History of Indic Scripts. (2016)

HISTORY OF INDIC SCRIPTS THE EXHIBITION H ow did the variety of Indic scripts currently in use in India come into existence? Are the Indic scripts historically related to each other, in spite of their apparent differences? Which characteristics do they share with other scripts developed in other geographic areas? How can they be classiied in the framework of a general typology of scripts (alphabets, syllabaries, alphasyllabaries, etc.)? This exhibition aims to answer these questions. It must be noted that two extremely important scripts used in contemporary India, the Perso-Arabic and Roman scripts, fall outside the scope of the exhibition, because they are relatively recent adoptions and/or adaptations of scripts developed in other geographic areas and are not genealogically related to the scripts developed in the Indian subcontinent, which are accurately labelled as “Indic scripts”. WHY THIS EXHIBITION? T his exhibition, based on a Moodle teaching unit developed by Professor Marco Franceschini (University of Bologna), can be seen from two different perspectives. While presenting the state-of-the-art current research into the history of Indic scripts, it exempliies – together with the teaching unit from which it is derived – the challenges and the opportunities of the internationalization of teaching, in that it has been speciically devised for a global audience and will be tested by students from both Italy and India, also through virtual classes. The teaching units developed in the framework of the E-QUAL Project are an example of how universities from Europe and India can interact and collaborate to provide students with an international environment of learning and new ways for the transmission of knowledge at a global level. The participation of the Department of History and Cultures in the E-QUAL Project is a contribution to the process of internationalization implemented by the University of Bologna. An essential role has been played by L. Proserpio, P. Cassone and F. Sartor of the International Relations Division. Within the framework of the E-QUAL Project, the teaching unit on Indic scripts belongs to the key discipline named “Cultural Studies”, together with other teaching units on “Digital Cultures” and “Evolution of Film Forms” (developed by the University of Jadavpur, Kolkata), on “The Anthropological Recorded Interview”, “Museums and Public History” and “History of Printing in India” (developed by Professors C. Natali, I. Porciani and S. Marchignoli, with the collaboration of C. Bellini and M. Pasi). THE E-QUAL PROJECT E-QUAL (Enhancing Quality, Access and Governance of Undergraduate Education in India) is a European Union funded International Collaborative Project. The project is being implemented by a consortium of partners, with the British Council being the lead partner in terms of strategic oversight. University partners in India are Ambedkar University (Delhi), Jadavpur University (Kolkata), Shiv Nadar University (Delhi) and the University of Hyderabad; in Europe, King’s College (London) and the University of Bologna. The project activities are being implemented in four key ields – Critical Thinking, Cultural Studies, Human Ecology, and Natural Resource Management & Sustainable Development. The objective of the project is to enhance the quality, access and governance of undergraduate education in India, through promotion of Indo-EU Higher Education partnerships and collaborations, in line with the Indian Government’s plan to provide greater access to, and improve the quality of, higher education in India. The Project will facilitate exchange of best practice, experience and knowledge in undergraduate teaching and learning, using technologically-enhanced approaches relevant to India’s context. This will be achieved through sharing innovative pedagogy and assessment techniques and their use in Indian institutions. It will engage a wide range of policy-makers, academics, students and practitioners through debates, conferences and workshops, working closely with the Government of India and drawing on EU experience and expertise, for wider beneit and sustainable systemic change. This exhibition has been designed and developed by Marco Franceschini. 1 HISTORY OF INDIC SCRIPTS INTRODUCTION AND OUTLINE OF THE GREAT PICTURE o most non-specialists, one single script is used today in India, characterised by a continuous top horizontal line, with nice hooks rising above it and letters “hanging” from it. This script actually exists: it is called Devanāgarī and since it is used over the greater part of northern and western India, it is admittedly the most widespread Indic script. Nonetheless, Devanāgarī is far from being the only Indic script used today in India: in fact, present-day India is actually characterized by a remarkable variety of different scripts, mostly spread and used on a regional basis. T This exhibition aims to show how this multifaceted picture came into being, tracking the developments of Indic scripts from the time of their earliest known attestations in the 3rd century BCE, up to the time when the major modern scripts reached their current form, around the 15th-16th century CE. It must be noted that the designation “Indic scripts”, as it is intended here, includes only the deciphered scripts that were devised in the Indian mainland. Accordingly, the so-called Indus Valley script as well as the Perso-Arabic and Latin scripts fall outside the scope of this deinition: the irst because, although being presumably devised in the subcontinent, is still undeciphered; the last two because they were developed in other geographic areas and they are not genealogically related to the scripts developed in the Indian subcontinent, which can be accurately designated as “Indic scripts”. The panels in this exhibition are divided into two groups: those with a yellowish, parchment colour background trace the historical developments of the Indic scripts through the centuries and, as such, should be viewed in sequence, according to the numbers given in the top left corner. By contrast, the panels with a light blue background focus on speciic topics related to the history of the Indic scripts and can be read in any order. I t is perhaps convenient to start from the end of the story, i.e. from the presentday situation. This picture shows the geographic distribution of the major Indic scripts in use in contemporary India (colours in the tabs and map are used consistently). The name of each script is given in Roman transliteration and in the characters of the script itself. T he genealogical tree in the picture shows the derivation of the major Indic scripts. The roots of the tree (at the top in the picture) represent the earliest known Indic scripts (in accordance with the aforesaid deinition): they are the Brāhmī and the Kharoṣṭhī scripts, irst attested in the inscriptions written on the order of the emperor Aśoka, who ruled the greater part of India for about thirty-ive years in the middle of the 3rd century BCE. The “youngest branches” of the tree (at the bottom) are the major Indic scripts in use today in India (in red the names of the nine scripts represented in the map above). It should be noted that the dates in the picture are roughly estimated and merely indicative. 