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Scientific Society of Aligarh
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/20/21

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The Scientific Society of Aligarh was a literary society founded by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan at Aligarh. The main objectives of the society was to translate Western works on arts and science into vernacular languages and promote western education among the masses.

History

On January 9, 1864 Sir Syed formed a translation society called Scientific Society at Ghazipur with the goal of translating scientific books of English and other European languages into Urdu and Hindi.[2] The first meeting was held in January 1864 under the presidentship of Mr. A. B. Spate, the then Collector of Ghazipur.[3] This society was moved in April 1864 to Aligarh and henceforth also known as the Scientific Society of Aligarh.[4] The society sought to promote liberal, modern education and Western scientific knowledge in the Muslim community in India. The society was modelled after the Royal Society and the Royal Asiatic Society. Sir Syed assembled Muslim scholars from different parts of the country and the society held annual conferences, disbursed funds for educational causes and regularly published a journal on scientific subjects in English and Urdu.[5]

Many of the essays he wrote during this time were on topics like the solar system, plant and animal life, human evolution, etc. In many ways, Sir Syed tried to bridge the gap between religion and science.

Members

Jai Kishan Das, close Hindu associate of Sir Syed served as its secretary from 1867 till 1874.[6][7][8] He was also nominated as Co-President of The Society for life.[9] Other active members of the society included Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, Nawab Abdul Latif, Zakaullah Dehlvi, Nazir Ahmad Dehlvi, and Kunwar Luft Ali Khan of Chhattari.[1] The society also appointed two translators: Babu Ganga Prasad was an English translator and Moulvi Faiyazul Hasan was the vernacular translator.[10]

Institute

The Aligarh Scientific Society had a library and a reading room of its own. The books were mainly donated to the Society by different Indian as well as foreign gentlemen.

Sir Syed himself donated a large number of books to the library. The Society subscribed to forty-four journals and magazines in 1866. Of those, 18 were in English and rest in Urdu, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit. It exchanged its publication with similar societies like the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge founded by Pandit Harsokh Rai at Lahore and the Mohammedan Literary Society founded by Nawab Abdul Latif at Calcutta. It also exchanged its journal with the publications of the Bengal Asiatic Society, Calcutta.[11]

Publications

Aligarh Institute Gazette was the journal of the society.[12]It was the first bilingual journal of India.[13]

References

1. Azmi, Arshad Ali (1969). "The Aligarh Scientific Society 1864-1867". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 31: 414–420. ISSN 2249-1937. JSTOR 44138412.
2. "Scientific Society | Aligarh Movement". aligarhmovement.com. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
3. Kidwai, Shafey (2020-12-03). Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation. Taylor & Francis. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-000-29773-7.
4. "Scientific Society | Aligarh Movement". aligarhmovement.com. Retrieved 2020-12-25.
5. Singh, M. K. (2009). Encyclopaedia of Indian War of Independence, 1857-1947: Muslims and other freedom fighters : C. Rajgopalachari, M.M. Malviya, Dr. Zakir Hussain, Abdul Gaffar Khan, Syed Ahmed Khan, R.K. Kidwai and M.A. Ansari. Anmol Publications. ISBN 978-81-261-3745-9.
6. "Remembering Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the great educationist and secular nationalist". India TV News. 2015-10-17. Retrieved 2015-10-17.
7. Dildār ʻAlī Farmān Fatiḥpūrī; Dild−ar ʻAl−i Farm−an Fatiḥp−ur−i (1987). Pakistan movement and Hindi-Urdu conflict. Sang-e-Meel Publications.
8. Muhammad Moj (1 March 2015). The Deoband Madrassah Movement: Countercultural Trends and Tendencies. Anthem Press. pp. 47–. ISBN 978-1-78308-388-6.
9. Fatiḥpūrī, Dildār ʻAlī Farmān; Fatiḥp−ur−i, Dild-ar ʻAl−i Farm−an (1987-01-01). Pakistan movement and Hindi-Urdu conflict. Sang-e-Meel Publications.
10. Kidwai, Shafey (2020-12-03). Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation. Taylor & Francis. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-000-29773-7.
11. "NPTEL :: Humanities and Social Sciences - Science, Technology and Society" (PDF).
12. Moj, Muhammad (2015-03-01). The Deoband Madrassah Movement: Countercultural Trends and Tendencies. Anthem Press. ISBN 9781783083886.
13. "Scientific Society | Aligarh Movement". aligarhmovement.com. Retrieved 2020-12-25.

External links

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Aligarh Muslim University
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/20/21

Aligarh Muslim University

Other name: AMU
Former names: Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (1875–1919)
Motto: ʻallam al-insān-a mā lam yaʻlam (Taught man what he knew not (Qur'an 96:5))
Type: Public
Established: 1875; 146 years ago
Founders: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
Academic affiliations: UGC, NAAC, AIU
Budget: ₹1,036 crore (US$140 million) (2019–20)[1]
Chancellor: Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin
Vice-Chancellor: Tariq Mansoor
Rector: Governor of Uttar Pradesh
Students: 18,618[2]
Undergraduates: 12,610[2]
Postgraduates: 5,756[2]
Doctoral students: 252[2]
Location: Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India
27.9150°N 78.0788°ECoordinates: 27.9150°N 78.0788°E
Campus: Urban, 1,155 acres (467 ha)
Website: http://www.amu.ac.in

Aligarh Muslim University (abbreviated as AMU) is a public central university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920, following the Aligarh Muslim University Act. It has three off-campus centres in AMU Malappuram Campus (Kerala), AMU Murshidabad centre (West Bengal), and Kishanganj Centre (Bihar). The university offers more than 300 courses in traditional and modern branches of education, and is an institute of national importance as declared under seventh schedule of the Constitution of India at its commencement.

The university has been ranked 801–1000 in the QS World University Rankings of 2021,[3] and 10 in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2021.[4] Various clubs and societies function under the aegis of the university and it has various notable academicians, literary figures, politicians, jurists, lawyers, and sportspeople, among others as its alumni.

History


Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of Aligarh Muslim University


Bab-e-Syed, entrance to the university

Funding

The university was established as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan,[5][6] starting functioning on 24 May 1875.[7] The movement associated with Syed Ahmad Khan and the college came to be known as the Aligarh Movement, which pushed to realise the need for establishing a modern education system for the Indian Muslim populace.[8] He considered competence in English and Western sciences necessary skills for maintaining Muslims' political influence.[citation needed] Khan's vision for the college was based on his visit to Oxford University and Cambridge University, and he wanted to establish an education system similar to the British model.[9]

A committee was formed by the name of foundation of Muslim College and asked people to fund generously. Then Viceroy and Governor General of India, Thomas Baring gave a donation of ₹10,000 while the Lt. Governor of the North Western Provinces contributed ₹1,000, and by March 1874 funds for the college stood at ₹1,53,920 and 8 annas.[7] Maharao Raja Mahamdar Singh Mahamder Bahadur of Patiala contributed ₹58,000 while Raja Shambhu Narayan of Benaras donated ₹60,000.[10] Donations also came in from the Maharaja of Vizianagaram as well.[11] The college was initially affiliated to the University of Calcutta for the matriculate examination but became an affiliate of Allahabad University in 1885. [7] The seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, HEH Mir Osman Ali Khan made a remarkable donation of Rupees 5 Lakh to this institution in the year 1918. [12][13][14]

Establishment as university


Masjid at the Aligarh Muslim University

Circa 1900, Muslim University Association was formed to spearhead efforts to transform the college into a university. The Government of India informed the association that a sum of rupees thirty lakhs should be collected to establish the university. Therefore, a Muslim University Foundation Committee was started and it collected the necessary funds. The contributions were made by Muslims as well as non-Muslims.[15] Mohammad Ali Mohammad Khan and Aga Khan III had helped in realising the idea by collecting funds for building the Aligarh Muslim University.[16] With the MAO College as a nucleus, the Aligarh Muslim University was then established by the Aligarh Muslim University Act, 1920.[9][17] In 1927, the Ahmadi School for the Visually Challenged, Aligarh Muslim University was established and in the following year, a medical school was attached to the university. The college of unani medicine, Ajmal Khan Tibbya College was established in 1927 with the Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College Hospital being established later in 1932.[18] The Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College And Hospital was established later in 1962 as a part of the university.[19] In 1935, the Zakir Husain College of Engineering and Technology was also established as a constituent of the university.[20]

Before 1939, faculty members and students supported an all-India nationalist movement but after 1939, political sentiment shifted towards support for a Muslim separatist movement. Students and faculty members supported Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the university came to be a center of the Pakistan Movement.[21][22]

Women's education

Dr. Sheikh Abdullah ("Papa Mian") is the founder of the women's college of Aligarh Muslim University and had pressed for women's education, writing articles while also publishing a monthly women's magazine, Khatoon. To start the college for women, he had led a delegation to the Lt. Governor of the United Provinces while also writing a proposal to Sultan Jahan, Begum of Bhopal. Begum Jahan had allocated a grant of ₹ 100 per month for the education of women. On 19 October 1906, he successfully started a school for girls with five students and one teacher at a rented property in Aligarh.[23] The foundation stone for the girls' hostel was laid by him and his wife, Waheed Jahan Begum ("Ala Bi") after struggles on 7 November 1911.[23] Later, a high school was established in 1921, gaining the status of an intermediate college in 1922, finally becoming a constituent of the Aligarh Muslim University as an undergraduate college in 1937.[24] Later, Dr. Abdullah's daughters also served as principals of the women's college.[23] One of his daughters was Mumtaz Jahan Haider, during whose tenure as principal, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad had visited the university and offered a grant of ₹9,00,000. She was involved in the establishment of the Women's College, organised various extracurricular events, and reasserted the importance of education for Muslim women.[25]

In 2014, then vice-chancellor Zameer Uddin Shah turned down a demand by female students to be allowed to use the Maulana Azad Library, which was males-only. Shah stated that the issue was not one of discipline, but of space as if girls were allowed in the library there would be "four times more boys", putting a strain on the library's capacity. [26][27][28] Although there was a separate library for the university's Women's College, it was not as well-stocked as the Maulana Azad Library[26] Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Smriti Irani decried Shah's defence as "an insult to daughters".[27] Responding to a petition filed by Human Rights Law Network, the Allahabad High Court ruled in November 2014 that the university's ban on female students from using the library was unconstitutional, and that accommodations must be made to facilitate student's use regardless of gender.[28][29] The Court gave the university time until 24 November 2014 to comply.[29]

Minority institution status

Aligarh Muslim University is considered to be institution of national importance, under the seventh schedule of the Constitution of India.[30][31] In 1967, a constitution bench of the Supreme Court had held that the university is not a minority educational institution protected under the Indian constitution; the verdict had been given in case to which the university was not a party.[32] In 1981, an amendment was made to the Aligarh Muslim University Act, following which in 2006 the Allahabad High Court struck down the provision of the act which accorded the university minority educational institution status.[33] In April 2016, the Indian government stated that it would not appeal against the decision.[34][35] In February 2019, the issue was referred by the Supreme Court of India to a constitution bench of seven judges.[33][32]

Campus


The Syedna Taher Saifuddin School.


Victoria Gate.


Sir Syed House.

The campus of Aligarh Muslim University is spread over 467.6 hectares in the city of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. The nearest railways station is the Aligarh Junction. It is a residential university with most of the staff and students residing on the campus. There are 19 halls of residence for students (13 for boys and 6 for girls) with 80 hostels.[36] The Halls are administered by a Provost and a number of teacher wardens who look after different hostels. Each Hall maintains a Dining Hall, a Common Room with facilities for indoor games, a Reading Room, Library, Sports Clubs and a Literary.[37] The Halls are named after people associated with the Aligarh Movement and the university.

Sir Syed Hall is the oldest Hall of the university. It houses many heritage buildings such as Strachey Hall, Mushtaq Manzil, Asman Manzil, Nizam Museum and Lytton Library, Victoria Gate, and Jama Masjid.[38]

The campus also maintains a cricket ground, Willingdon Pavilion, a synthetic hockey ground and a park, Gulastan-e-Syed.[39]

Other notable buildings in the campus includes the Maulana Azad Library, Moinuddin Ahmad Art Gallery, Kennedy Auditorium, Musa Dakri Museum, the Cultural Education Centre, Siddons Debating Union Hall and Sir Syed House.[40][41][42]

The main university gate is called Bab-e-Syed. In 2020 a new gate called Centenary Gate was built to celebrate the centenary year of the university.[43]

Organisation and administration

Governance

The university's formal head is the chancellor, though this is a titular figure, and is not involved with the day-to-day running of the university. The chancellor is elected by the members of the University Court. The university's chief executive is the vice-chancellor, appointed by the President of India on the recommendation of the court. The court is the supreme governing body of the university and exercises all the powers of the university, not otherwise provided for by the Aligarh Muslim University Act, and the statutes, ordinances and regulations of the university.[44]

In 2018, Mufaddal Saifuddin was elected chancellor and Ibne Saeed Khan, the former Nawab of Chhatari was elected the pro-Chancellor. Syed Zillur Rahman was elected honorary treasurer.[45] On 17 May 2017, Tariq Mansoor assumed office as the 39th vice-chancellor of the university.[46]

Faculties

Aligarh Muslim University's academic departments are divided into 13 faculties.[47]

• Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
• Faculty of Arts
• Faculty of Commerce
• Faculty of Engineering & Technology
• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of Life Sciences
• Faculty of Medicine
• Faculty of Management Studies & Research
• Faculty of Science
• Faculty of Social Sciences
• Faculty of Theology
• Faculty of International Studies
• Faculty of Unani Medicine

Colleges

Aligarh Muslim University maintains 7 colleges.[48]

• Women's College
• Zakir Hussain College of Engineering & Technology
• Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College
• Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College
• Dr. Ziauddin Ahmad Dental College
• Community College
• Academic Staff College

In addition the university also maintains 15 Centres, 3 Institutes, 10 schools including Minto Circle and the Ahmadi School for the Visually Challenged[49] The university's Faculty of Theology has two departments, one for the Shi'a school of thought and another for the Sunni school of thought.[50]

Aligarh Muslim University has established three centres at Malappuram (Kerala; the AMU Malappuram Campus), Murshidabad (West Bengal) and Kishanganj (Bihar), while a site has been identified for Aurangabad, (Maharashtra) centre.[51][52]

