taṭa means coast or shore. On
8217-532: The kingdom included Buddhism , Jainism and Hinduism . Vanga is recorded as an administrative unit in the Arthashastra written by Kautilya . It is described as a notable naval power by Kalidasa . There are also records of subdivisions within Vanga, including an area called "Upa Vanga" (minor Vanga) which corresponds to Jessore and forested areas corresponding to the Sundarbans . The rulers of
8316-417: 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
8415-518: The lower Ganges delta during the Northern Black Polished Ware Period. It controlled many of the islands of the delta with its naval fleet and embarked on overseas exploration. Ancient Indian records refer to Vanga as a hub of sailors. In the 5th century BCE, the Vanga king Sinhabahu 's son prince Vijaya sailed across the Bay of Bengal and established a kingdom in what is now Sri Lanka . The religious traditions of
8514-417: 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
8613-460: 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
8712-472: 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,
8811-613: 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
8910-549: 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
9009-400: 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
9108-527: 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
9207-466: 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
9306-536: 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
9405-451: The very front of Duryodhana's car. With that elephant he completely shrouded the car of thy son. Beholding then the way (to Duryodhana's car) thus covered by the intelligent king of the Vangas, the eyes of Ghatotkacha became red in anger. He ruled that huge dart, before upraised, at that elephant. Struck with that dart hurled from the arms of Ghatotkacha, that elephant, covered with blood and in great agony, fell down and died. The mighty king of
9504-463: 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
9603-592: 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
9702-634: Was mentioned as the ruler of the Pragjyotisha kingdom that took part in the Kurukshetra War. Behind Duryodhana proceeded the ruler of the Vangas, with ten thousand elephants, huge as hills, and each with juice trickling down (6:92). The ruler of the Vangas (Bhagadatta) mounting upon an elephant huge as a hill, drove towards the Rakshasa, Ghatotkacha . On the field of battle, with the mighty elephant of great speed, Bhagadatta placed himself in
9801-656: Was propitiated with the payment of all tributes, execution of orders and visits (to his court) for obeisance by such frontier rulers as those of Samataṭa, Ḍavāka , Kāmarūpa , Nēpāla , and Kartṛipura , and, by the Mālavas , Ārjunāyanas , Yaudhēyas , Mādrakas , Ābhīras , Prārjunas, Sanakānīkas, Kākas, Kharaparikas and other nations" Samatata's recorded independent dynasties are the Gauda , Bhadra , Khadga , Deva , Chandra and Varman dynasties. The Khadgas were originally from Vanga but later conquered Samatata. A Chinese account of
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