2 HISTORY OF INDIC SCRIPTS THE INSCRIPTIONS OF AŚOKA: WHERE IT ALL BEGAN śoka was the third emperor of the Maurya dynasty and the grandson of Candragupta, the king who founded the dynasty around 321 BCE, just a few years after Alexander the Great’s campaign in the north-west of the subcontinent. Aśoka ruled for about thirty-ive years in the middle of the 3rd century BCE. During the earliest years of his reign, he expanded the boundaries of the empire through a vigorous expansionist policy: under his rule, the Maurya empire reached its maximum extent, covering most of the Indian subcontinent. A Aśoka was the irst Indian emperor to have his edicts inscribed on stone: the Aśokan inscriptions are the earliest attestations of writing in India (apart from the still undeciphered Indus Valley script) and are the most well-studied epigraphic documents in India. The inscriptions are dated in the regnal years of Aśoka, which are still disputed and not yet settled with certainty: they were written in a time span of about 20 years (ca. 264-245 BCE). So far, around 40 inscriptions have been discovered, written on rocks, cave walls and polished pillars. They are distributed all over the subcontinent (present-day India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh), with the exception of its far south (namely, the present-day Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala): the distribution of the major edicts is shown in the maps below. T he majority of the Aśokan inscriptions are written in the earliest known form of the Brāhmī script: they are marked in green on the maps on this panel. The exceptions are represented by two inscriptions in Kharoṣṭhī (marked in red) and seven in Greek and Aramaic scripts (not represented in the maps); all these non-Brāhmī inscriptions are found in the north-western regions of the subcontinent (present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan). Both Greek and Aramaic are non-Indian scripts, since they were invented outside India (and, incidentally, were in use long before Aśoka’s reign). Conversely, Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī were devised in the subcontinent and, in modern times, they were deciphered in the mid-19th century (with the crucial contribution of the English scholar James Prinsep): thus, Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī are the earliest attested and deciphered Indic scripts. Lauṛiyā Nandangaṛh pillar inscription: map, present-day setting and detail Middle: http://www.britannica.com/media/full/332484/95469 (20/5/2016) - Right: http://www.britannica.com/media/full/189962/95468 (20/5/2016) Over time the two scripts had different fates. Kharoṣṭhī lourished in Gandhāra and adjoining regions, in northern India and central Asia; it fell out of use around the 3rd or 4th century CE (possibly some centuries later in central Asia) and eventually disappeared without any descendants. Conversely, Brāhmī evolved over the centuries and differentiated into many derivatives scripts: it is unanimously considered the parent of one of the major script families of the world, the so-called ‘Brahmic family of scripts’, which includes all the modern indigenous scripts of South Asia, the Sinhalese script and several major scripts of Central Asia (such as Tibetan) and Southeast Asia (Khmer, Thai, Lao, Burmese). As far as languages are concerned, the vast majority of the Aśokan inscriptions are composed in various Prakrits (or Middle Indo-Aryan languages); the two inscriptions written in the Kharoṣṭhī script are composed in Gāndhārī, i.e. the Prakrit language which was in use in the Gandhāra region. Apart from these, seven inscriptions located in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan are in Greek and Aramaic languages. No inscription in Sanskrit has come down to us from the Maurya period. Shāhbhāzgaṛhī rock inscription: map, present-day setting and detail Above: http://www.civilization.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Ashoka-inscription.jpg (20/5/2016) Below: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashoka_Rock_Edicts_Shahbazgarhi_by_Nisar_1.JPG (20/5/2016) 3 HISTORY OF INDIC SCRIPTS THE KHAROṢṬHĪ SCRIPT here is hardly any doubt that the Kharoṣṭhī script originated in the ancient Gandhāra region, corresponding to modern-day northern Pakistan and north-eastern Afghanistan. There are three reasons supporting this view. Firstly, the earliest records known to us of the Kharoṣṭhī script are in Gandhāra – namely, the two Aśokan rock edicts shown in the previous panel. Secondly, Kharoṣṭhī remained concentrated in the Gandhāra region throughout its history, although later it spread over larger areas. Thirdly, Kharoṣṭhī was undoubtedly developed primarily to write the Prakrit language used in the Gandhāra region, nowadays called Gāndhārī. In fact, virtually all the records in Gāndhārī known to us are written in the Kharoṣṭhī script, although Kharoṣṭhī was used in later times to write the Sanskrit language as well. From a palaeographic point of view, the most remarkable feature of the Kharoṣṭhī script is that, alone among Indic scripts, it is written from right to left. T From when it irst appeared in the two Aśokan inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE, Kharoṣṭhī remained the predominant script in Gandhāra until the 3rd or 4th century CE, when it fell out of use. From the 2nd century BCE onward, the Gandhārian region was ruled by non-Indian dynasties – Indo-Greek, Schythian (or Śaka), Parthian and Kuṣāṇa: as a result of the expansion of these kingdoms, the Kharoṣṭhī script spread from Gandhāra to the northwest (into Bactria), to the south (well into northen India) and to the northeast (toward the Tarim basin in Central Asia). The spread of Kharoṣṭhī was also closely associated with that of Buddhism, which was promoted and supported by all the aforementioned rulers. In northern India, Kharoṣṭhī lourished especially in and around the city of Mathurā (see map), a major administrative centre of the Scytho-Parthian and Kuṣāṇa kings. A number of inscriptions in Kharoṣṭhī, mainly on stone and of Buddhist afiliation, have been found in and around Mathurā. Among the most representative specimens is the “Mathurā lion capital inscriptions” (see picture below), recording donations to the Sarvāstivādin monks by a Schythian kṣatrapa. Besides inscriptions, Kharoṣṭhī was also widely used in South Asia in the coin legends of the Indo-Greek and Schythian rulers, usually in combination with Brāhmī or Greek (sometimes all the three scripts are used on the same coin: see picture below). In the 2nd or 3rd century CE, Kharoṣṭhī spread from Gandhāra to central Asia and afirmed itself as a major script in the cities and kingdoms set along the southern and nothern rims of the Tarim basin, which were part of the so-called Silk Road. The expansion of the Kharoṣṭhī script into Central Asia is especially