Academics

Courses

Aligarh Musilim University offers over 300 degrees and is organised around 12 faculties offering courses in a range of technical and vocational subjects, as well as interdisciplinary subjects. In 2011, it opened two new centres in West Bengal and Kerala for the study of MBAs and Integrated Law. The university has around 28,000 students and a faculty of almost 1,500 teaching staff. Students are drawn from all states in India and several different countries, with most of its international students coming from Africa, West Asia and Southeast Asia. Admission into the university is entrance based.[53]

Rankings

Internationally, AMU was ranked 801–1000 in the QS World University Rankings of 2021.[3] The same rankings ranked it 251–260 in Asia in 2020[55] and 138 among BRICS nations in 2019.[56] It was ranked 801–1000 in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings of 2021,[57] 201–250 in Asia[58] and 201–250 among Emerging Economies in 2020.[59] It was ranked 18 in India overall by the National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2020[60] and tenth among universities.[4]

Among government engineering colleges, the Zakir Hussain College of Engineering and Technology, the engineering college of the university, was ranked 32 by India Today in 2020[72] and 35 by the National Institutional Ranking Framework among engineering colleges in 2020.[63]

The Faculty of Law has ranked 11th in India by India Today in 2020.[73] The Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, the medical school of the university, has been ranked 19th by India Today in 2020.[66]

Libraries


Maulana Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University

Main article: Maulana Azad Library

The Maulana Azad Library is the primary library of the university, consisting of a central library and over 100 departmental and college libraries. It houses royal decrees of Mughal emperors such as Babur, Akbar and Shah Jahan.[74] The foundation of the library was laid in 1877 at the time of establishment of the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College by Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, then viceroy of India and it was named after him as Lytton Library. The present seven-storied building was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime Minister of independent India, in 1960 and the library was named after Abul Kalam Azad, popularly known as Maulana Azad, the first education minister of the independent India.[74][75]

The social science cyber library was inaugurated by Pranab Mukherjee, then President of India, on 27 December 2013.[76] In 2015, it was accredited with the International Organization for Standardization certification.[77]

AMU Journal


Logo of AMU Journal

AMU Journal is an independent student and alumni-run educational community and media organization,[78][79] it was started in the year 2016 by a group of AMU Students to raise campus issues and to provide News and information about Happening Events inside the university but later it became an educational community. On 17 October 2021 AMU Journal website was re-launched by Public relations officer, Proctor and Deputy Proctor, Aligarh Muslim University in Collaboration with Traning and Placement Office, AMU.[80] AMU Journal has over 200k user online including website and social Media, it has 100k monthly Viewers, 2900 subscribers on YouTube channel, 64k followers on Facebook, and 15k followers on Twitter.

Student life

Traditions

Sherwani is worn by male students of the university and is a traditional attire of the university. It is required to be worn during official programs[81] The university provides sherwanis at a subsidized price.[82] In early 2013, Zameer Uddin Shah, the then Vice Chancellor of the university, insisted that male students have to wear sherwani if they wanted to meet him.[83]

The AMU Tarana or anthem was composed by poet and university student Majaz.[84] It is an abridged version of Majaz's 1933 poem "Narz-e-Aligarh".[85] In 1955, Khan Ishtiaq Mohammad, a university student, composed the song and it was adopted as the official anthem of the university. The song is played during every function at the university along with the National Anthem.[86]

Students' Union

Main article: Aligarh Muslim University Students' Union

Aligarh Muslim University Students' Union (AMUSU) is the university-wide representative body for students at the university. It is an elected body.

Clubs and societies

The university has sports and cultural clubs functioning under its aegis. The Siddons Union Club is the debating club of the university.[87] It was established in the year 1884 and was named after Henry George Impey Siddons, the first principal of the MAO college.[88] It has hosted a politicians, writers, Nobel laureates, players, and journalists, including the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi, Abul Kalam Azad, Jawahar Lal Nehru.[89] Sporting clubs include the Cricket Club, Aligarh Muslim University[90] and the Muslim University Riding Club.[91]

The Raleigh Literary Society of the university hosts competitive events, plays, and performances,[92][93] including performances of Shakespeare's plays.[94] The society is named after Shakespeare critic, Sir Walter Raleigh who had served as the English professor at the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College from 1885 to 1887.[94]

The Law Society of the university was founded in 1894 as a non-profit student organization. The society publishes law reviews and organizes events, both academic and social, from annual fest to freshers social and farewell party for final year students.[95][96]

Cultural festivals

Every year the various clubs of the university organize their own cultural festivals. Two notable fests are the University Film Club's Filmsaaz and the Literary Club's AMU Literary Festival.

Old Boys' Association

Old Boys' Association is the alumni network of the university. It was established in the year 1898 and has been statutory recognition under AMU, Act 1920.[97]

Notable alumni and faculties

Main pages: List of Aligarh Muslim University alumni, Category:Aligarh Muslim University faculty, and List of Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors of Aligarh Muslim University

Following is a list of alumni from the university.[98]

• Alumni from the field of literature and cinema include – Hakim Ahmad Shuja, Saadat Hasan Manto, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Syed Mujtaba Ali,[99][100] Anubhav Sinha, NaseerUddin Shah, Hasrat Mohani and Ahmed Ali.
• Alumni from the field of politics include – Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan KBE, first Muslim Premier of the Punjab; Maulvi Syed Tufail Ahmad Manglori, Indian independence activist and historian;[101] Khwaja Nazimuddin, second governor-general and second prime minister of Pakistan; Ayub Khan, second president of Pakistan; Mohamed Amin Didi, first president of Maldives; Muhammad Ataul Goni Osmani, Commander-in-chief of Bangladesh Forces during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence; Muhammad Mansur Ali, third prime minister of Bangladesh; Zakir Husain, third president of India;[102] Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, an Indian independence activist; Mohammad Hamid Ansari, twelfth vice-president of India;[103] Arif Mohammad Khan, twenty-second governor of Kerala;[104] Anwara Taimur the first and yet only female chief minister of the Indian state of Assam;[105] Sheikh Abdullah and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, respectively third and sixth chief minister of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir;[106][107] and Sahib Singh Verma, fourth chief minister of the Indian union territory of Delhi.
• Alumni from the field of law include – Justice Baharul Islam, Justice Ram Prakash Sethi, Justice Saiyed Saghir Ahmad, Justice Syed Murtaza Fazl Ali (all judges of Supreme Court of India), Haji Farah Omar, N. R. Madhava Menon & Faizan Mustafa.
• Alumni from the field of sports include – Dhyan Chand, Lala Amarnath and Zafar Iqbal[108] and Iranian footballer Majid Bishkar
• Other notable alumni include – Indian historian Mohammad Habib,[109] French mathematician André Weil,[110][111] and Malik Ghulam Muhammad, the co-founder of Mahindra & Mahindra.
• Yasin Mazhar Siddiqi Muslim scholar and historian who served as director of the Institute of Islamic Studies
• Bijan Abdolkarimi Iranian philosopher
• Naseem uz Zafar Baquiri Medical Practitioner, Poet

In popular culture

• The 1963 film Mere Mehboob, directed by H. S. Rawail starring Rajendra Kumar, Sadhana, Ashok Kumar was shot on the campus.[112]
• The 1966 film Nai Umar Ki Nai Fasal was also filmed on the campus.[113]
• The 2015 film, Aligarh portrays the struggles faced by Ramchandra Siras, a homosexual professor from the university.[114]

Further reading

• Ahmad, Aijaz (2015). Aligarh Muslim University: An Educational and Political History, 1920–47. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-5085-3673-4.
• Graff, Violette (11 August 1990). "Aligarh's Long Quest for 'Minority' Status: AMU (Amendment) Act, 1981". Economic and Political Weekly. 25 (32): 1771–1781. JSTOR 4396615.
• Hasan, Mushirul; Qadri, Mohd. Afzal Husain (1 March 1985). "Nationalist and separatist trends in Aligarh, 1915–47". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 22 (1): 1–33. doi:10.1177/001946468502200101. S2CID 144414983.
• Minault, Gail; Lelyveld, David (1974). "The Campaign for a Muslim University, 1898–1920". Modern Asian Studies. 8 (2): 145–189. doi:10.1017/S0026749X00005448. JSTOR 311636.
• Noorani, A. G. (13 May 2016). "History of Aligarh Muslim University". The Frontline. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
• Ahmed, Fakhar Uddin Ali (2010). Arabic studies in educational institutions of Assam since 1947 (Thesis). India: Gauhati University. pp. 208–211.

References

1. https://api.amu.ac.in/storage//file/101 ... 550072.pdf
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5. "Aligarh" in Chambers's Encyclopædia. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 1, p. 267.
6. Muhammad Moj (2015). The Deoband Madrassah Movement: Countercultural Trends and Tendencies. Anthem Press. pp. 47–. ISBN 978-1-78308-388-6. Archived from the original on 4 February 2016. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
7. Cementing Ethics with Modernism: An Appraisal of Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan's Writings. Gyan Publishing House. 2010. ISBN 9788121210478. Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
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13. "Nizam gave funding for temples, Hindu educational institutions". siasat. 10 September 2010.
14. "Nothing is more disgraceful for a nation than to throw into the oblivion its historical heritage and the works of its ancestors". 12 April 2016.
15. Express Tribune. "S. Azeez Basha And Anr vs Union Of India on 20 October, 1967". Retrieved 1 January 2020.
16. Express Tribune (2 November 2013). "To sir with love: Aga Khan III – a tireless advocate for female education". Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
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18. "History of Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College, Faculty of Unani Medicine, AMU". Aligarh Muslim University. Archived from the original on 20 August 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
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20. "Zakir Husain College of Engineering and Technology". Aligarh Muslim University. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
21. Mushirul Hasan, "Nationalist and Separatist Trends in Aligarh, 1915–47," Indian Economic and Social History Review, (January 1985) 22#1 pp. 1–33
22. "Flashback: Aligarh University – a glorius legacy". Dawn. 6 August 2011.
23. Khan, Showkat Nayeem (22 May 2015). "The Other Sheikh Abdullah". The Greater Kashmir. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
24. "History of Women's College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh". Aligarh Muslim University. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
25. Alvi, Albeena (13 June 2019). "Mumtaz Jahan Haider: The First Principal Of Women's College Aligarh". Feminism in India. Archived from the original on 21 June 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
26. Eram Agha, Girls in AMU library will ‘attract’ boys: VC Archived 20 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine. The Times of India, 11 November 2014.
27. Irani slams AMU V-C over women in library remark Archived 20 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Hindustan Times, 11 November 2014.
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[admin]

Tonk State [Nawab Muhammad Amir Khan]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/21/21

The earliest record of Firuz Shah’s achievements was written by the pre-eminent historian of the age, Ziya’ al-Din Barani.13

[13. Authors whose works predate Firuz Shah’s reign provide descriptions of the topography and monuments of Delhi. Their accounts are useful in setting the stage for Firuz Shah’s reign, one which witnessed a proliferation of architectural monuments.

Most noted among these authors is the poet Amir Khusrau (b. 651/1253) whose Tughluk-nama, one of his many prose works which describes the glorious victories of Khalji and Tughluq rulers makes no reference to their architectural achievements. Amir Khusrau was patronized by ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji, Qutb al-Din Mubarak Shah and Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. See P. Hardy, "Amir Khusraw Dihlawi," Encyclopedia of Islam I (1960), pp. 444-445.

’Isami, a court poet under Muhammad bin Tughluq, was embittered over his family’s forced migration to Daulatabad so he retired to the court of ‘Ala’ al-Din Hasan Bahman Shah and wrote his Futuh al-Salatin in 750-751/1349-1350 under the patronage of the Bahman sultan. The Futuh, written in the manner of Firdausi’s Shah-nama, recounts the conquests of India since the Ghaznavids (English trans. Agha Mahdi Husain, Bombay 1967). In it, he provides one of the few early descriptions of Delhi. See A.S. Bazmee Ansari, "’Isami," Encyclopedia of Islam IV (1978), pp. 92-93.

Ibn Battuta served as a qadi to the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq between 1333-1343 A.D. In his Rihla, completed in 756/1357, he described the urban landscape of Delhi. See A. Miquel, "Ibn Battuta," Encyclopedia of Islam III (1971), pp. 735-736. Chapters on India translated by C. Defrémery and B.R. Sanguinetti, Voyage d'Ibn Batoutah, 4 vols (Paris, 1853-59); H. A. R. Gibb, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1958-62); and Mahdi Husain, TheRehla of Ibn Battuta (Baroda, 1953).

The poet Badr al-Din Chach wrote a panegyric description of Delhi and the palace of Khurrambad in the Qasa’id (portions translated by Elliot and Dowson).

Shihab al-Din ‘Abbas al-’Umari wrote about monuments of Delhi and Daulatabad without having visited the subcontinent. Based on traveler’s descriptions, he completed the Masalik al-absar fi mamalik al-amsar in Damascus (Trans. I.H. Siddiqi and Q.M. Ahmad, Fourteenth Century Account of India under Muhammad bin Tughluq, Aligarh 1971.]

Barani is known from four surviving works, Ta’rikh-i Firuz Shahi, Fatawa-yi Jahandari, Na’t-i Muhammadi, and Akhbar-i Barmakiyyan.14

[14. Biographical details about Barani’s life are provided by Hardy, Historians of Medieval India, pp. 20-39; Hardy, "Diya’ al-Din Barani," Encyclopedia of Islam I, pp. 1036-1037; and Habib, "Life and Thought of Ziauddin Barani," in Political Theory of the Delhi Sultanate, pp. 117-172.]

His family was well-connected with the Delhi court since the time his father had risen to prominence under ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji. Barani served Muhammad bin Tughluq for over seventeen years as nadim or court chronicler and continued to serve the court in that capacity under Firuz Shah. However at the beginning of Firuz Shah’s reign, Barani was implicated in a coup attempt and was banished from court.15

[15. Ibid. Details about his banishment are sketchy. Barani himself relates in his Na’t-i Muhammadi that he was confined to the Pahtez fortress for five months.]

He spent his remaining years in exile seeking to be restored to the favor of the sultan. During this time he wrote the Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shahi until his death in 759/1357.

