Origin of Brahmi Script

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Earliest written records of India in the historical period, Asokan inscriptions hold the key to the story of riting in this country. These epigraphs have been written in Greek, Aramaic, Kharosthi, and Brahmi. Among these the origins of the first three scripts are not disputed but the beginnings of Brahmi elude the grasp of historians. Majority of western scholars derive Brahmi's origin from one of these scripts – Hieratic, cuneiform, Phoenician, Aramaic and Kharosthi. A few foreign scholars and most of the Indian scholars believe in its indigenous origin. The author of the present work has critically reviewed and scrutinized the existing views and shown convincingly a correlation between the pre-existing geometrical forms and later signs of the Brahmi script. He has illustrated with charts that most of the letters of Brahmi alphabet betray very close resemblance with geometrical forms such as semi-circle, circle, ellipse, cycloid, triangle, angle and quadrangle etc. Each letter of the Brahmi script has been discussed here in greater detail than ever before and its origin from geometrical signs clearly demonstrated. Besides, the author has brought out for the first time numerous new forms of Asokan letters originating from geometrical signs, which were hitherto unknown or unnoticed. The work on the whole is marked out for originality, clarity, sound scholarship and critical acumen of the author. The book is bound to benefit the general readers as well as researchers in the field.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Naresh Prasad Rastogi

Naresh Prasad Rastogi (b. 1942) has a brilliant academic career and is widely traveled in India and abroad. Dr. Rastogi is keenly devoted to the study of Indian palaeography. Besides the present work, he has also written a book on the inscriptions of Asoka consisting of two parts. In the first part which has been printed out, the author has not only included all the Asokan inscriptions discovered to date but also amended and revised large number of readings of the previous stalwarts. The second part of the book comprising plates is in the press. Thus Dr. Rastogi’s above mentioned work is the second comprehensive and critical corpus of Asokan inscriptions after Hultzsch. His another work entitled Mauryan Palaeography which is under publication, is an intensive study of the origin and development of the Mauryan Brahmi letters. In this book the author has also made a comparative study of Asokan inscriptions on one hand and that of later Indian and south Asian epigraphs on the other. Dr. Rastogi has evinced keen interest in Indian palaeography and has made his mark in the field. He has been teaching in the Department of Ancient Indian History & Archaeology, Lucknow University, Lucknow since 1969. Much more work is expected from the pen of this brilliant young scholar.

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Bibliographic information

Title
Origin of Brahmi Script
Author
Edition
1st ed.
Publisher
Length
xxiv+174p., Plates; Appendix; Bibliography; Index; 23cm.
Subjects