connected with the Kuṣāṇa emperors (1st to 3rd centuries CE) and with the eastward spread of Buddhism endorsed by them. Mathurā lion capital inscriptions, 1st century CE https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/MathuraLionCapital.JPG (21/5/2016) Four gold coins of the Kuṣāṇa emperor Vima Kadphises (obverse in Greek, reverse in Kharoṣṭhī, 2nd century CE) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Four_sets_of_Gold_Coins_of_Vima_Kadphises.jpg (21/5/2016) In south Asia (Gandhāra, Bactria and northwestern India), Kharoṣṭhī fell out of use during the 3rd or, at the latest, the 4th century CE. The decline of the Kharoṣṭhī script in south Asia was probably determined by the fall of the Kuṣāṇa empire, and by the subsequent geographical shift of the center of political power towards northern and northeastern India, where Brāhmī was in use. Thus, in northwestern India, Kharoṣṭhī became the script used in an area of marginal political importance and was inally supplanted by pan-Indian Brāhmī. On the other hand, it is possible that in central Asia the Kharoṣṭhī script remained in use longer than in South Asia: some scholars suggest that Kharoṣṭhī was still used in the northern rim of the Tarim basin as late as the 7th century. In contrast to Brāhmī, the Kharoṣṭhī script died out without any descendants. 4 HISTORY OF INDIC SCRIPTS THE BRĀHMĪ SCRIPT FROM AŚOKA TO THE GUPTAS fter Aśoka’s time (3rd century BCE) and up to the end of the Gupta empire (early 6th century CE), the Brāhmī script went through new stages of development, named after the ruling dynasties of the time: Śuṅga Brāhmī (2nd to 1st century BCE), Kuṣāṇā Brāhmī (1st to 3rd century CE) and Gupta Brāhmī (4th to 6th century CE). The number of inscriptions known to us dating from these centuries tends to increase progressively, to the point that inscriptions from the Gupta period are found all over northern and central India. It should be remembered that by the 4th century CE, the Brāhmī script had superseded Kharoṣṭhī in the subcontinent (although Kharoṣṭhī possibly remained in use for some more centuries in the kingdoms located around the Tarim basin in central Asia). A wo major palaeographic tendencies in particular characterize the developments of the Brāhmī script during this long period: a irst tendency towards “regionalization”, i.e. towards the differentiation of Brāhmī into regional variants and the distinction between “northern” and “southern” varieties. The earliest records of the so-called “southern varieties”, dating from the Śuṅga period (2nd to 1st century BCE), are represented by the inscriptions on relic caskets from the stūpa at Bhaṭṭiprōḷu (Andhra Pradesh) and the short cave inscriptions found near Jambai village (see picture) and in several other sites in Tamil Nadu. The most notable innovations in these scripts were carried out to adapt “standard” northern Brāhmī for writing Dravidian (or Dravidian-inluenced) languages, e.g. the introduction of new characters representing alveolar phonemes, which are typical of Dravidian languages but unknown to the northern Indo-Aryan languages. T Sites of the most important Brāhmī inscriptions from the Śuṅga (red color) and Kuṣāṇa (blue color) periods Cave inscription in Southern Brāhmī (Jambai, Tamil N., 1st c. BCE) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jambai_Tamil_Brahmi.jpg (21/5/2016) part from palaeographic considerations, two crucial cultural facts are observed over these centuries: the appearance of the earliest known Hindu (that is, non-Buddhist) inscriptions and the emergence, besides Prakrits, of two new epigraphic languages, namely Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit and Sanskrit proper. A T he pillar inscription from Besnagar (Madhya Pradesh), written in the northern Brāhmī script of the 2nd century BCE, is particularly signiicant in that it contains several references to the Vaiṣṇava cult and is possibly the earliest epigraphic record referring to a Hindu cult. The inscription records the erection of a garuḍa-dhvaja (a pillar surmounted by an image of Garuḍa) dedicated to the god Vāsudeva by one Heliodora/Hēliodōros, who was the ambassador from an Indo-Greek king to a Śuṅga ruler. In the inscription, Heliodora calls himself a bhāgavata, that is, a devotee of the vaiṣṇava cult: thus, in addition to testifying that the Bhāgavata cult already existed at such an early date, the record suggests that the cult also gained followers among non-Indians. he earliest written documents in Sanskrit are the Ayodhyā (Uttar Pradesh) and the Ghosuṇḍī and Hāthībāḍā (Rajasthan) stone inscriptions, all from the 1st century BCE. But the irst relatively long inscription in Sanskrit composed in a poetic style fairly close to the rules of Indian courtly literature is the Junāgaḍh inscription of King Rudradāman (Gujarat, second half of the 2nd century CE). This inscription is also notable because the rock onto which it was engraved bears two more signiicant inscriptions: one by Aśoka (3rd century BCE) and one by Skandagupta (5th century CE). T Hēliodōros pillar (Besnagar, 2nd c. BCE) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heliodorus-Pillar2.jpg (21/5/2016) The Junāgaḍh rock inscriptions (from The Illustrated London News, 1872) http://deshgujarat.com/2014/07/19/ashoka-rock-inscription-at-girnar-junagadh-not-damaged/ (21/5/2016) 5 HISTORY OF INDIC SCRIPTS THE EARLY REGIONAL SCRIPTS (late 6th to 10th c. CE) I n the centuries after the collapse of the Gupta empire, the process of regional differentiation of the Indic scripts was favoured by political fragmentation, to the point that distinct local derivatives of the Brāhmī became discernible. The number of inscriptions we have from this period is considerably high, especially from the 8th century CE onwards; most of these inscriptions are engraved on slabs, pillars, image pedestals and, in an ever increasing number, on copper plates. The style of the compositions is often that of the high ornate kāvya literature, especially in dedicatory and panegyric inscriptions. The major regional scripts that evolved from Gupta Brāhmī in this period are: • Proto-Śāradā in the far northwest of the subcontinent (Kashmir). This is an isolated variety of the Gupta Brāhmī script. • Siddhamātṛkā in the north and northeast, but also in the west (present-day Maharashtra, where it replaced local southernstyle scripts) and, occasionally, even in the Deccan and the far south. Being the parent script of the Devanāgarī as well as of the northeastern scripts, Siddhamātṛkā played a crucial role in the history of the Indic scripts. • (Proto-)Telugu-Kannada in upper southern India (Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka). • Grantha, Tamiḻ and Vaṭṭeḻuttu in the far south of the Indian peninsula, As far as their use is concerned, Grantha was used to write the Sanskrit language, Tamiḻ and Vaṭṭeḻuttu for the Tamil language. The relationship between these scripts is still uncertain. Grantha seems to be attested irst, in the inscriptions of the Pallava rulers of the 4th to 7th centuries CE. According to some scholars, the earliest