The Ta’rikh-i Firuz Shahi recorded the history of the Delhi sultans from Balban (664-686/1266-1287) through the sixth year of Firuz Shah’s reign. Barani advocated strict adherence to the shari’a and judged the success or failure of the sultans he discussed accordingly. While 101 chapters were planned, Barani had only completed a portion of these at the time of his death. Those chapters which deal with Firuz Shah focus on the events surrounding his accession to the throne and his early reforms. Barani includes in two chapters a discussion of the sultan’s buildings and canals. His description of the madrasa at Hauz Khas is the only contemporary literary record of that institution. (His descriptions of the earlier Tughluq foundations at Jahanpanah and Tughluqabad are included in earlier chapters.) Other matters which he addresses are Firuz Shah’s military feats: the campaign to Bengal (Barani lived to witness only the first expedition) and the repelling of early Chaghatai marauders. He eulogizes the personal character of the sultan and remarks on his fondness for hunting. He also records the occasion of the sultan’s investiture by the Mamluk caliph.

Two editions of the Ta’rikh-i Firuz Shahi have been published. The Bibliotheca Indica edition, edited by Saiyid Ahmad Khan under supervision of Captain W. Nassau Lees and Maulavi Kabir al-Din, was published in 1862. This edition was a collation of two manuscripts in the possession of Sir H. Elliot, one of which bore a transcription colophon 1010/1610 and was borrowed from the Nawab of Tonk. The second edition was published by Elliot and Dowson, who translated parts of the Ta’rikh in the third volume of The History of India As Told By Its Own Historians. Their translation was largely based on the Bibliotheca Indica edition. Only two chapters of those on Firuz Shah’s reign are translated.

Barani’s other work which is relevant to the reign of Firuz Shah is the Fatawa-yi Jahandari, completed in 1358-1359 A.D. The Fatawa is written in the form of advice from Mahmud of Ghazni to his sons and the rulers of Delhi. The work is his own personal theory of kingship and is representative of the tradition of nasihat literature of the time.16

[16. Nasihat literature consisted of books of advice which were paradigms or mirrors for princes to emulate.]

Barani viewed history as the instrument to teach religious morality through examples of the past. Barani casts Firuz Shah as an ideal ruler. Barani’s interpretation of the sultan’s actions may have been influenced by his own personal misfortune and his desire to be restored to the favor of the sultan.

The Fatawa-yi Jahandari is known from the India Office Library Persian manuscript (Persian MS 1149). An English translation by Dr. Afsar Begum (Mrs. Afsar Umar Salim Khan) from a manuscript in the Commonwealth Library was published in Medieval India Quarterly and was reprinted in Muhammad Habib and Afsar Begum, The Political Theory of the Delhi Sultanate.

-- The Architecture of Firuz Shah Tughluq, Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University, by William Jeffrey McKibben, B.A., M.A., 1988

The city walls of Tughluqabad, Delhi; from El mundo en la mano, 1878|© Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images

IN THIS REVIEW: TARIKH-I FIROZ SHAHI, Translated by Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli 396pp. Primus Books. £46.95 (US $69.95), Ziauddin Barani

Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi by Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) is the most important history of India’s Delhi Sultanate, which was founded by Turkish invaders in the thirteenth century. It covers the high point of the Sultanate from the beginning of the reign of Balban in 1266 through to the sixth year of Firoz Shah Tughluq in 1357. If it did not exist, our knowledge of this important period in the establishment of Muslim power in South Asia would be much diminished.

That we have this history at all is the result of the will of one of the remarkable Muslims of nineteenth-century India, Syed Ahmed Khan. Later in the century, he fashioned the lineaments of Islamic modernist thought and founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, which was designed to enable his class to continue to have under the British the positions of power it held under the Mughals. Earlier in the century, he had become obsessed by the relics of the Sultanate that lay all around him in Delhi. These he recorded in one of his early publications, Asar as-Sanadid (1847/1853), which translates as “Traces of the Great”. It was Ahmed Khan who, with the help of Captain Nassau Lees and Maulvi Kabiruddin Ahmed, compiled the first printed edition of the Persian text of the Tarikh, using one complete manuscript and three incomplete manuscripts to finish what Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli tells us is the first Persian edited text. It was published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Calcutta) in 1862 and was one of the achievements which earned him his Fellowship of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Zilli’s translation is the first complete translation into English of Barani’s history. Several excerpts were translated in the nineteenth century, the largest and most used being that which appeared in the third volume of Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson’s History of India as Told by its own Historians. The value of this particular excerpt has been increasingly undermined by the blatant imperial purpose of the volumes as a whole. “Though”, Elliot tells us in his preface of 1849, “the intrinsic value of these works may be small . . . they will make our native subjects more sensible of the immense advantages accruing to them from our rule.” It is understandable why Zilli, who has taught Sultanate history for many years at Aligarh Muslim University, should wish to produce a complete English text…

-- Traces of the Great: A medieval history of the Delhi Sultanate, by Francis Robinson, the-tls.co.uk, June 30, 2017

Shams-i Siraj ‘Afif, author of the Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shahi, completed his work after the death of Firuz Shah.21

[21 For a discussion of ‘Afif s work and biographical details, see Hardy, Historians of Medieval India, pp. 40-55.]

The work was written after the capture of the city of Delhi by Timur’s army in 1398-1399. ‘Afif's relationship to the court is not known. He was not known to be a nadim like Barani and his patron is not known. ‘Afif devotes several chapters to the architectural endeavors of the sultan, most notably the foundations at Firuzabad and Hissar. He also provides a list of monuments where Firuz Shah undertook restoration and also discusses the transport of the Asokan columns to Delhi. Since ‘Afif witnessed the destruction of Delhi by Timur, his history is a nostalgic recollection of a past era. His account is not always firsthand and he frequently relies on the testimony of other authorities, such as his father, as well as his own memory. According to the author, the Ta’rikh is only part of a larger composition which records the history of the Delhi sultanate from the time of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq through the time of Timur’s capture. However, the known manuscripts of the work include only the reign of Firuz Shah. The name Ta’rikh-i Firuz Shahi has been ascribed to the work by modern historians on the basis of the surviving portions. Even these, however, are incomplete according to the author’s table of contents. ‘Afif refers to his work as the Manaqib-i Firuz Shahi.22

[The manaqib ("merit" or "virtue") is a literary genre which is usually reserved for biographies of saints and Muslim holymen. According to Hardy, the application of this genre to a biography of a sultan is unusual and he claims that ‘Afif "superimposes upon events a pattern required by the literary genre..." The same author contends that ‘Afif models the sultan "in conformity with an abstract ideal." See Hardy, Historians of Medieval India, p. 41.]

The Ta’rikh-i Firuz Shahi survives in several manuscripts, all imperfect copies. Two copies in India, one formerly in the possession of General Hamilton and another owned by Nawab Zia al-Din Loharu, were the basis for other copies owned by Sir H. Elliot, a certain Mr. Thomas, and two copies in the India Office Library (one by way of the Marquis of Hastings). The Bibliotheca Indica edition, edited by Maulavi Vilayat Husain, was published in 1891. Elliot and Dowson published an English translation of the Ta’rikh in their History. Translated abstracts of the work by Lieut. Henry Lewis first appeared in the Journal of the Archaeological Society of Delhi in 1849.

-- The Architecture of Firuz Shah Tughluq, Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University, by William Jeffrey McKibben, B.A., M.A., 1988

Little is known of Shams-i Siraj beyond what is gleaned from his own work....

The work has met with scarcely any notice, whilst every historian who writes of the period quotes and refers to Ziau-d din Barni. The reason of this may be... [due to] the fact of its having at a comparatively late period been rescued from some musty record room. The work, consisting of ninety chapters, contains an ample account of this Akbar of his time ... [it] gives us altogether a better view of the internal condition of India under a Muhammadan sovereign than is presented to us in any other work, except the A'yin-i Akbari...

Sir H. Elliot desired to print a translation of the whole work... A portion of the work had been translated for him by a munshi, but this has proved to be entirely useless. The work of translation has, consequently, fallen upon the editor, and he has endeavoured to carry out Sir H. Elliot's plan by making a close translation of the first three chapters, and by extracting from the rest of the work everything that seemed worthy of selection....

Besides this history of Firoz Shah, the author often refers to his Manakib-i Sultan Tughlik, and he mentions his intention of writing similar memoirs of the reign of Sultan Muhammad, the son of Firoz Shah. Nothing more appears to be known of these works. Copies of the Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi are rare in India, and Colonel Lees, who has selected the work for publication in the Bibliotheca Indica, has heard only of "one copy in General Hamilton's library, and of another at Dehli, in the possession of Nawab Ziau-d din Loharu, of which General Hamilton's is perhaps a transcript." The editor has had the use of four copies. One belonging to Sir H. Elliot, and another belonging to Mr. Thomas, are of quite recent production. They are evidently taken from the same original, most probably the Dehli copy above mentioned. The other two copies belong to the library of the India Office, one having been lately purchased at the sale of the Marquis of Hastings's books. These are older productions; they are well and carefully written, and although they contain many obvious errors, they will be of the greatest service in the preparation of a correct text. None of these MSS. are perfect. The two modern copies terminate in the middle of the ninth chapter of the last book. The Hastings copy wants several chapters at the end of the first and the beginning of the second book; but it extends to the eleventh chapter of the last book, and has the final leaf of the work. The other MS. ends in the middle of the fifteenth chapter of the last book, and some leaves are missing from the fourteenth.

-- XVI. Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, of Shams-i Siraj 'Afif, Excerpt from The History of India As Told By Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, edited from the posthumous papers of the Late Sir H.M. Elliot, K.C.B., East India Company's Bengal Civil Service, by Professor John Dowson, M.R.A.S., Staff college, Sandhurst, Vol. III, P. 269-364, 1871

Tonk State
टोंक रियासत/ ریاستِ ٹونک
Princely State of British India
1806–1949

Flag of Tonk

Coat of arms of Tonk

Tonk State in the Imperial Gazetteer of India
Capital: Tonk
Area: • 1931: 6,512 km2 (2,514 sq mi)
Population: • 1931: 317,360
Government
• Motto '"Nasr min Allah" (Victory in God)
• Established 1806
• Independence of India 1949
Succeeded by Republic of India
Today part of: Rajasthan (India)

Tonk was a Princely State of India at the time of the British Raj. The town of Tonk, which was the capital of the state, had a population of 273,201 in 1901. The town was surrounded by a wall and boasted a mud fort. It had a high school, the Walter hospital for women, under a matron, and a separate hospital for men. It has a bridge on river Banas.

Amir Khan was originally enlisted by the Holkar dynasty in 1806. Tonk and the surrounding regions were captured from Jaipur State and rewarded to Amir Khan for his services. In 1817 the British acknowledged Amir Khan as the ruler of Tonk on the condition that he disbanded his army. The army of Amir Khan consisted of 52 battalions of infantry, 15,000 Pashtun cavalry and 150 artillery. Amir Khan surrendered on the condition that the British enlist his men and buy his artillery. Rampura and Aligarh were presented as gift by the British to Amir Khan for his cooperation.[1] It was the only princely state of Rajasthan with a Muslim ruling dynasty.

Geography

The state was formed of several enclaves located in an area covered by the alluvium of the Bands, and from this, a few rocky hills composed of schists of the Aravalli Range protrude, together with scattered outliers of the Alwar quartzites. Nimbahera is for the most part covered by shales, limestone, and sandstone belonging to the Lower Vindhyan group, while the Central India districts lie in the Deccan trap area, and present all the features common to that formation.

Besides the usual small game, antelope or ravine deer, and nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) used to be common in the plains, and leopards, sambar deer (Cervus unicolor), and wild hog were found in many of the hills. Formerly an occasional tiger was met in the south-east of Aligarh, the north-east of Nimbahera, and parts of Pirawa and Sironj.

The total area of the princely state was 2553 sq. mi, with a total population in 1901 of 273,201. By treaty Tonk became a British protectorate in 1817. Following the Independence of India, Tonk acceded to the newly independent dominion of India on 7 April 1949. It was located in the region bordering present-day Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh states that are now the Tonk district.

History

The founder of the state was Nawab Muhammad Amir Khan (1769–1834), an adventurer and military leader of Pashtun descent. Amir Khan rose to be a military commander in the service of Yashwantrao Holkar of the Maratha Empire in 1798. In 1806, Khan received the state of Tonk from Yashwantrao Holkar.[2] In 1817, after the Third Anglo-Maratha War, Amir Khan submitted to the British British East India Company. As a result, he kept his territory of Tonk and received the title of Nawab.[3] While retaining internal autonomy and remaining outside British India, the state came under the supervision of the Rajputana Agency and consisted of six isolated districts. Three of these were under the Rajputana Agency, namely, Tonk, Aligarh (formerly Rampura) and Nimbahera. The other three, Chhabra, Pirawa and Sironj were in the Central India Agency. The Haraoti-Tonk Agency, with headquarters at Deoli, dealt with the states of Tonk and Bundi, as well as with the state of Shahpura.[4]

A former minister of Tonk state, Sahibzada Obeidullah Khan, was deputed on political duty to Peshawar during the Tirah campaign of 1897.[5]

In 1899–1900, the state suffered much distress due to drought. The princely state enjoyed an estimated revenue of £128,546 in 1883–84;[1] however, no tribute was payable to the government of British India. Grain, cotton, opium and hides were the chief products and exports of the state. Two of the outlying tracts of the state were served by two different railways.

Nawab Sir Muhammad Ibrahim Ali Khan GCIE (ruled 1867–1930) was one of few chiefs to attend both Lord Lytton's Durbar in 1877 and the Delhi Durbar of 1903 as ruler.[5]

In 1947, on the Partition of India whereby India and Pakistan gained independence, the Nawab of Tonk decided to join India. Subsequently, most of the area of the state of Tonk was integrated into Rajasthan state, while some of its eastern enclaves became part of Madhya Pradesh.

The foundation of the principality of Tonk led to the creation of a large Rajasthani Pathan community.

Rulers

The rulers of the state, the Salarzai Nawabs of Tonk, belonged to a Pashtun Tarkani tribe. They were entitled to a 17-gun salute by the British authorities. The last ruler before Indian independence, Nawab Muhammad Ismail Ali Khan, has no issue.

