E a r l y I n d i a n s c r i p t s
We now come to India. I start with an introduction to the ‘Early IndianScripts’. It is unfortunate that our most ancient writing is stillunintelligible. How much we can learn about ancients’life and culture if only Indus script has been deciphered! Two millennia pass before we have the deciphered scripts of our land: Kharoshtiand Brahmi. Kharoshtileft no descendents. But, why I would like to know. It was being written extensively in theNorth-western greater India. We find them on the then media, birch-bark and on coins. Why there are no descendents to Kharoshti, whereasit is from Brahmiall Indian languages got their script? Was it because it was in some way inconvenient, like being written from right to left?Some of you might see samples of Kharoshthifor the first time in my presentation.
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As it was with Rosetta Stone, deciphering BrahmiandKharoshtibecame possible because of bi-lingual coins. The Alexanderinvasion may or may not have been good for India. That it helpedindirectly deciphering both Brahmiand Kharoshtiis fortuitous. SomeIndo-Greek kings who ruled in Afghanistan and the Punjab from about200 -25 BC recorded their names and titles in Greek and in BrahmiorKharoshti. And it was because of the untiring effort of James Princep(1799-1840), a qualified architect who came to India to work in theMint at the age of 20 and worked himself to death unraveling themystery of Brahmi, that we are able to follow the messages of thecompassionate Asokaand trace our hoary antiquity.
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