records in Vaṭṭeḻuttu date from the 5th century, and the Tamiḻ script was devised in the Pallava kingdom at the beginning of the 7th century as a simpliied form of the Pallava Grantha, supplemented with some necessary additional characters taken from Vaṭṭeḻuttu. From top to bottom: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kashmir_Sharada_MS.jpg (4/3/2015) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prajnyaapaaramitaa_Hridaya_Pel.sogd.jpg (5/3/2015) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:6th_century_Kannada_inscription_in_cave_temple_number_3_at_Badami.jpg (9/3/2015) http://www.britannica.com/topic/Tamil-language/images-videos (10/3/2015) 6 HISTORY OF INDIC SCRIPTS THE MODERN NORTHERN INDIC SCRIPTS (11th to 16th c.) n the irst half of the second millenium, virtually all the modern Indic scripts took shape. They all derive from the early regional scripts of the preceding period. In the following description, they have been arranged in four groups, geographically deined: the scripts of the far northwest and those of the north, west and northeast are treated in this panel; the scripts of the upper southern India and those of the far south are dealt with in the next panel. I ar northwest. In the far northwestern regions of the subcontinent (Kashmir, Panjab and the western Himālayan regions), the proto-Śāradā of old evolved into the Śāradā script from which, in turn, the Gurmukhī and other local scripts developed by the early 16th century CE. The Gurmukhī script is used to write the Punjabi language (although Muslims use a variant of the Perso-Arabic script for this purpose); Gurmukhī is also known for being the script used for writing the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred book of the Sikhs. F orth, west and northeast. At the beginning of the second millenium CE, two regional variants developed out of Siddhamātṛkā: the Nāgarī script in the northern and central-western regions (present-day Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra), and the Proto-Bengalī or Gauḍī script in the northeastern regions (present-day Bengal, Bihar and neighbouring areas). Nāgarī and proto-Bengalī are the parent scripts of all the modern Indic scripts used in northern, western and northeastern India. N Left: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kashmir_Sharada_MS.jpg (4/3/2015) Right: http://www.sikhnugget.com/2012/03/mullocks-punjab-and-sikh-sale-march.html (10/3/2015) As shown in the picture below, Nāgarī is the parent script of (among others) the Devanāgarī and Gujarātī scripts. Already in the early centuries of the irst millenium, Nāgarī faded into the Devanāgarī script. In fact, there is no clear distinction between Nāgarī and Devanāgarī: scholars tend to use the term “Nāgarī” to indicate the early archaic forms of the script, including many local varieties, and the term “Devanāgarī” for the most standardized and prevalent form of Nāgarī (i.e. the script still used nowadays). Devanāgarī occupies a special place among the modern Indic scripts in that it is considered by many to be close to a “national Indian script”. This special status mainly derives from Devanāgarī being used interregionally: unlike most of the other modern Indic scripts, which are used to write a speciic regional language, Devanāgarī is used to write Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Sankrit and other languages. The Gujarātī script, originally a local variety of Nāgarī, is irst attested in the 16th century CE. The absence of the head mark in the Gujarātī script is, according to some, an indication of its origin as an informal script. The Nandināgarī script is a (no longer existing) southern variety of Nāgarī that was used in the Deccan and (occasionally) in the far south. As shown in the picture, Proto-Bengali/ Gauḍī is the parent script of (among others) the Bangla (Bengali) and Oṛiyā scripts. Top left: http://cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/doniger-1981-rig-veda-anthology.html (9/3/2015) Top right: http://brcindia.com/sites/default/iles/images/display/Camatkarcandrk_NarottamDas_2867.jpg (9/3/2015) Bottom left: http://jhaverchandmeghani.com/lif/lecture-2.jpg (4/3/2015) Bottom right: http://www.type.land/res/origin-and-style-odia (4/6/2016) Both the Bangla and the Oṛiyā scripts became differentiated around the 14th and 15th centuries CE. Although derived from Proto-Bengali, the Oṛiyā script was secondarily inluenced by southern scripts and Nāgarī. In particular, the rounded shape of its characters is typical of south Indian scripts, and the absence of straight horizontal lines relect the practice of incising the letters on palm leaves, where drawing such lines would split the leaf. The Asamīyā script, which is used to write the Assamese language, is quite similar to Bangla, with just a few minor variations. 7 HISTORY OF INDIC SCRIPTS THE MODERN SOUTHERN INDIC SCRIPTS (11th to 16th c.) pper southern India. In upper southern India (roughly corresponding to present-day Karnataka, Andhar Pradesh and Telangana), two distinct scripts evolved out of the (Proto-)Telugu-Kannada script around the 14th-15th century, namely Telugu and Kannada. They are used to write the languages of the same name, as well as Sanskrit. Even after having differentiated from their parent script, the Telugu and Kannada scripts remained very similar to each other, with some characters in the two scripts being distinguished only by the shape of the head mark, which in Telugu has the shape of a check mark and in Kannada is a horizontal line with a upward hook at its right end (see picture below). U Left: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:6th_century_Kannada_inscription_in_cave_temple_number_3_at_Badami.jpg (9/3/2015) Top: http://library.brown.edu/dps/curio/tag/palm-leaf/ (30/5/2016) Bottom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Poetic_Kannada_inscription_of_Manjaraja_dated_1398_CE_at_Vindyagiri_hill_in_Shravanabelagola.jpg (27/5/2016) ar south. In the far south of the Indian peninsula (present-day Kerala and Tamil Nadu), the Grantha and Tamiḻ scripts reached their modern forms around the 14th-15th century. Although the two scripts are used to write different languages (Sanskrit and Tamil respectively), they closely resemble each other: some scholars assumed that the Tamil script was devised in the Pallava kingdom in the 7th century as a simpliied form of the Pallava Grantha, supplemented with some necessary additional characters taken from Vaṭṭeḻuttu. In this respect, it should be noted that in the last few decades a debate has arisen in south India about the origin of the Tamiḻ and Grantha scripts and the way they relate to one another. The discussion revolves around the supposed derivation of the latter from the former. This theory appears to be fraught with political implications, since Grantha is regarded by most of its proponents as representative of the interference of the northern Brahmanical culture in the Tamil south. At present, though, the controversy seems impossible to settle. F In the Tamil region, Vaṭṭeḻuttu was superseded by the Tamil