Nawabs

• Muhammad Amir Khan (1806–1834)
• Muhammad Wazir Khan (1834–1864)
• Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan (1864–1867)
• Nawab Muhammad Ibrahim Ali Khan (1867 – 23 June 1930)
• Nawab Muhammad Saadat Ali Khan (23 June 1930 – 31 May 1947)
• Nawab Muhammad Faruq Ali Khan (1947–1948)

Titular Nawabs

• Nawab Muhammad Ismail Ali Khan (1948–1974)
• Nawab Masoom Ali Khan (1974–1994)
• Nawab Aftab Ali Khan (1994–)

See also

• Lawa Thikana
• Pathans of Rajasthan
• Political integration of India
• List of Sunni Muslim dynasties

References

1. Hunter, Sir William Wilson (1887). The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Trübner & Company. tonk state .
2. Lethbridge, Sir Roper (27 May 2005). The Golden Book of India: A Genealogical and Biographical Dictionary of the Ruling Princes, Chiefs, Nobles, and Other Personages, Titled Or Decorated of the Indian Empire. Aakar Books. ISBN 9788187879541 – via Google Books.
3. Tonk State: Brief history Royal Ark. Retrieved 29 August 2021
4. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV (1907), The Indian Empire, Administrative, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Pp. xxx, 1 map, 552
5. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Tonk". Encyclopædia Britannica. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 10.

External links

• Media related to Tonk State at Wikimedia Commons

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Elliot and Dowson’s History of India
by Naveen Kanalu Ramamurthy
UCLA Society Sciences, southasia.ucla.edu
Accessed: 12/21/21
copyright 2021

The value of this particular excerpt has been increasingly undermined by the blatant imperial purpose of the volumes as a whole. “Though”, Elliot tells us in his preface of 1849, “the intrinsic value of these works may be small . . . they will make our native subjects more sensible of the immense advantages accruing to them from our rule.”

-- -- Traces of the Great: A medieval history of the Delhi Sultanate, by Francis Robinson, the-tls.co.uk, June 30, 2017

-- XV. Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, of Ziaud Din Barni [Ziauddin Barani], Excerpt from The History of India As Told By Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, edited from the posthumous papers of the Late Sir H.M. Elliot, K.C.B., East India Company's Bengal Civil Service, by Professor John Dowson, M.R.A.S., Staff college, Sandhurst, Vol. III, P. 93-269, 1871

-- XVI. Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, of Shams-i Siraj 'Afif, Excerpt from The History of India As Told By Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, edited from the posthumous papers of the Late Sir H.M. Elliot, K.C.B., East India Company's Bengal Civil Service, by Professor John Dowson, M.R.A.S., Staff college, Sandhurst, Vol. III, P. 269-364, 1871

-- XVII. Futuhat-i Firoz Shahi of Sultan Firoz Shah, Excerpt from The History of India As Told By Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, edited from the posthumous papers of the Late Sir H.M. Elliot, K.C.B., East India Company's Bengal Civil Service, by Professor John Dowson, M.R.A.S., Staff college, Sandhurst, Vol. III, P. 374-, 1871

-- Chapter 6: The Sultan of the Age, One Who is Supported by God, Firoz Shah al Sultan, Excerpt from "Tarikh-I Firoz Shahi, An English Translation" [Written by Zia ud Din Barani], by Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli, © 2015 by Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli

-- The Architecture of Firuz Shah Tughluq, Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University, by William Jeffrey McKibben, B.A., M.A., 1988

-- A Memoir on Kotla Firoz Shah, Delhi, Memoirs Of the Archaeological Survey of India, No. 52, by J.A. Page, A.R.I.B.A., Late Superintendent, Archaeological Survey of India, With a Translation of Sirat-i-Firozshahi by Mohammad Hamid Kuraishi, B.A., Superintendent, Archaeological Survey of India, 1937

Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson, The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan Period. Edited from the posthumous papers of the late Sir H. M. Elliot, K.C.B., East India Company’s Bengal Civil Service, by John Dowson, M.R.A.S. Volumes I-VIII, London: Trübner & Co., 1867–1877.

The History of India, as told by its own Historians. The Muhammadan Period is an eight-volume compendium of English translations of tarikhs or tawarikhs, (historical accounts or chronicles composed in Arabic and Persian during the rule of Islamicate empires in parts of present-day South Asia from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries) compiled by the mid-nineteenth century British colonial officer, Sir Henry Miers Elliot (1808–1853 CE). Elliot, a civil servant with the English East India Company, began his career as assistant to the magistrate and collector of Bareilly and was appointed Foreign secretary to the Government of India in 1847. Elliot compiled these translations, which were left in manuscript form due to his untimely death. On Elliot’s death, his papers were revised and published by John Dowson (1820–1881 CE), an English orientalist, professor at the University College, London and later at the Staff College, Sandhurst. Elliot produced several translations included in the compendium; a few were made by other English officers. However, most of the texts were rendered into English by “native” munshis or scribes and commissioned by Elliot. John Dowson states in his preface, “the majority of them seem to have been the work of munshís”. Ironically though, he does not mention even a single name. Given the hybrid nature of its production, we could argue that the authorship of this compendium, though initiated by an English officer and edited by an English orientalist, was in reality a project whose realization was possible only through “native” participation. Furthermore, as the English had limited access to sources in Indian languages, be they Persian, Arabic or Sanskrit as well as the regional languages, the compendium clearly reflects the collaborative nature of the enterprise.

Volume I of The History of India furnishes a geographical and historical background to the Muslim chronicles from the pre-Islamicate period in South Asian history. The remaining seven volumes of the collection fall into three distinct categories: a. pre-Mughal Persian chronicles and masnavis or “historical poems” (Volumes II-IV); b. Mughal Imperial chronicles (Volumes IV-VII); c. late eighteenth and early nineteenth century chronicles (Volume VIII). The introductory volume provides excerpts from the early geographical compositions by Arab savants such as Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973–1048 CE), Abu Abd Allah Muhammad al-Idrisi (1100–1165 CE), historical accounts from the early Islamicate kingdom in Sindh, and the geographical evidence for kingdoms, ethnic groups, cities, and towns as known and understood by the Arab literati. The three succeeding volumes (Volumes II-IV) include the historical accounts up to the Mughal conquest of North India. Volume II contains excerpts from Arabic sources from the period prior to 1260 CE. Most of the chroniclers included in this volume are from the Ghaznavide period. Ironically, it includes al-Biruni’s Kitab fi tahqiq ma li al-hind, popularly known as his “History of India”, despite his not being of “Indian” origin. Volume III is focused on the period ending in 1398 CE and contains texts primarily from the reign of the Firuzshahi Sultans, including Firuz Shah’s autobiographical writings known as the Futuhat-i firuzshahi or the “Victories of Firuz Shah.” It is interesting to note that the appendix contains translations from the historical masnavis of the Indo-Persian poet, Amir Khusrau Dihlavi (1253–1325 CE). Volume IV, which is supposed to include chronicles until 1450, also contains the autobiographical work of the first Mughal emperor, Zahir al-din Muhammad Babur (r. 1526–1530 CE), Tuzak-i babari or the “Memoires of Babur”. In Volume V, the works of Mughal imperial elite such as Abd al-Qadir Badauni are included. Volume VI is devoted to the historical chronicles composed during the reigns of the Mughal emperors, Jalal al-din Muhammad Akbar (r. 1556–1605) and Nur al-din Muhammad Jahangir (r. 1605–1627). For the first time, substantial portions of Akbar nama or the “Account of Akbar” by Abu al-Fazl (1551–1602) were made available in English translation. Volume VII contains the Persian chronicles from the reigns of the next two Mughal emperors, Shahab al-din Muhammad Shahjahan (r. 1628–1658) and Abu al-Muzaffar Muhi al-din Muhammad Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707). They include well-known works such as Abd al-Hamid Lahori’s Padshah nama or the “Account of the Padshah”, Bakhtawar Khan’s Mir’at al-‘alam or the “Mirror to the World”, and Muhammad Qasim’s ‘Alamgir nama or the “Account of the World-Seizer”. Volume VIII contains several miscellaneous Persian texts by literati from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It includes an early work of the founder of the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s (1817–1898) Jam-i jam and a text by Thomas William Beale, clerk at the Board of Revenue at Agra. The final volume also contains bibliographical, geographical, and general indices.

The History of India organizes each text in the following sequence: a brief introduction to the author and his works, the context of their production, circulation and patronage, and translations from select excerpts of the historical accounts. In its contents, The History of India continues to represent the trend in the translations by English administrators, scholars, and civil servants in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Most of them present translations of excerpts (this pattern, it may be noted, was also common to other European compilations such as the French morceaux choisis) rather than render stand-alone volumes of full translations, which only became prevalent in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The History of India is a representative example to understand the structure, the construction and the diffusion of “oriental” knowledge in mid-nineteenth century colonial rule in India. It is revealing of the differentiated relation between “natives” and English officials as “subjects” of knowledge production and in its use of religious categories to distinguish between various knowledge systems and textual material from the precolonial period. More prominently, the compilation is an instantiation of the epistemological foundations for the historical periodization of the precolonial past in the era of the consolidation of British dominance over large parts of the sub-continent. The central axis along which all these categories of knowledge-formation and their historical mapping were rendered possible is the alleged division of the history of precolonial India between the “Hindu period” and the “Mohammedan invasion”. “Hindu” past was deemed a-historical: it underwent little change in reality and had left no chronicles conceivable as belonging to “secular” time and geography; they were mythical at best. However, Mahommedan culture – as much as it was considered alien and remained so in British perceptions –, introduced the historical at least in the practice of chronicling and recording past events. However, it was supposed to have had little impact on Hindu society, which was essentially static in nature. In this radical disjuncture and rupture between a static past and a violence-ridden “intrusive” past, the chronicles presented in this compendium are signified as “Mahommedan”. However, some of the texts included by Elliot were authored by Arabs, who were not “natives” of India; others by “Hindus”. Further, Persian was, – unlike Arabic –, a lingua franca for textual production among the elite irrespective of such religious and ethnic distinctions. Nor are texts belonging to the literary traditions in regional Indian languages or Sanskrit under the period of Islamicate empires represented in the compendium. Thus, Elliot’s work erases the existence of a large corpus of texts considered “Hindu” and a-historical in nature and privileges the Arabo-Persian style chronicles to portray the domination of texts allegedly “Mahommedan” in “character” for almost a millennium. Also, it is worth noting that such enterprises as Elliot’s compilation introduced new perceptions about precolonial knowledge. For instance, al-Biruni’s “History of India”, which had little circulation in South Asia prior to British colonial rule, became a an ur-text to understand early Arab-Muslim attitudes on “Hindu” cosmological and anthropological Weltanschauung. Its impact has been so deep that much of contemporary scholarship continues to deploy these categories without recognizing the fact that the historical memory and knowledge of these texts are themselves embedded in modern European categories of thinking as transposed to non-European texts. Under the conditions of colonial rule, Elliot’s compendium generated a corpus, which effectively provided the grounds for the creation of canonical texts of the “historical” and the “Mohammedan” in South Asian past.

The underlying sub-text for the interpretative schema of Elliot’s compendium is that the historical was in essence alien to the “natives”. Instead, true historical consciousness was being co-constituted with and through the “British conquest” of India. It is noteworthy that the compendium, despite its avowed neutrality and strict demarcation in form through the category of the “Mohammedan” that it deploys, gives away in its contents, which do not fit this rigid schema. Further, little is indicated as to what constitutes the distinction between the “historical” and the “literary”, where does one end and the other begin in the consideration of the knowledge of the past as recollected in the past. All these difficulties adduce to the fact that such deployment is rendered possible by a colonial epistemological framework, which introduced a hierarchy in the status of different knowledge-systems and ruptured the “hybridity” internal to their composition and the radically different set of historical conditions of their possibility.

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History of the Indo-Greek Kingdom
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/22/21

-- Chapter IV: Demetrius and the Invasion of India, Excerpt from The Greeks in Bactria and India, by William Woodthorpe Tarn

-- Demetrius I of Macedon, by Wikipedia

-- Demetrius I of Bactria, by Wikipedia

The History of the Indo-Greek Kingdom covers a period from the 2nd century BCE [200-101 B.C.] to the beginning of the 1st century CE in northern and northwestern India. There were over 30 Indo-Greek kings, often in competition on different territories. Many of them are only known through their coins.

Many of the dates, territories, and relationships between Indo-Greek kings are tentative and essentially based on numismatic analysis (find places, overstrikes, monograms, metallurgy, styles), a few Classical writings, and Indian writings and epigraphic evidence. The following list of kings, dates and territories after the reign of Demetrius is derived from the latest and most extensive analysis on the subject, by Osmund Bopearachchi and R. C. Senior.

The invasion of northern India, and the establishment of what would be known as the "Indo-Greek kingdom", started around 200 BCE when Demetrius, son of the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I, led his troops across the Hindu Kush. Apollodotus, may have made advances in the south, while Menander (Reign: 165/155–130 BC), led later invasions further east.

The Periplus explains that coins of the Indo-Greek king Menander I were current in Barigaza.


Location of Barygaza in India

To the present day ancient drachmae are current in Barygaza, coming from this country, bearing inscriptions in Greek letters, and the devices of those who reigned after Alexander, Apollodorus [sic] and Menander.— Periplus, §47

-- Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, by Wikipedia

Following his conquests, Demetrius received the title ανικητος ("Anicetus", lit. invincible), a title never given to any king before.[1]


Indo-Greek Kingdoms in 100 BCE.


The founder of the Indo-Greek Kingdom Demetrius I "the Invincible" (205–171 BCE), wearing the scalp of an elephant, symbol of his conquests in India.

Written evidence of the initial Greek invasion survives in the Greek writings of Strabo and Justin, and in Sanskrit in the records of Patanjali, Kālidāsa, and in the Yuga Purana, among others. Coins and architectural evidence also attest to the extent of the initial Greek campaign.

Evidence of the initial invasion

Greco-Roman sources

The Greco-Bactrians went over the Hindu Kush and also started to re-occupy the area of Arachosia, where Greek populations had been living since before the acquisition of the territory by Chandragupta from Seleucus. Isidore of Charax describes Greek cities there, one of them called Demetrias, probably in honour of the conqueror Demetrius.[2]

According to Strabo, Greek advances temporarily went as far as the Shunga capital Pataliputra (today Patna) in eastern India:

"Of the eastern parts of India, then, there have become known to us all those parts which lie this side of the Hypanis, and also any parts beyond the Hypanis of which an account has been added by those who, after Alexander, advanced beyond the Hypanis, to the Ganges and Pataliputra."

