Brāhmī Script

Brāhmī Script

Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest script used in India, during the final centuries BCE and the early centuries CE. Like its contemporary, Kharoṣṭhī, which was used in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, Brāhmī was an abugida.

The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. Inscriptions in Tamil-Brahmi, a Southern Brahmic alphabet found on pottery in South India and Sri Lanka, may even predate the Ashoka edicts.

The Gupta script of the 5th century is sometimes called "Late Brahmi". From the 6th century onward, the Brahmi script diversified into numerous local variants, grouped as the Brahmic family of scripts.

The script was deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the British East India Company.