script in the 10th-11th century; by contrast, in the southwestern areas Vaṭṭeḻuttu remained in use until the end of the 18th century, when it was inally supplanted by the Malayāḷaṃ script. The Malayāḷaṃ (or Ārya-eḻuttu) script came into existence in the 14th-15th century, mainly derived from the Grantha script, with the addition of some Vaṭṭeḻuttu characters representing Dravidian phonemes. The Malayāḷaṃ script is used to write the language of the same name, as well as Sanskrit. <Pictures by Marco Franceschini> FORMS AND MATERIALS OF THE EARLY DOCUMENTS ith few exceptions, the surviving examples of writing found in South Asia dating from before the end of the irst millenium CE are epigraphs, i.e. inscriptions written (usually, but not always, incised or carved) on durable materials, with stone (in the form of slabs, rocks, pillars, cave walls) being by far the most common. W I nscriptions on copper plates are also especially common. “Inscriptions on copper plates recording land grants are exceedingly common almost everywhere in India, numbering well into the thousands, and their study is an important subield within Indian epigraphy. Such inscriptions are engraved on one or more plates of copper which vary widely in size but generally reproduce the shape of traditional non-epigraphic writing materials such as palm leaves and bark strips, or sometimes stone stelae. Charters on multiple plates are joined together with a ring (occasionally two rings, one at each end) of copper or bronze which is inserted through holes in the plates. The ends of the ring are soldered together onto a seal, usually of bronze, which is intended to certify the authenticity of the document and to prevent tampering by the addition or removal of plates. [...] The usual purpose of copper plate inscriptions is to record donations, usually by kings or their functionaries, of villages or (somewhat less commonly) of cultivated ields to Brahmans who are felt to be especially deserving by virtue of their learning or holiness. They may also record endowments to temples or other religious institutions [...]. The earliest specimens of copper plate charters come from southern India, issued by the early Pallava and Śālaṅkāyana dynasties and datable, according to Sircar, to about the middle of the fourth century A.D. [...] There is clear evidence, however, that the origins of the copper plate charters or their prototypes go back farther than the fourth century [...]. The tradition of recording land grants on copper plates continued throughout the medieval era and even into the European period, and in certain cases such documents have been adjudged to be still legally valid in modern times. [...] Since the use of copper instead of ordinary perishable writing materials relects a desire to establish the document as a permanent record, in effect a deed to the granted lands, it is not surprising that copper plates are most often found underground where they had been buried for safekeeping by the grantees or their descendants according to the traditional Indian practice.” (Salomon, R., Indian epigraphy, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 113-115). Left and centre: grants engraved on copper plates in the shape of a stone stela and of a manuscript leaf. Right: grant written on several plates (in the shape of stone stelae) joined together with a ring Left to right: http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/75356 (15/3/2016) - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Budhagupta.jpg (12/3/2016) - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Copper_plates_NMND.JPG (22/5/2016) anuscripts dating from the irst millenium CE are rare, due to the perishable nature of the materials on which they were written (parchment, palm leaf, birch-bark sheets, paper): in fact, these materials are prone to decay in a relatively short span of time when exposed to the Indian tropical climate. It is not by chance, then, that the earliest surviving manuscripts written in Indic scripts have been found in areas characterized by a drier climate which helped their preservation, such as the mountains of present-day Afghanistan and Nepal and the mostly desert Tarim Basin in Central Asia. The oldest known Indian manuscripts date from the 1st century CE (1st century BCE, according to some). They are actually collections of fragments of manuscripts, written with ink on birch bark, that were contained inside a clay pot which was found near present-day Jalalabad (eastern Afghanistan), in the ancient Gandhāra region. They were acquired by the British Library in 1994. A similarly old manuscript had already been found in 1892 in Khotan, on the southern rim of the Tarim basin. All these manuscripts contain Buddhist texts, composed in the Gāndhārī language and written in the Kharoṣṭhī script. M Kharoṣṭhī script on paper strip (2nd-5th c. CE, Yingpan, Tarim Basin, Xinjiang Museum) Fragments of birch bark manuscripts from the Bāmiyān valley, 2nd-7th c. CE, Schøyen collection) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YingpanKharoshthi.jpg (22/5/2016) Braarvig J. and Liland F., Traces of Gandhāran Buddhism. Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2010, p. xxvi. ON THE ORIGINS OF THE BRĀHMĪ AND KHAROṢṬHĪ SCRIPTS The origins of Kharoṣṭhī T here is general agreement among scholars that the Kharoṣṭhī script developed out of the Aramaic script, which belongs to the Semitic group of scripts and was derived from the Phoenician script. The derivation of Kharoṣṭhī from Aramaic had already been suggested around the middle of the 19th century and was inally and convincingly demonstrated in 1895 by Georg Bühler, one of the greatest names in Indian palaeography. As a general rule, three criteria are taken into account in order to prove a derivative link between two scripts: 1. the similarity (or plausible palaeographic relationship) between single characters in the scripts; 2. structural afinities between the scripts, such as the system of vowel representation and the direction of writing; 3. a historical well-known connection between the cultures that produced the scripts. In his article, Bühler demonstrated that all these criteria are satisied in the derivation of Kharoṣṭhī from Aramaic: 1. the similarity between most of the characters in the Aramaic and Kharoṣṭhī scripts is apparent (see the picture below), and Bühler convincingly demonstrated derivative patterns for the remaining ones; 2. the system of vowel notation by way of diacritic signs added to the base consonant used in Kharoṣṭhī has cogently been shown to represent a reinement of the consonant-syllabic system used in Aramaic (and, more generally, in all Semitic scripts). Moreover, both scripts are written from right to left (note that, in this respect, Kharoṣṭhī stands apart from all the other Indic scripts, which are written in the opposite direction); 3. a historical connection between Aramaic and Kharoṣṭhī scripts is easy to prove. Aramaic script was mainly used to write the Aramaic language, the oficial language and the lingua franca of the greatest empires of ancient Persia: the