— Strabo, 15-1-27[3]

The Hellenistic world view just before the Indo-Greek conquests. India appears fully formed, with the Ganges and Palibothra (Pataliputra) in the east. (19th-century reconstruction of the ancient world map of Eratosthenes (276–194 BCE).[4])

The 1st century BCE Greek historian Apollodorus, quoted by Strabo, affirms that the Bactrian Greeks, led by Demetrius I and Menander, conquered India and occupied a larger territory than the Greeks under Alexander the Great, going beyond the Hypanis towards the Himalayas:[5]

"The Greeks became masters of India and more tribes were subdued by them than by Alexander—by Menander in particular, for some were subdued by him personally and others by Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus the king of the Bactrians."

— Apollodorus, quoted in Strabo 11.11.1[6]

The Roman historian Justin also mentioned the Indo-Greek kingdom, describing a "Demetrius, King of the Indians" ("Regis Indorum"), and explaining that after vanquishing him Eucratides in turn "put India under his rule" ("Indiam in potestatem redegit")[7] (since the time of the embassies of Megasthenes in the 3rd century BCE "India" was understood as the entire subcontinent, and was mapped by geographers such as Eratosthenes). Justin also mentions Apollodotus and Menander as kings of the Indians.[8]

Greek and Indian sources tend to indicate that the Greeks campaigned as far as Pataliputra until they were forced to retreat. This advance probably took place under the reign of Menander, the most important Indo-Greek king (A.K. Narain and Keay 2000) and was likely only of a military advance of temporary nature, perhaps in alliance with native Indian states. The permanent Indo-Greek dominions extended only from the Kabul Valley to the eastern Punjab or slightly further east.


An Indo-Greek stone palette showing Poseidon with attendants. He wears a chiton tunic, a chlamys cape, and boots. 2nd–1st century BCE, Gandhara, Ancient Orient Museum.

To the south, the Greeks occupied the areas of the Sindh and Gujarat down to the region of Surat (Greek: Saraostus) near Mumbai (Bombay), including the strategic harbour of Barigaza (Bharuch),[9] as attested by several writers (Strabo 11; Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Chap. 41/47) and as evidenced by coins dating from the Indo-Greek ruler Apollodotus I:

"The Greeks... took possession, not only of Patalena, but also, on the rest of the coast, of what is called the kingdom of Saraostus and Sigerdis."

— Strabo 11.11.1[10]

The 1st century CE Periplus of the Erythraean Sea describes numerous Greek buildings and fortifications in Barigaza, although mistakenly attributing them to Alexander, and testifies to the circulation of Indo-Greek coinage in the region:

"The metropolis of this country is Minnagara, from which much cotton cloth is brought down to Barygaza. In these places there remain even to the present time signs of the expedition of Alexander, such as ancient shrines, walls of forts and great wells."

— Periplus, Chap. 41

"To the present day ancient drachmae are current in Barygaza, coming from this country, bearing inscriptions in Greek letters, and the devices of those who reigned after Alexander, Apollodorus (sic) and Menander."

— Periplus Chap. 47[11]

From ancient authors (Pliny, Arrian, Ptolemy and Strabo), a list of provinces, satrapies, or simple regional designations, and Greek cities from within the Indo-Greek Kingdom can be discerned (though others have been lost), ranging from the Indus basin to the upper valley of the Ganges.[12]

Indian sources

Various Indian records describe Yavana attacks on Mathura, Panchala, Saketa, and Pataliputra. The term Yavana is thought to be a transliteration of "Ionians" and is known to have designated Hellenistic Greeks (starting with the Edicts of Ashoka, where Ashoka writes about "the Yavana king Antiochus"), but may have sometimes referred to other foreigners as well, especially in later centuries.

Patanjali, a grammarian and commentator on Pāṇini around 150 BCE, describes in the Mahābhāsya,[13] the invasion in two examples using the imperfect tense of Sanskrit, denoting a recent event:

• "Arunad Yavanah Sāketam" ("The Yavanas (Greeks) besieged Saketa")
• "Arunad Yavano Madhyamikām" ("The Yavanas were besieged Madhyamika" (the "Middle country")).

The Anushasanaparava of the Mahabharata affirms that the country of Mathura, the heartland of India, was under the joint control of the Yavanas and the Kambojas.[14] The Vayupurana asserts that Mathura was ruled by seven Greek kings over a period of 82 years.[15]

Accounts of battles between the Greeks and the Shunga in Central India are also found in the Mālavikāgnimitram, a play by Kālidāsa which describes an encounter between Greek forces and Vasumitra, the grandson of Pushyamitra, during the latter's reign.[16]

Also the Brahmanical text of the Yuga Purana, which describes Indian historical events in the form of a prophecy,[17] relates the attack of the Indo-Greeks on the capital Pataliputra, a magnificent fortified city with 570 towers and 64 gates according to Megasthenes,[18] and describes the ultimate destruction of the city's walls:

"Then, after having approached Saketa together with the Panchalas and the Mathuras, the Yavanas, valiant in battle, will reach Kusumadhvaja ("The town of the flower-standard", Pataliputra). Then, once Puspapura (another name of Pataliputra) has been reached and its celebrated mud[-walls] cast down, all the realm will be in disorder."

— Yuga Purana, Paragraph 47–48, 2002 edition.

According to the Yuga Purana a situation of complete social disorder follows, in which the Yavanas rule and mingle with the people, and the position of the Brahmins and the Sudras is inverted:

"Sudras will also be utterers of bho (a form of address used towards an equal or inferior), and Brahmins will be utterers of arya (a form of address used towards a superior), and the elders, most fearful of dharma, will fearlessly exploit the people. And in the city the Yavanas, the princes, will make this people acquainted with them: but the Yavanas, infatuated by war, will not remain in Madhyadesa."

— Yuga Purana, Paragraph 55–56, 2002 edition.

Epigraphic remains

Several depictions of Greeks in Central India dated to the 2nd-1st century BCE are known, such as the Greek soldier in Bharhut, or a frieze in Sanchi which describes Greek-looking foreigners honouring the Sanchi stupa with gifts, prayers and music (image above). They wear the chlamys cape over short chiton tunics without trousers, and have high-laced sandals. They are beardless with short curly hair and headbands, and two men wear the conical pilos hat. They play various instruments, including two carnyxes, and one aulos double-flute.[19] This is near Vidisa, where an Indo-Greek monument, the Heliodorus pillar, is known.

A pillar discovered in Reh, in the Ganges valley 350 km south-east of Mathura mentions Menander:

"The great king of kings, the great king Menander, saviour, steadfast in the Law (dharma), victorious and unvanquished..."

— Reh inscription.[20]

Another inscription 17mk from Mathura, the Maghera inscription, contains the phrase "In the 116th year of the Greek kings...", suggesting Greek rule in the area until around 70 BCE, as the "Greek era" is thought to have started around 186 BCE.[21]

Archaeological remains

Urban remains

The city of Sirkap, today in northwestern Pakistan near Taxila, was built according to the "Hippodamian" grid-plan characteristic of Greek cities, and was a Hellenistic fortress of considerable proportions, with a 6,000 meter wall on the circumference, of a height of about 10 meters. The houses of the Indo-Greek level are "the best planned of all the six strata, and the rubble masonry of which its walls are built is also the most solid and compact".[22] It is thought that the city was built by Demetrius.

Artifacts


Main archaeological artifacts from the Indo-Greek strata at ancient Taxila. Source: John Marshall "Taxila, Archaeological excavations".

Several Hellenistic artifacts have been found, in particular coins of Indo-Greek kings, stone palettes representing Greek mythological scenes, and small statuettes. Some of them are purely Hellenistic, others indicate an evolution of the Greco-Bactrian styles found at Ai-Khanoum towards more indianized styles. For example, accessories such as Indian ankle bracelets can be found on some representations of Greek mythological figures such as Artemis.

The excavations of the Greek levels at Sirkap were however very limited and made in peripheral areas, out of respect for the more recent archeological strata (those of the Indo-Scythian and especially Indo-Parthian levels) and the remaining religious buildings, and due to the difficulty of excavating extensively to a depth of about 6 meters. The results, although interesting, are partial and cannot be considered as exhaustive.[23] Beyond this, no extensive archaeological excavation of an Indo-Greek city has ever essentially been done.

Quantities of Hellenistic artifacts and ceramics can also be found throughout Northern India.[24] Clay seals depicting Greek deities, and the depiction of an Indo-Greek king thought to be Demetrius were found at Benares.[25]

Stupas


Evolution of the Butkara stupa (Swat) during the Indo-Greek period.[26]


Stupa decorated with acanthus leaves, Level III, Sirkap, 1st century BCE. Diameter: 2.5 meters.[27]

When the Indo-Greeks settled in the area of Taxila, large Buddhist structures were already present, such as the stupa of Dharmarajika built by Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE. These structures were reinforced in the following centuries, by building rings of smaller stupas and constructions around the original ones. Numerous coins of the Indo-Greek king Zoilos II were found under the foundation of a 1st-century BCE rectangular chapel near the Dharmarajika stupa.[28]

Also, various Buddhist structures, such as the Butkara Stupa in the area of Swat were enlarged and decorated with Hellenistic architectural elements in the 2nd century BCE, especially during the rule of Menander.[29] Stupas were just round mounds when the Indo-Greeks settled in India, possibly with some top decorations, but soon they added various structural and decorative elements, such as reinforcement belts, niches, architectural decorations such as plinthes, toruses and cavettos, plaster painted with decorative scrolls. The niches were probably designed to place statues or friezes, an indication of early Buddhist descriptive art during the time of the Indo-Greeks.[30] Coins of Menander were found within these constructions dating them to around 150 BCE. By the end of Indo-Greek rule and during the Indo-Scythian period (1st century BCE), stupas were highly decorated with colonnaded flights of stairs and Hellenistic scrolls of Acanthus leaves.

Consolidation

The end of the first conquests

Back in Bactria a king named Eucratides managed to topple the Euthydemid dynasty around 170 BCE and some years later made himself ruler of the westernmost Indian territories as well, thus weakening the Indo-Greek kingdom and putting a stop to their expansion.


Coin of Menander. Greek legend, BASILEOS SOTEROS MENANDROY lit. "Saviour King Menander".

There may also have been setbacks in the east. The Hathigumpha inscription, written by the king of Kalinga, Kharavela, also describes the presence of the Yavana king whose name has been identified as "Demetrius" with his army in eastern India, apparently as far as the city of Rajagriha about 70 km southeast of Pataliputra and one of the foremost Buddhist sacred cities, but claims that this Demetrius ultimately retreated to Mathura on hearing of Kharavela's military successes further south:

"Then in the eighth year, (Kharavela) with a large army having sacked Goradhagiri causes pressure on Rajagaha (Rajagriha). On account of the loud report of this act of valour, the Yavana (Greek) King Dimi[ta] retreated to Mathura having extricated his demoralized army and transport."

— Hathigumpha inscription, in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XX.[31]

The interpretation has been challenged, and a presence this far east seems difficult to attest to Demetrius I, who issued no Indian coins whatsoever.

In any case, Eucratides seems to have occupied territory as far as the Indus, between c. 170 BCE and 150 BCE. His advances were ultimately checked by the Indo-Greek king Menander I who asserted himself in the Indian part of the empire, and began the last expansions eastwards.

Consolidation and rise of Menander I


Detail of Asia in the Ptolemy world map. The "Menander Mons" are in the center of the map, at the east of the Indian subcontinent, beyond the Ganges, right above the Malaysian Peninsula.

Menander is considered as probably the most successful Indo-Greek king, and the conqueror of the vastest territory.[32] The finds of his coins are the most numerous and the most widespread of all the Indo-Greek kings. In Antiquity, from at least the 1st century CE, the "Menander Mons",[citation needed] or "Mountains of Menander", came to designate the mountain chain at the extreme east of the Indian subcontinent, today's Naga hills and Arakan, as indicated in Ptolemy's world map of the 1st century CE geographer Ptolemy. Menander is also remembered in Buddhist literature, where he called Milinda, and is described in the Milinda Panha as a convert to Buddhism: he became an arhat whose relics were enshrined in a manner reminiscent of the Buddha. He also introduced numismatic reforms, such as issuing coins with portraits, which had hitherto been unknown in India. His most common coin reverse Athena Alkidemos ("Protector of the people") became a common type for his successors in the East.

Conquests east of the Punjab region were most likely made during the second half of the century by the king Menander I, but his eastern conquests were brief. The following passage may allude to the return of Menander to his home territories, perhaps due to a civil war with the competing king Zoilos I, or the nomad invasion of Bactria:

"The Yavanas, infatuated by war, will not remain in Madhadesa (the Middle Country). There will be mutual agreement among them to leave, due to a terrible and very dreadful war having broken out in their own realm."

— Yuga Purana, paragraphs 56–57, 2002 edition.

Following Menander's reign, about twenty Indo-Greek kings are known to have ruled in succession in the eastern parts of the Indo-Greek territory. Upon his death, Menander was succeeded by his infant son Thraso, but he was apparently murdered and further civil wars ensued. Judging from their coins, many of the later kings claimed descendance from either the Euthydemids or Menander, but the details remain uncertain due to the lack of sources.

The fall of Bactria

From 130 BCE, the Scythians and then the Yuezhi, following a long migration from the border of China, started to invade Bactria from the north. Around 125 BCE, the Greco-Bactrian king Heliocles, was probably killed during the invasion and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom proper ceased to exist. The Indo-Greek kingdom, now entirely isolated from the Hellenistic world,[33] did nevertheless maintain itself, if we can judge from the vast number of coins issued from the following kings, such as Lysias and Antialcidas.

During this time, the Indo-Greek territory seems to have extended from the Paropamisadae and Arachosia in the west, to eastern Punjab, perhaps even with further eastern strongholds such as Mathura (see below). It is uncertain when the coastal provinces along the mouth of the Indus and further east were lost, or how tightly they were ever integrated with the kingdom.

Later history

Throughout the 1st century BCE, the Indo-Greeks progressively lost ground to the Indians in the east, and the Scythians, the Yuezhi, and the Parthians in the West. About 20 Indo-Greek king are known during this period, down to the last known Indo-Greek king Strato II, who ruled in the Punjab region until around 10 CE.