Achaemenid (ca. 550-330 BCE), the Seleucid (ca. 321-250 BCE) and the Parthian (ca. 247 BCE-224 CE). Since the Achaemenid and Seleucid empires bordered north-western India (the Gandhāra region), it is natural to surmise that the Aramaic script was taken up in those borderlands and adapted to represent the local Indian language, the Prakrit called Gāndhārī. Different theories on the origins of Brāhmī n contrast with Kharoṣṭhī, the origin of the Brāhmī script is still debated these days. Since the last decades of the 19th century, a wide range of hypotheses have been put forward by scholars on this issue. These hypotheses can be divided into two broad categories: I 1. those proposing an indigenous (Indian) origin of the Brāhmī script – which would have derived from the Indus Valley script or invented from scratch in Aśoka’s time or just before it; 2. those assuming that Brāhmī derived from a non-Indian prototype – Greek together with Kharoṣṭhī or a later North Semitic script, i.e. the Aramaic script. All these hypotheses have some strong and weak points and there is no unanimous agreement among scholars on either of them. Generally speaking, the hypotheses proposing an indigenous origin of Brāhmī are more speculative than those of the other group. A derivation of Brāhmī from the Indus Valley script can not be ruled out a priori: however, it can not but stand on a purely speculative basis, at least as long as the Indus Valley script remains undecyphered. On the other hand, the creation of a new, sophisticated script from scratch (i.e. without using any pre-existing script as a basis) has no counterpart in the history of writing systems worldwide. At present, the prevailing theory is that Brāhmī derived from the Aramaic script and was inluenced by Kharoṣṭhī (which also developed out of Aramaic and is generally held as being older than Brāhmī). As a matter of fact, the reasons adduced by Bühler to satisfy the three criteria mentioned above and prove the link between the Kharoṣṭhī and Aramaic scripts still hold good when we consider Brāhmī and Aramaic. An objection might be that Aramaic and Brāhmī are written in the opposite direction, the former from right to left and the latter from left to right. Contrary to widely-held assumptions, the direction of writing is not a strong argument pro or contra the derivation of one script from another, since it tended to be particularly unstable in ancient scripts. Comparison between northern Semitic and Indic scripts Salomon, Richard, Indian epigraphy. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 25. ON THE NORTHERN AND THE SOUTHERN INDIC SCRIPTS he Indian derivatives of the Aśokan Brāhmī are usually classiied into two major categories, namely, the Northern and Southern Indic scripts. This subdivision is grounded on palaeographic bases: the archetypes of the two groups can be traced back as early as the 2nd century BCE, when two varieties of the Aśokan Brāhmī became discernible, namely, the “Northern Brāhmī” (or ‘Brāhmī Śuṅga’) and the “Southern Brāhmī” (see the genealogical tree in panel 1). These two forms of Brāhmī are parents to two distinct groups of derivative scripts, the Northern and Southern Indic scripts respectively. As far as their graphic shapes are concerned, the northern scripts are characterized by squarish forms and angular lines; in contrast, the southern scripts are more rounded and smooth. An example of this is given in the picture, where the same sentence is shown as it appears written in two northern scripts (Devanāgarī and Bengali) and in two southern ones (Telugu and Malayāḷam). T he grouping of the Indic scripts into northern and southern scripts mainly coincides with the classiication of the major Indian languages into families: in fact, the northern scripts were, and still are, used to write Indo-Aryan languages (belonging to the Indo-European language family) and the southern scripts were, and still are, used primarily to write languages belonging to the Dravidian family. The geographic borderline between the two linguistic groups runs approximately as shown in the map on the left. An essential chronology of the main stages in the evolution of the Indian languages beloning to the Indo-European and Dravidian language families is given in the picture on the right. T The necessary distinction between scripts and languages T he distinction between scripts and languages should be obvious; nevertheless it seems advisable to emphasize here that scripts and languages are different systems of communication and must be kept apart. By way of clariication: • one and the same script can be used to write two or more different languages, even belonging to different linguistic families: think, for example, of the Latin (or Roman) script, which is used today to write most of the languages of Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, America and Oceania, as well as some Asian languages, such as the Malay language (belonging to the Austronesian family) and the Vietnamese language (belonging to the Austroasiatic family). In India, a similar case is represented by the Devanāgarī script, which is currently used to write languages as different as Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Nepali and Sanskrit (among others); • on the other hand, one and the same language can be written in two or more different writing systems: a clear example for this is the Sanskrit language, which over the centuries has been written in a large variety of different scripts as disparate as Brāhmī and Grantha, Kharoṣṭhī and Khmer, Devanāgarī and Telugu, and so on. Moreover, and more importantly, language is considered an inborn faculty of human nature, whereas writing is a mere technology: all human cultures have their languages, but only some of them developed a writing system to represent their language(s). Historically, writing is a relatively recent invention and most human languages are unwritten. THE LANGUAGES OF INDIAN INSCRIPTIONS (1) T he image below gives an approximate picture of the different languages used in Indian inscriptions and manuscripts from the time of Aśoka to the end of the irst millenium CE, together with the relevant map: 3rd to 1st century BCE Virtually all the inscriptions from this period are composed in Prakṛtis. • The Eastern Prakrit: being the Prakrit used in the area of Pāṭaliputra, the capital of the Maurya kings, it was by far the predominant language as long as the Maurya dynasty ruled over India; after the collapse of the Maurya empire (in the irst half of the 2nd century BCE), the Eastern Prakrit fell abruptly out of use. • The Western Prakrit: during the Maurya period, it was used only in present-day Gujarat and Maharashtra; after that period, it gained a dominant role all over India, as a consequence of the movement of the center of political power from the east (Pāṭaliputra) to the northwest (Mathurā). • The North-Western Prakrit, namely the Gāndhārī Prakrit: it was used in Gandhāra and adjacent regions and was invariably written in the Kharoṣṭhī script; • The Southern Prakrit (or early Tamil?): the language of the few known