Loss of Mathura and eastern territories (after 100 BCE)


Coin of the Yaudheyas.


Coin of Philoxenus, unarmed, making a blessing gesture with the right hand.

The Indo-Greeks may have ruled as far as the area of Mathura until sometime in the 1st century BCE: the Maghera inscription, from a village near Mathura, records the dedication of a well "in the one hundred and sixteenth year of the reign of the Yavanas", which could be as late as 70 BCE.[34] Soon however Indian kings recovered the area of Mathura and south-eastern Punjab, west of the Yamuna River, and started to mint their own coins. The Arjunayanas (area of Mathura) and Yaudheyas mention military victories on their coins ("Victory of the Arjunayanas", "Victory of the Yaudheyas"). During the 1st century BCE, the Trigartas, Audumbaras and finally the Kunindas (closest to Punjab) also started to mint their own coins, usually in a style highly reminiscent of Indo-Greek coinage.

The Western king Philoxenus briefly occupied most of the remaining Greek territory from the Paropamisadae to Western Punjab c. 100 BCE, after which the territories fragmented again. The following decades saw fierce internal fighting between several kings, such as Heliokles II, Strato I and Hermaeus, which contributed to the downfall in a manner perhaps reminiscent of how the Seleucid and Ptolemaic states were torn apart by dynastic wars at the same period.

The Yuezhi expansion (70 BCE–)

Main article: Yuezhi

Philoxenus was succeeded by Diomedes, probably his son or younger brother, in the west, but his reign was short and he was succeeded by Hermaeus, a king married to the princess Calliope who was likely a daughter of Philoxenus.[35] After a reign of at least one decade, Hermaeus was overthrown by nomad tribes, either the Yuezhi or Sakas [36] When Hermaeus is depicted on his coins riding a horse, he is equipped with the recurve bow and bow-case of the steppes.

In any case, these nomads became the new rulers of the Paropamisadae, and minted vast quantities of posthumous issues of Hermaeus up to around 40 CE, when they blend with the coinage of the Kushan king Kujula Kadphises. The first documented Yuezhi prince, Sapalbizes, ruled around 20 BCE, and minted in Greek and in the same style as the western Indo-Greek kings, probably depending on Greek mints and celators.

Scythian invasions (80 BCE – 50 CE)


Tetradrachm of Hippostratos, reigned c. 65–55 BCE.


Silver coin of the Indo-Scythian king Azes II (r. c. 35–12 BCE).

Main article: Indo-Scythians

Around 80 BCE, an Indo-Scythian king named Maues, possibly an ally of some of the Indo-Greeks kings, captured Taxila and ruled Gandhara for a few years. The king he dethroned was probably Archebius. After Maues' death, the Indo-Greeks were able to regain control of Taxila, but at this time the line between Greeks and Sakas may not have been that clear. Among the kings who emerged in Gandhara after Maues' death, Artemidoros who was seemingly a regular Indo-Greek king, presents himself as "son of Maues" on a bronze. This discovery caused a small sensation and has led scholars such as Senior [37] to assume that also Hermaeus may have been of partly Saka origin.

Another important king during this period was Amyntas, who issued the last Attic coins found in Bactria and may have attempted to reunite the Indo-Greek territories. It was however the king Apollodotus II, seemingly a descendant of Menander, who managed to regain Gandhara from remaining Greek strongholds in eastern Punjab. After the death of Apollodotus II the kingdom fragmented once more.

In the west, he was succeeded by Hippostratos who was initially a successful ruler, but he was the last western ruler: around 55–50 BCE he was defeated by the Indo-Scythian Azes I, who established his own Indo-Scythian dynasty.

Although the Indo-Scythians clearly ruled militarily and politically, they remained respectful of Greek and Indian cultures. Their coins were minted in Greek mints, continued using proper Greek and Kharoshthi legends, and incorporated depictions of Greek deities, particularly Zeus. The Mathura lion capital inscription attests that they adopted the Buddhist faith, as do the depictions of deities forming the vitarka mudra on their coins. Greek communities, far from being exterminated, probably persisted under Indo-Scythian rule. The Buner reliefs show Indo-Greeks and Indo-Scythians reveling in a Buddhist context.

The last eastern kingdom (50 BCE – 10 CE)

The Indo-Greeks continued to maintain themselves in the eastern Punjab for several decades, until the kingdom of the last Indo-Greek king Strato II was taken over by the Indo-Scythian ruler Rajuvula around 10 CE. The coins of these Indo-Greek rulers deteriorated constantly, both in terms of artistic quality (due to the long isolation) and in silver content. Still, the last Strato had the honour of ruling the last pocket of an independent Hellenistic state; when he disappeared, Cleopatra, usually seen as the last of the rulers who followed Alexander the Great, was already gone.

Indo-Parthian rule (10–60 CE)


Indo-Parthian king and attendants. Ancient Orient Museum.

Main article: Indo-Parthian Kingdom

The Parthians, represented by the Suren, a noble Parthian family of Arsacid descent, started to make inroads into the territories which had been occupied by the Indo-Scythians and the Yuezhi, until the demise of the last Indo-Scythian emperor Azes II around 12 BCE. The Parthians ended up controlling all of Bactria and extensive territories in Northern India, after fighting many local rulers such as the Kushan Empire ruler Kujula Kadphises, in the Gandhara region. Around 20, Gondophares, one of the Parthian conquerors, declared his independence from the Parthian empire and established the Indo-Parthian kingdom in the conquered territories, with his capital in ancient Taxila.

Kushan supremacy


A Yuezhi/ Kushan man in traditional costume with tunic and boots, 2nd century CE, Gandhara.

Main article: Kushan Empire

The Yuezhi expanded to the east during the 1st century CE, to found the Kushan Empire. The first Kushan emperor Kujula Kadphises ostensibly associated himself with Hermaeus on his coins, suggesting that he may have been one of his descendants by alliance, or at least wanted to claim his legacy. The Yuezhi (future Kushans) were in many ways the cultural and political heirs to the Indo-Greeks, as suggested by their adoption of the Greek culture (writing system, Greco-Buddhist art) and their claim to a lineage with the last western Indo-Greek king Hermaeus.

The last known mention of an Indo-Greek ruler is suggested by an inscription on a signet ring of the 1st century CE in the name of a king Theodamas, from the Bajaur area of Gandhara, in modern Pakistan. No coins of him are known, but the signet bears in kharoshthi script the inscription "Su Theodamasa", "Su" being explained as the Greek transliteration of the ubiquitous Kushan royal title "Shau" ("Shah", "King").

The Indo-Greek rulers

"Indo-Greek" kings are distinguished from "Bactrian" kings in that they issued dominantly bilingual coinage, meant for circulation outside the Hindu Kush. However, Demetrius I is usually included (though he issued no such coins) and some mainly Bactrian kings who also held Indian territories. The chronology is tentative, as are the territories. This overview largely gives the chronology of Senior (2004) while most of the territories are adapted from Bopearachchi (1991). The views of both authors, as well as other alternatives, are given under each king.

The Bactrian period (c. 200–130 BCE)

Territories of Arachosia, Paropamisadae, Gandhara?

Euthydemus I and Demetrius I (c. 200–175 BCE) Coins. Demetrius was the first Indo-Greek king to gain territories in India. It is possible that he made his first conquests as general for his father, a view supported by the Heliodorus inscription.


Demetrius I, founder of the Indo-Greek kingdom (r. c. 205–171 BCE).

Territories of Paropamisadae, Gandhara

• Pantaleon
• Agathocles Coins. These two Bactrian kings, likely father and son, ruled between c. 190–175 BCE.

Territories of Gandhara, western Punjab

• Apollodotus I (c. 180–160 BCE)
• Antimachus II (c. 174–165 BCE or 160–155 BCE). Coins R.C Senior (2004) has suggested that this king was possibly identical with Antimachus I, but an Antimachus, who was the co-regent (and presumably son) of Antimachus I is known from a preserved tax-receipt.

Territories of Gandhara, western and eastern Punjab

• Menander I (reigned c. 165/155 – 135/130 BCE), though with some interruption in the western territories. Legendary for the size of his kingdom, and his support of the Buddhist faith. Coins

Territories of Arachosia, Paropamisadae, Gandhara

• Eucratides managed to eradicate the Euthydemid dynasty and occupy territory as far as he Indus, between c. 160–145 BCE. Eucratides was then murdered by his son, thereafter Menander I seems to have regained all of the territory as far west as the Hindu-Kush.
• Zoilos I This king may have fought against Menander I around 150–140 BCE.
• (Demetrius III possibly c. 150 BCE). This ephemeral ruler was possibly identical with the Demetrius, king of the Indians, who fought with Eucratides.[38]

Civil wars and nomad invasions (c. 130 BCE – 50 CE)

Territories of Gandhara or western Punjab

A smaller kingdom seems to have emerged in the Kabul valley, between c. 130–115/110 BCE.

• Thrason Son of Menander, ruled very briefly c. 130 BCE.
• Nicias
• Theophilos Coin
• Philoxenus

Territories of Arachosia, Paropamisadae, Gandhara, western and eastern Punjab

• Lysias Coins and
• Antialcidas Coins were the most important successors of Menander. They ruled most of the Indo-Greek kingdom, though perhaps as co-rulers, c. 130–110 BCE.
• Philoxenus (c. 115–105 or 100–95 BCE) Coins. Philoxenus temporarily united the major kingdom with the smaller state in the Kabul valley.

Territories of Arachosia and the Paropamisadae

• Diomedes (c. 105–95 BCE) Coin
• Hermaeus (reigned c. 95–80 BCE).
• ( Yuezhi or Saka rulers)

Territories of Gandhara, western and eastern Punjab

A number of kings fought for hegemony during the period after Philoxenus' death to the advent of Maues.

• Agathokleia (c. 110–105 BCE), Probably widow of another king, she was presumably regent for her son Strato I. Coins
• Strato I (c. 110–85 BCE) Coin

The territory of Mathura and eastern Punjab may have been lost after Strato's death.

• Heliokles II (c. 95–80 BCE) Coins
• Archebios (c. 90–80 BCE) Coins
• Amyntas Nikator (c. 80–65 BCE) Coins

The following minor kings ruled parts of the kingdom:

• Polyxenos (c. 80 BCE - possibly in Gandhara)
• Peukolaos (c. 90 BCE)
• Demetrius III Aniketos (possibly c. 75 BCE)
• Epander (c. 95–90 BCE) Coins

Territories of the Paropamisadae and Gandhara During the 1st century BCE, the Indo-Greeks progressively lost ground against the invasion of the Indo-Scythians. After the invasion of (Maues), the following kings maintained themselves in the Paropamisadae or Gandhara:

• Menander II (c. 70–65 BCE) Coins
• Artemidoros (c. 75–65 BCE) Coins.
• Telephos (c. 65–60 BCE) Coins

Despite his Greek name, Artemidoros was the son of Maues and therefore formally a Scythian king, and the ethnicity of Telephus is unknown as well.


Tetradrachm of Hippostratus.

Territories of Gandhara, western and eastern Punjab

• Apollodotus II (c. 65–55 BCE) Coins

Apollodotus II temporarily united most of the Indo-Greek kingdom, but after his death it fragmented again.

Territories of Gandhara and western Punjab

• Hippostratos (c. 60–50 BCE)Coins, who was defeated by the Indo-Scythian King Azes I.
• (Azes I). Indo-Scythian king.

Last eastern kingdom

Territories of eastern Punjab

The last Indo-Greek kings ruled in eastern Punjab from around 55 BCE – 10 CE

• Dionysios
• Zoilos II
• Apollophanes
• Strato IICoin with Strato III, who was overthrown by
• (Rajuvula), Indo-Scythian king.

Indo-Greek princelets (Gandhara)

After the Indo-Scythian Kings became the rulers of northern India, remaining Greek communities were probably governed by lesser Greek rulers, without the right of coinage, into the 1st century CE, in the areas of the Paropamisadae and Gandhara:

• Theodamas (c. 1st century CE) Indo-Greek ruler of the Bajaur area, northern Gandhara.

The Indo-Greeks may have kept a significant military role towards the 2nd century CE as suggested by the inscriptions of the Satavahana kings.

References

1. The title "Anicetus" for Demetrius is visible on the pedigree coins minted by Agathocles.
2. In the 1st century BCE, the geographer Isidorus of Charax mentions Parthians ruling over Greek populations and cities in Arachosia: "Beyond is Arachosia. And the Parthians call this White India; there are the city of Biyt and the city of Pharsana and the city of Chorochoad and the city of Demetrias; then Alexandropolis, the metropolis of Arachosia; it is Greek, and by it flows the river Arachotus. As far as this place the land is under the rule of the Parthians." "Parthians stations", 1st century BCE. Mentioned in Bopearachchi, "Monnaies Greco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques", p52. Original text in paragraph 19 of Parthian stations.
3. The word for "advance" is "προελθοντες", meaning a military expedition. Strabo 15-1-27
4. Source
5. Strabo quoting Apollodorus on the extent of Greek conquests:
 "Apollodorus, for instance, author of the Parthian History, when he mentions the Greeks who occasioned the revolt of Bactriana from the Syrian kings, who were the successors of Seleucus Nicator, says, that when they became powerful they invaded India. He adds no discoveries to what was previously known, and even asserts, in contradiction to others, that the Bactrians had subjected to their dominion a larger portion of India than the Macedonians; for Eucratides (one of these kings) had a thousand cities subject to his authority." Strabo 15-1-3 Full text
 "The Greeks who caused Bactria to revolt grew so powerful on account of the fertility of the country that they became masters, not only of Ariana, but also of India, as Apollodorus of Artemita says: and more tribes were subdued by them than by Alexander—by Menander in particular (at least if he actually crossed the Hypanis towards the east and advanced as far as the Imaüs), for some were subdued by him personally and others by Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus the king of the Bactrians." (Strabo 11.11.1 Full text)
6. Strabo 11.11.1
7. Justin on Demetrius "King of the Indians": "Multa tamen Eucratides bella magna uirtute gessit, quibus adtritus cum obsidionem Demetrii, regis Indorum, pateretur, cum CCC militibus LX milia hostium adsiduis eruptionibus uicit. Quinto itaque mense liberatus Indiam in potestatem redegit." ("Eucratides led many wars with great courage, and, while weakened by them, was put under siege by Demetrius, king of the Indians. He made numerous sorties, and managed to vanquish 60,000 enemies with 300 soldiers, and thus liberated after four months, he put India under his rule") Justin XLI,6
8. "Indicae quoque res additae, gestae per Apollodotum et Menandrum, reges eorum": "Also included are the exploits in India by Apollodotus and Menander, their kings" Justin, quoted in E.Seldeslachts, p284
9. "Menander became the ruler of a kingdom extending along the coast of western India, including the whole of Saurashtra and the harbour Barukaccha. His territory also included Mathura, the Punjab, Gandhara and the Kabul Valley", Bussagli p101)
10. Strabo on the extent of the conquests of the Greco-Bactrians/Indo-Greeks: "They took possession, not only of Patalena, but also, on the rest of the coast, of what is called the kingdom of Saraostus and Sigerdis. In short, Apollodorus says that Bactriana is the ornament of Ariana as a whole; and, more than that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni." Strabo 11.11.1 (Strabo 11.11.1)
11. Periplus
12. Greek provinces in India according to Classical sources:
 Patalene - the whole Indus delta region, with an apparent capital in "Demetrias-in-Patalene;" presumably founded by Demetrius (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1, 55/ Strabo 11.11.1)
 Abiria - North of the Indus delta and apparently named for the Ahbira peoples, presumably in residence of the region. (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1, 55).
 Prasiane - North of Abiria and East of the main Indus channel. (Pliny, Natural history, VI 71)
 Surastrene - Southeast of Patalene, comprising the Kathiawar peninsula and parts of Gujarat to Bharuch (modern Saurashtra and Surat), with the city of "Theophila". (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1, 55/ Strabo 11.11.1/ Periplus, Chap.41–47).
 Sigerdis - a coastal region beyond Patalene and Surastrene, thought to correspond to Sindh. (Strabo 11.11.1)
 Souastene - subdivision of Gandhara, comprising the Swat Valley (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1, 42).
 Goryaea - smaller district located between the lower Swat river and the Kunar (Bajaur), with the city of "Nagara, also called Dionysopolis". (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1, 42).
 Peucelaitas - denotes the immediate district around Pushkalavati (Greek: Peucela). (Arrian, On India, IV 11)
 Kaspeiria - comprising the upper valleys of the Chenab, Ravi, and Jhelum (i.e., southern Kashmir). (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1, 42).
 Pandouorum - Region of the Punjab along the Hydaspes river, with the "city of Sagala, also called Euthydemia" and another city named "Bucephala" (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1), or "Bucephalus Alexandria" (Periplus, 47).
 Kulindrene - as related by Ptolemy, a region comprising the upper valleys of the Sutlej, Jumna, Beas, and Ganges. This report may be inaccurate, and the contents of the region somewhat smaller. (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1, 42).
13. "Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins in the Smithsonian institution", Bopearachchi, p16.
14. "tatha Yavana Kamboja Mathuram.abhitash cha ye./ ete ashava.yuddha.kushaladasinatyasi charminah."//5—(MBH 12/105/5, Kumbhakonam Ed)
15. "Asui dve ca varsani bhoktaro Yavana mahim/ Mathuram ca purim ramyam Yauna bhoksyanti sapta vai" Vayupurana 99.362 and 383, quoted by Morton Smith 1973: 370. Morton Smith thinks occupation lasted from 175 to 93 BCE.
16. "Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins in the Smithsonian institution", Bopearachchi, p16. Also: "Kalidasa recounts in his Mālavikāgnimitra (5.15.14–24) that Puspamitra appointed his grandson Vasumitra to guard his sacrificial horse, which wandered on the right bank of the Sindhu river and was seized by Yavana cavalrymen- the later being thereafter defeated by Vasumitra. The "Sindhu" referred to in this context may refer the river Indus: but such an extension of Shunga power seems unlikely, and it is more probable that it denotes one of two rivers in central India -either the Sindhu river which is a tributary of the Yamuna, or the Kali-Sindhu river which is a tributary of the Chambal." The Yuga Purana, Mitchener, 2002.
17. "For any scholar engaged in the study of the presence of the Indo-Greeks or Indo-Scythians before the Christian Era, the Yuga Purana is an important source material" Dilip Coomer Ghose, General Secretary, The Asiatic Society, Kolkata, 2002
18. "The greatest city in India is that which is called Palimbothra, in the dominions of the Prasians [...] Megasthenes informs us that this city stretched in the inhabited quarters to an extreme length on each side of eighty stadia, and that its breadth was fifteen stadia, and that a ditch encompassed it all round, which was six hundred feet in breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and that the wall was crowned with 570 towers and had four-and-sixty gates." Arr. Ind. 10. "Of Pataliputra and the Manners of the Indians.", quoting Megasthenes Text Archived 2008-12-10 at the Wayback Machine
19. Source: "A guide to Sanchi" John Marshall. These "Greek-looking foreigners" are also described in Susan Huntington, "The art of ancient India", p100.
20. "Original prakrit: "Maharajasa Rajarajasa/ Mahamtasa Tratarasa Dhammi/kasa Jayamtasa ca Apra/[jitasa] Minada[de?]rasa....", in R. C. Senior, 2004, p.xiv
21. R. C. Senior, 2006, p.xv
22. Marshall, "Sirkap Archeological Report", p 15–16
23. The excavations by John Marshall at Taxila are the only significant excavations ever done, but only a small and peripherical portion of the city of Sirkap has been excavated to the Greek level ("The chief area in which digging has been carried down to the Greek strata is a little to the West of the main street near the northern gateway (...) Had it been practicable, I should have preferred to choose an area nearer to the city's center, where more interesting structures may be expected than in the outlying quarters near the city wall" ("Taxila", p120). Overall, the Greek excavations only represented a small part of the excavations: "And let me say that seven-eighths of the digging in this area has been devoted to Saka-Parthian structures of the second stratum; one-eight only to the earlier Saka and Greek remains below" ("Taxila", p119)
24. Narain "The Indo-Greeks"
25. "An ancient reference to Menander's invasion" The Indian Historical Quarterly XXIX/1 Agrawala 1953, p180–182.
26. Reference: Domenico Faccenna, "Butkara I, Swat Pakistan, 1956–1962), Part I, IsMEO, ROME 1980.
27. Marshall, "Taxila", p.120
28. Chapel H, about 50 meters near the Dharmarajika stupa, in Marshall, "Excavations at Taxila", "The only minor antiquities of interest found in this building were twenty-five debased silver coins of the Greek king Zoilus II, which were brought to light beneath the foundations of the earliest chapel", p248
29. "From Butkara I we know that building activities never ceased. The stupa was enlarged in a second phase under Menander, and again when the coins of Azes II were in circulation." Harry Falk "Afghanistan, ancien carrefour entre l'Est et l'Ouest", p.347. "The diffusion, from the second century BCE, of Hellenistic influences in the architecture of Swat is also attested by the archaeological searches at the sanctuary of Butkara I, which saw its stupa "monumentalized" at that exact time by basal elements and decorative alcoves derived from Hellenistic architecture", in "De l'Indus a l'Oxus: archaeologie de l'Asie Centrale" 2003, Pierfrancesco Callieri, p212
30. "They were intended to hold a figured panel, relief-work, or something of the kind" Domenico Facenna, "Butkara I"
31. Full text of the Hathigumpta inscription Archived 2006-11-17 at the Wayback Machine
32. "Numismats and historians are unanimous in considering that Menander was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, and the most famous of the Indo-Greek kings. The coins to the name of Menander are incomparably more abundant than those of any other Indo-Greek king" Bopearachchi, "Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques", p76.
33. Jakobsson, Jens (2009). "Who Founded the Indo-Greek Era of 186/5 B.C.E.?". The Classical Quarterly. 59 (2): 505–510. doi:10.1017/S0009838809990140. ISSN 0009-8388. JSTOR 20616702.
34. The Sanskrit inscription reads "Yavanarajyasya sodasuttare varsasate 100 10 6". R.Salomon, "The Indo-Greek era of 186/5 B.C. in a Buddhist reliquary inscription", in "Afghanistan, ancien carrefour entre l'est et l'ouest", p373
35. Senior, 2004
36. Bopearachchi's and Senior's views, respectively. See for instance Bopearachchi, 1998, and Senior, 1998,
37. R. C. Senior, 2004 [1] and 1998. See also this source Archived 2007-10-15 at the Wayback Machine.
38. Jakobsson, J. Relations between the Indo-Greek kings after Menander I, part 1, Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society 191, 2007

Sources

• Bopearachchi, Osmund (1991). Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques, Catalogue Raisonné (in French). Bibliothèque Nationale de France. ISBN 2-7177-1825-7.
• Bopearachchi, Osmund (1998). SNG 9. New York: American Numismatic Society. ISBN 0-89722-273-3.
• Senior, R. C, New Indo Greek Coins, Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society 186
• Senior, R. C. and MacDonald, D, The decline of the Indo-Greeks, Monographs of the Hellenic Numismatic Society, Athens, 1998
• Senior, R. C., Indo-Greek–The Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian King Sequences in the Second and First Centuries BC, 2004, Supplement to Oriental Numismatic Society Newsletter, no. 179


Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kings, territories and chronology

The Indo-Greeks and Buddhism: chronological markers

MAURYA EMPIRE (315–180 BCE) Periods/Markers

ARTIFACTS:


Pillars of Ashoka (c. 250 BCE)

EPIGRAPHY:


Edicts of Ashoka (c. 250 BCE)

BUDDHA STATUES:

None

STUPAS: (Butkara stupa)[2]


Simple stupas

INDO-GREEK KINGDOM (180 BCE–20 CE) Periods/Markers

ARTIFACTS:


Buddhist coins of Menander I (c. 150 BCE)

EPIGRAPHY:

Milinda Panha


Chinese Buddhist accounts of Golden statues from Central Asia in 120 BCE

BUDDHA STATUES:




Greco-Buddhist statuary (Pre-Kushan)[1]

STUPAS: (Butkara stupa)[2]


Improved stupas with niches for statues or friezes.

INDO-SCYTHIAN KINGDOM (80 BCE–20 CE) Periods/Markers

ARTIFACTS:


Butkara stupa pillar (20 BCE)


Bimaran casket (30 BCE–60 CE)

Sirkap statuary (1–60 CE)

EPIGRAPHY:


Mathura lion capital (20 CE)

BUDDHA STATUES:




Greco-Buddhist statuary (Pre-Kushan)[1]

STUPAS: (Butkara stupa)[2]


Colonated stupas

INDO-PARTHIAN KINGDOM (20–60 CE) Periods/Markers

ARTIFACTS:


Bimaran casket (30 BCE–60 CE)

Sirkap statuary (1–60 CE)

EPIGRAPHY:

None

BUDDHA STATUES:




Greco-Buddhist statuary (Pre-Kushan)[1]

STUPAS: (Butkara stupa)[2]

None

KUSHAN EMPIRE (60–240 CE) Periods/Markers

ARTIFACTS:


Mahayana Buddhist triads

EPIGRAPHY:


Buddhist coinage of Kanishka, derived from free-standing Buddha statues (120 CE)

BUDDHA STATUES:


Kushan Buddhist friezes

STUPAS: (Butkara stupa)[2]


Stupas with narrative friezes

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Demetrius I of Bactria
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/22/21

For other rulers with the same name, see Demetrius I (disambiguation).

• Demetrius I of Macedon (337–283 BC), king of Macedon
• Demetrius I of Bactria, Greco-Bactrian king (reigned c. 200–180 BC)
• Demetrius I Soter (born 185 BC, reign 161–150 BC), ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire

Demetrius I Aniketos
King of Kings,[1] Basileus

Coin of Demetrius wearing an elephant skin headdress (in spirit of Alexander), on the reverse, Heracles is shown crowning himself and holding lion skin.
King of Bactria
Reign: c. 200 – c. 180 BCE[2]
Predecessor: Euthydemus I
Successor: Euthydemus II
Indo-Greek king
Reign: c. 200-180 BCE
Predecessor: Position Established
Successor: Pantaleon
Born: c. 222 BCE, Bactria
Died: c. 167 BCE, India
Spouse: unknown Daughter of Antiochus III(?)
Issue: Euthydemus II; Demetrius II?
Dynasty: Euthydemid
Father: Euthydemus I

Demetrius I (Greek: Δημήτριος Α΄), also called Damaytra was a Greco-Bactrian and later Indo-Greek king (Yona in Pali language, "Yavana" in Sanskrit) (reigned c. 200–167 BCE), who ruled areas from Bactria to ancient northwestern India. He was the son of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom's ruler Euthydemus I and succeeded him around 200 BCE, after which he conquered extensive areas in what is now southern Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan and India.[3]

He was never defeated in battle and was posthumously qualified as the Invincible (Aniketos) on the pedigree coins of his successor Agathocles.[4] Demetrius I may have been the initiator of the Yavana era, starting in 186–185 BCE, which was used for several centuries thereafter.

"Demetrius" was the name of at least two and probably three Greek kings of Bactria. The much debated Demetrius II was a possible relative, whereas Demetrius III (c. 100 BCE), is known only from numismatic evidence.

Encounter with Antiochus III


Demetrius, with Greek legend ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΥ ΑΝΙΚΗΤΟΥ "Demetrius Invincible" (Pedigree coin minted by Agathocles). British Museum.

The father of Demetrius, Euthydemus, was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BCE. Although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius[5] and had to retreat. He then successfully resisted a three-year siege in the fortified city of Bactra, before Antiochus finally decided to recognize the new ruler.