inscriptions dating from this period found in the Dravidian-speaking south of India is still a debated issue: some scholars think that all of these inscriptions are composed in a southern Prakrit heavily inluenced by Dravidian languages, whereas others argue that most of them are composed in an early form of the Tamil language. Dhauli rock inscription, Orissa (Aśokan Eastern Prakrit) Mīraṭh pillar inscription, UP (Aśokan Eastern Prakrit) Photo: Alaina Browne. https://www.lickr.com/photos/alaina/3293595339 (14/9/2015) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:6thPillarOfAshoka.JPG (23/5/2016) THE LANGUAGES OF INDIAN INSCRIPTIONS (2) 1st to 3rd century CE During the irst three centuries of the Common Era, three languages were used for composing epigraphic texts: • Prakrits, which were predominant in the preceding centuries, were still used in this period, although their role as epigraphic languages started to decline. • Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit (EHS) was the predominant language in the inscriptions from northern and central India, and it was also sporadically used in southern India. The earliest and the largest number of records composed in EHS are found in Mathurā and its surrounding region. EHS is not a single standardized language, but a spectrum of dialects which uses characteristics and features belonging to both Prakrits and Sanskrit; at the two extremities of the spectrum there are more Prakritic varieties, at one end, and more strongly Sanskritized varieties at the other. EHS arose as a consequence of the general trend toward a Sanskritization of Prakrits, a trend that continued in the following centuries. • Sanskrit. In this period Sanskrit emerged as an epigraphic language. Most of the Sanskrit records from this period are found in Mathurā and its surrounding region. In all likelihood, the emergence of both EHS and Sanskrit as epigraphic languages originated in the city of Mathurā, which was an important administrative center of both the Śaka (Schythan) and Kuṣāṇa rulers. It seems reasonable, then, to hypothesize that both the Sanskritization of Prakrits (which produced the EHS and, on the literary side, the “Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit”) and the increasing role of Sanskrit as an epigraphical language were a consequence of the foundation of the Śaka and, later, the Kuṣāṇa kingdoms in northern and western India. Being foreigners to India, all these kings were willing to patronize and promote the use of Sanskrit – the traditional language of the learned Indian elite – in order to legitimize their role as rulers. In southern India, Sanskrit is attested in epigraphic records only from the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 4th century CE onwards, often in bilingual combination with Prakrits. 4th to beginning of 6th century CE (Gupta period) During the Gupta period, Sanskrit established itself as the epigraphic language par excellence of the Indian subcontinent. At least from Samudragupta onward (middle of the 4th century CE), the Gupta emperors adopted Sanskrit as their sole epigraphic language. This tendency spread all over India, so that Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit disappeared and Prakrits also virtually fell out of use. Candragupta II’s inscription on the railing of the main stūpa at Sāñchī (4th-5th century CE) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sanchi,_Inscription_of_Candragupta_II..JPG (21/5/2016) Rock inscription (Badami, Karnataka; Early Kannada script) https://commons.wikimedia.org /wiki/File:6th_century_Kannada_inscription_in_cave_temple_number_3_at_Badami.jpg (23/5/2016) 6th to 10th century CE After the collapse of the Gupta empire, Sanskrit continued to enjoy the role of prevalent epigraphic language in India. It is only from the irst centuries of the second millenium CE onward that new languages came into use in epigraphic records, namely, the New Indo-Aryan languages (attested from the 11th century CE) and the Arabic and Persian languages (attested from the end of the 12th century CE). Once again, the picture is slightly different in southern India, where the Dravidian languages appear in inscriptions as early as the 7th century CE, although often in combination with Sanskrit. Some considerations It could come as a surprise that Sanskrit, which is the linguistic parent of Prakrits, came into epigraphic use only a couple of centuries later than Prakrits themselves, and that it superseded them only some more centuries later (in the 4th century CE). Even more so since scholars generally agree on the fact that, even before establishing itself as an epigraphic language, Sanskrit already enjoyed the status of the language of learning par excellence as well as the primary literary language of India. This “paradox” can be explained in terms of the prestige enjoyed by inscriptions as a literary genre. Prior to the Gupta era, inscriptions were probably considered documents unworthy of the use of Sanskrit and, consequently, Sanskrit was used as an epigraphic language only by the Śaka and Kuṣāṇa rulers, for political convenience. On the other hand, during the Gupta era, inscriptions became a more formalized literary genre and, as such, they were felt worthy of the use of Sanskrit. It should be noted that Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī were initially devised to write Prakrits; by the time they started to be used to write Sanskrit, they had gone through inevitable adaptations, aimed at providing them with the signs necessary to represent the Sanskrit phonemic inventory and structure. SOME REMARKS ON THE SIDDHAMĀTṚKĀ SCRIPT iddhamātṛkā played a crucial role in the history of Indic scripts. It evolved out of the Gupta Brāhmī script and superseded it by the late 6th century CE, establishing itself as the predominant epigraphical script in the northern, eastern and western regions of India well into the 10th century. By the beginning of the 11th century, Siddhamātṛkā was supplanted by two of its local varieties, namely Nāgarī (in the north and west) and Proto-Bengali or Gauḍī (in the east). S n the name “Siddhamātṛkā”. Siddhamātṛkā is one of the few premodern Indic scripts whose name is known to us from contemporary sources: in fact, “Siddhamātṛkā” is the irst in a list of Indian script names quoted by the Persian scientist and historian Al-Bīrūnī in his History of India (Ta’rīkh al-Hind). Al-Bīrūnī travelled through India in the irst half of the 11th century and it is worth noting that his list also includes the “Nāgara [script], which differs from the former [i.e. the Siddhamātṛkā script] only in the shape of the characters”. Siddhamātṛkā was also used for transmitting Buddhist texts in East Asia, where it came to be known by the name “Siddhaṃ”. Some scholars interpret “Siddhaṃ” as an abbreviation of “Siddhamātṛkā”, and take it as conirmation of the historical authenticity of the name Siddhamātṛkā, while others maintain that the name Siddhaṃ originated from the practice of writing the Sanskrit word siddham (“perfection”) at the beginning of a text, as an auspicious sign. O https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prajnyaapaaramitaa_Hridaya_Pel.sogd.jpg (5/3/2015) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pratisara_Mantra1.png (5/3/2015) ther names for the script. Siddhamātṛkā is also known by other names, such as “early Nāgarī”, “acute-angled”, “Kuṭila”, “Vikaṭa” and “nail-headed” script. “Early Nāgarī” clearly refers to the historical connection between the Siddhamātṛkā and the Nāgarī scripts. “Acute-angled” derives from the generally angular shape of the script, and especially from the characteristic sharpangled projections at the lower right tip of the characters. These “serifs”, together with the tendency toward calligraphic elaboration typical of the Suddhamātṛkā script, resulted in remarkable examples of calligraphy, such as the famous signature of King Harṣa on the Bhānskheṛā copper plate (7th century CE). O Salomon, Richard, Indian epigraphy. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 70. The names “Kuṭila” (“crooked [script]”) and “Vikaṭa” (“beautiful [script]”, but possibly also “deformed [script]”!) are probably just descriptive terms (both found in inscriptions) which were erroneously understood as names of the script. The name “Nail-headed [script]” alludes to the nail-shaped (or wedge-shaped) head mark that appears on top of characters in the Siddhamātṛkā script. This head mark has its origin in the Śuṅga Brāhmī (2nd through 1st centuries BCE), where it irst appeared probably in imitation of pen and ink script, “in which such a mark naturally tends to appear at the point where the scribe begins the letter. This accidental formation eventually came to be perceived as a part of the letter form itself, so that it began to appear in epigraphic writing by way of imitation of pen and ink script. This head mark was to develop in the succeeding centuries into different shapes in different regions, eventually resulting in the formation of such characteristic features of medieval and modem Indian scripts as the square of the “box-headed” script, the continuous top line of Devanāgarī, the curved “umbrella” of Oriya, or the “check-mark” of Telugu” (Salomon, R., Indian epigraphy. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 31-34). The development of the head mark of the Brāhmī script into the “nail-head” mark of the Siddhamātṛkā and, inally, into the top line of the Devanāgarī is shown in the picture. Top left: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kanheri-brahmi.jpg (9/3/2015) Top right: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prajnyaapaaramitaa_Hridaya_Pel.sogd.jpg (5/3/2015) Bottom: http://yoga-ashtanga.net/en/sanskrit-its-meanings-the-writing-of-the-gods/peinture_from_ramayana_ manuscript_in_devanagari/ (10/3/2015) ON THE TYPOLOGY OF THE INDIC WRITING SYSTEMS I n systemic terms, all the Indic scripts (namely Brāhmī and its derivatives, and Kharoṣṭhī) follow the same principles of graphic representation. They are based on the graphic syllable, typically consisting of a consonant base in which a following vowel a is inherent. That is to say, a consonant with no added diacritic is to be read with the vowel a. Post-consonantal vowels other than a are represented either by diacritics attached to the consonant base or by separate (but not independent) glyphs. In order to represent the “pure consonant”, a special diacritic (called virāma or halanta) that “kills” the inherent a is appended to the consonant. A special set of signs is used to represent vowels when they are “independent” from a preceding consonant, that is, when they occur at the beginning of a sentence or are preceded by a hiatus. In most Indic scripts, consonant clusters, i.e. a sequence of consonants without an intervening vowel, are represented by ligatures, in which the consonants are graphically joined together. ll the Indic scripts are thus structurally akin to each other and are to be classiied within the same typological category. This category is hard to deine, because these scripts have features that are typical of both syllabaries and alphabets. Most of the names coined for labelling this category – namely, “alphabetic syllabary”, “pseudoalphabet”, “neosyllabary”, “alphasyllabary” and the like –reveal the intermediate position occupied by the scripts included in it. On the other hand, Peter Daniels proposed calling this category of scripts “abugida” which, in contrast to the preceding names, is an already existing word. “Abugida” is the Ethiopian name of the Ge’ez (or Ethiopic) script, the only major script included in the same category as the Indic scripts. The term “abugida” is derived from the names of the irst four letters in the Ge’ez script (‘ä-bu-gi-da), on the pattern of “alpha-bet” and “a-be-ce-de-(ry)”. A B ut what is the basic difference between alphabets, syllabaries and alphasyllabaries? (Note that what follows refers to an ideal situation of “pure alphabets”, “pure syllabaries” and “pure alphasyllabaries”, whereas attested scripts tend to combine features of different systems and thus, strictly speaking, they are only predominantly alphabets, syllabaries and alphasyllabaries). • In alphabets, each phoneme (be it a consonant or a vowel) is represented by one character. Each character is a discrete unit and is graphically independent from (i.e. not modiied by) the character preceding it or the one following it. • In syllabaries, each character represents one syllable: the single phonemes constituting the syllable are not represented and, as such, have no inluence on the graphical representation of the syllable as a whole. For example, the Japanese hiragana syllables sa, se, su (shown in the middle column of the picture above) have nothing in common to indicate the consonant s; likewise, there is nothing in the characters for sa and ka, se and ke, su and ku to indicate that the vowel in each pair is the same. • In alphasyllabaries, the consonant base includes the inherent vowels a. Vowels other than a (as well as the suppression of the inherent vowel, i.e. the representation of the “pure consonant”) are indicated by diacritics or by separate (but not independent) glyphs added to the base; one and the same diacritic or glyph is used to indicate one and the same speciic vowel. Alphasyllabaries are very similar to “consonantaries” (also called “consonantal alphabets” or “consonantal scripts”), such as the West Semitic scripts, including Aramaic (now extinct), Arabic and Hebrew. Alphasyllabaries and consonantaries share similar systems of vowel notation and the use of graphic ligatures to represent consonant clusters, i.e. sequences of two or more consonants without an intervening vowel. The main difference between an alphasyllabary and a consonantary is that in the latter, vowel notation is absent or optional, whereas in the former, it is carried out systematically. Daniels proposed calling this category of scripts “abjad” in place of “consonantary”. The term “abjad” is derived from the pronunciation of the irst four letters of the Arabic script (in its traditional order) and is thus formed on the same pattern as “abugida”.