The final negotiations were made between Antiochus III and Demetrius. Antiochus III was reportedly highly impressed by the demeanour of the young prince, and offered him one of his daughters, Laodice, in marriage, around 206 BCE:

"And after several journeys of Teleas to and fro between the two, Euthydemus at last sent his son Demetrius to confirm the terms of the treaty. Antiochus received the young prince; and judging from his appearance, conversation, and the dignity of his manners that he was worthy of royal power, he first promised to give him one of his own daughters, and secondly conceded the royal title to his father." Polybius 11.34[6]

The term used for "young prince" is neaniskos (νεανίσκος), suggesting an age around 16, which in turn gives a birth date for Demetrius around 222 BCE.[citation needed]

Kuliab inscription

In an inscription found in the Kuliab area of Tadjikistan, in western Greco-Bactria, and dated to 200-195 BCE,[7] a Greek by the name of Heliodotos, dedicating a fire altar to Hestia, mentions Euthydemus as the greatest of all kings, and his son as τε παῖδα καλλίνικον ἐκπρεπῆ Δημήτριον "his son, the glorious, victorious and remarkable Demetrios":[8][7]

τόνδε σοι βωμὸν θυώδη, πρέσβα κυδίστη θεῶν
Ἑστία, Διὸς κ(α)τ᾽ ἄλσος καλλίδενδρον ἔκτισεν
καὶ κλυταῖς ἤσκησε λοιβαῖς ἐμπύροις Ἡλιόδοτος
ὄφρα τὸμ πάντων μέγιστον Εὐθύδημον βασιλέων
τοῦ τε παῖδα καλλίνικον ἐκπρεπῆ Δημήτριον
πρευμενὴς σώιζηις ἐκηδεῖ(ς) σὺν τύχαι θεόφρον[ι]

"Heliodotos dedicated this fragrant altar for Hestia, venerable goddess, illustrious amongst all, in the grove of Zeus, with beautiful trees; he made libations and sacrifices so that the greatest of all kings Euthydemos, as well as his son, the glorious, victorious and remarkable Demetrios, be preserved of all pains, with the help of Tyche with divine thoughts."[9][10]

— Kuliab inscription, 200–195 BCE

Invasion of India


BAKTRIA, Greco-Baktrian Kingdom. Demetrios I Aniketos. Circa 200–185 BCE. AR Tetradrachm (33mm, 17.00 g, 12h). Diademed and draped bust right, wearing elephant-skin headdress (evoking Alexander the Great), symbol of his conquests in India, which greatly expanded the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman realm/ Herakles standing facing, crowning himself, holding club and lion skin; monogram to inner left. Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΥ (BASILEOS DEMETRIOU) "Of King Demetrius" Bopearachchi 1F; cf. SNG ANS 190.

Demetrius started the invasion of northwestern India in 180 BCE, following the destruction of the Mauryan dynasty by the general Pushyamitra Shunga, who then founded the new Indian Shunga dynasty (185–78 BCE). Sri Lankan monks state that Brihadratha, the last Mauryan Emperor, married a daughter of Demetrius, Berenice.

Antiochus II was a forceful personality who in his lifetime largely succeeded to hold the sprawling Seleucid realm intact. However his fateful decision to repudiate his first wife Laodice and marry a Ptolemaic princess Berenice as part of a peace treaty led to a succession struggle after his death that would shake the empire's foundations and cause large territorial losses.

-- Antiochus II Theos, by Wikipedia

The Greeks might have invaded the Indus Valley to protect Greek expatriates in the Indian Subcontinent. Also, the Mauryans had had diplomatic alliances with the Greeks, and they may have been considered as allies by the Greco-Bactrians.[11] [12]

Demetrius may have first started to recover the province of Arachosia, an area south of the Hindu Kush already inhabited by many Greeks but ruled by the Mauryas since the annexation of the territory by Chandragupta from Seleucus. In his "Parthian stations", Isidorus of Charax mentions a colony named Demetrias, supposedly founded by Demetrius himself:

"Beyond is Arachosia. And the Parthians call this White India; there are the city of Biyt and the city of Pharsana and the city of Chorochoad and the city of Demetrias; then Alexandropolis, the metropolis of Arachosia; it is Greek, and by it flows the river Arachotus. As far as this place the land is under the rule of the Parthians." -- "Parthians stations", 1st century BC[13]

The Parthian Empire, also known as the Arsacid Empire, was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conquering the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, who was rebelling against the Seleucid Empire...

The earliest enemies of the Parthians were the Seleucids in the west and the Scythians in the north.

• Justin says that the rebellion occurred 'around the same time' as the Parni conquest of Parthia from the Seleucid realm, but his dating of this event is confused—he places it in 256 BC, but during the reign of Seleucus II (246-225 BC).
• Strabo further claims that Arsaces, the leader of the Parni, had been based in Bactria before the conquest. He says that Diodotus drove Arsaces out of Bactria and maintained hostilities against the Parni.
• Ammianus Marcellinus places the Parthian rebellion in the reign of a Seleucus (II?).
Appian states that the Parthian rebellion took place in 246 BC, during the Third Syrian War, in the wake of Ptolemy III's conquest of Seleucid Syria and Babylon.

-- Diodotus I, by Wikipedia

-- Parthian Empire, by Wikipedia

A Greek dedication inscribed on stone and discovered in Kuliab, a hundred kilometers northeast of Ai-Khanoum, also mentioned the victories of the prince Demetrius during the reign of his father:

"Heliodotos dedicated this fragrant altar (...) so that the greatest of all kings Euthydemus, as well as his son, the glorious, victorious and remarkable Demetrius, be preserved of all pains, with the help of the Fortune with divine thoughts"[14]

Silver tetradrachm of Demetrius I. British Museum.

The Greek campaigns may have gone as far as the capital Pataliputra in eastern India (today Patna):

"Those who came after Alexander went to the Ganges and Pataliputra" (Strabo, XV.698)

"The Greeks who caused Bactria to revolt [Diodotus I] grew so powerful on account of the fertility of the country that they became masters, not only of Ariana, but also of India, as Apollodorus of Artemita says: and more tribes were subdued by them than by Alexander — by Menander in particular (at least if he actually crossed the Hypanis towards the east and advanced as far as the Imaüs), for some were subdued by him personally and others by Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus the king of the Bactrians." (Strabo 11.11.1[15])

It is generally considered that Demetrius ruled in Taxila (where many of his coins were found in the archaeological site of Sirkap). The Indian records also describes Greek attacks on Saketa, Panchala, Mathura and Pataliputra (Gargi-Samhita, Yuga Purana chapter). However, the campaigns to Pataliputra are generally attested to the later king Menander I and Demetrius I probably only invaded areas in Pakistan. Other kings may have expanded the territory as well. By c. 175 BCE, the Indo-Greeks ruled parts of northwestern India, while the Shungas remained in the Gangetic, Central, and Eastern India.

The Hathigumpha inscription of the Kalinga king Kharavela mentions that fearing him, a Yavana (Greek) king or general retreated to Mathura with his demoralized army. The name of the Yavana king is not clear, but it contains three letters, and the middle letter can be read as ma or mi.[16] Some historians, such as R. D. Banerji and K.P. Jayaswal reconstructed the name of the Yavana king as "Dimita", and identified him with Demetrius. However, several other historians, such as Ramaprasad Chanda, Sailendra Nath Sen and P.L. Gupta disagree with this interpretation.[16][17][18]

Indian coinage in Gandhara (after 185 BCE)


Taxila single-die coin with Lakshmi and arched-hill symbol (185–160 BCE).

Main article: Post-Mauryan coinage of Gandhara

The year 185 BCE, with the invasion of the Greco-Bactrians into India, marks an evolution in the design of single-die cast coins in the coinage of Gandhara, as deities and realistic animals were introduced. At the same time coinage technology also evolved, as double-die coins (engraved on both sides, obverse and reverse) started to appear. The archaeological excavations of coins have shown that these coins, as well as the new double die coins, were contemporary with those of the Indo-Greeks.[19] According to Osmund Bopearachchi these coins, and particularly those depicting the goddess Lakshmi, were probably minted by Demetrius I following his invasion of Gandhara.[20]

Aftermath


Silver obol of Demetrius. Extremely small (12 millimeters in diameter), but beautifully crafted.

Demetrius I died of unknown reasons, and the date 180 BCE is merely a suggestion aimed to allow suitable regnal periods for subsequent kings, of which there were several. Even if some of them were co-regents, civil wars and temporary divisions of the empire are most likely.

The kings Pantaleon, Antimachus, Agathocles and possibly Euthydemus II ruled after Demetrius I, and theories about their origin include all of them being relatives of Demetrius I, or only Antimachus.

The History of the Indo-Greek Kingdom covers a period from the 2nd century BCE [200-101 B.C.] to the beginning of the 1st century CE ...

Many of the dates, territories, and relationships between Indo-Greek kings are tentative... The following list of kings, dates and territories after the reign of Demetrius is derived from the latest and most extensive analysis on the subject, by Osmund Bopearachchi and R. C. Senior.

The invasion of northern India, and the establishment of what would be known as the "Indo-Greek kingdom", started around 200 BCE when Demetrius, son of the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I, led his troops across the Hindu Kush.

-- History of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, by Wikipedia

Eventually, the kingdom of Bactria fell to the able newcomer Eucratides.

Demetrius II was a later king, possibly a son or nephew of his namesake, and he ruled in India only. Justin mentions him being defeated by the Bactrian king Eucratides, an event which took place at the end of the latter's reign, possibly around 150 BCE. Demetrius II left behind his generals Apollodotus and Menander, who in turn became kings of India and rulers of the Indo-Greek Kingdom following his death.

According to Ptolemy, a Demetriapolis was founded in Arachosia.

Demetrius is a legend as well as an enigma. He was mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer ("D, lord of Ind").

Demetrius and Buddhism


Greco-Buddhist representation of Gautama Buddha, Gandhara, 1st-2nd century CE.

Buddhism flourished under the Indo-Greek kings, and it has been suggested by W. W. Tarn that their invasion of India was intended to show their support for the Mauryan empire in reaction to the persecution by the Sungas against Buddhism. However, that persecution in turn is debatable, with contemporary historians such as Romila Thapar suggesting that some of the accounts might be the product of exaggeration from Buddhist missionaries. Thapar attributes purely economic motivations to the Indo-Greek invasion of Southern Asia.[21]

Coinage and connection with Buddhism


Demetrios I trident detail of Gorgon-trident coin.

The coins of Demetrius are of five types. One bilingual type with Greek and Kharoshthi legends exists; it is naturally associated with the Indian Demetrius II. A series with the king in diadem are likely to be early issues of Demetrius I.

There is also one series representing a Gorgon shield on the obverse and a trident on the reverse.

More interesting are the "elephant" coins: The first type shows Demetrius (I) with elephant-crown, a well-known symbol of India, which simply denotes his conquests in India, as Alexander the Great had also done on his coinage before.

Elephant with Nike


Coin of Demetrius I with elephant and Nike.

One type represents an elephant with Nike on the other side holding a wreath of victory. This sort of symbolism can be seen on the reverse of the coins of Antialcidas in which Nike (supported by Zeus) directly hands the victory wreath to the elephant on the same coin face.

Elephant with the caduceus


Coin of Demetrius I with elephant raising trunk and caduceus.


Caduceus symbol on a punch-marked coin of the Maurya Empire in India, in the 3rd-2nd century BCE.

The other "elephant" type of Demetrius I represents a rejoicing elephant, depicted on the front on the coin and surrounded by the royal bead-and-reel decoration, and therefore treated on the same level as a King. The elephant, one of the symbols of Buddhism and Gautama Buddha, possibly represents the victory of Buddhism brought about by Demetrius. Alternatively, though, the elephant has been described as a possible symbol of the Indian capital of Taxila (Tarn), or as a symbol of India as a whole.

The reverse of the coin depicts the caduceus, symbol of reconciliation between two fighting serpents, which is possibly a representation of peace between the Greeks and the Shungas, and likewise between Buddhism and Hinduism (the caduceus also appears as a symbol of the punch-marked coins of the Maurya Empire in India, in the 3rd-2nd century BCE).

Unambiguous Buddhist symbols are found on later Greek coins of Menander I or Menander II, but the conquests of Demetrius I did influence the Buddhist religion in India.

Greco-Buddhist art

There are several parallels between Demetrius and the first representations of the Greek Buddha in human form.

Also in another parallel, the characteristic protector deity of Demetrius (Herakles standing with his club over his arm, as seen on the reverse of his coins), was represented in the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara as the protector deity of the Buddha.

Chronology


Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kings, territories and chronology

See also

• Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
• Seleucid Empire
• Greco-Buddhism
• Indo-Scythians
• Indo-Parthian Kingdom
• Kushan Empire

References

Citations

1. A Comprehensive History Of Ancient India (3 Vol. Set). Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 2003-12-01. p. 97. ISBN 978-81-207-2503-4. Demetrius proceeded towards India and annexed the Kabul valley, Sindh and a part of Punjab. He came to be known as the “King of Kings”.
2. Phang, Sara; Iain, Spence; Kelly, Douglas; Londey, Londey (2016). Conflict in Ancient Greece and Rome: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia [3 volumes]: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 239. ISBN 978-1-61069-020-1.
3. Demetrius is said to have founded Taxila (archaeological excavations), and also Sagala in the Punjab, which he seemed to have called Euthydemia, after his father ("the city of Sagala, also called Euthydemia" (Ptolemy, Geographia, VII 1))
4. No undisputed coins of Demetrius I himself use this title, but it is employed on one of the pedigree coins issued by Agathocles, which bear on the reverse the classical profile of Demetrius crowned by the elephant scalp, with the legend DEMETRIOU ANIKETOU, and on the reverse Herakles crowning himself, with the legend "Of king Agathocles" (Boppearachchi, Pl 8). Coins of the supposed Demetrius III also use the title "Invincible", and therefore are attributed by some to the same Demetrius (Whitehead and al.)
5. Polybius 10.49, Battle of the Arius
6. Polybius 11.34 Siege of Bactra
7. Shane Wallace Greek Culture in Afghanistan and India: Old Evidence and New Discoveries p.206
8. Osmund Bopearachchi, Some Observations on the Chronology of the Early Kushans, p.48
9. Shane Wallace Greek Culture in Afghanistan and India: Old Evidence and New Discoveries p.211
10. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum: 54.1569
11.
 Description of the 302 BCE marital alliance in Strabo 15.2.1(9): "The Indians occupy [in part] some of the countries situated along the Indus, which formerly belonged to the Persians: Alexander deprived the Ariani of them, and established there settlements of his own. But Seleucus I Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants." The ambassador Megasthenes was also sent to the Mauryan court on this occasion.
 In the Edicts of Ashoka, king Ashoka claims to have sent Buddhist emissaries to the Hellenistic west around 250 BCE.
 When Antiochus III the Great, after having made peace with Euthydemus, went to India in 209 BCE, he is said to have renewed his friendship with the Indian king there and received presents from him: "He crossed the Caucasus (Hindu Kush) and descended into India; renewed his friendship with Sophagasenus the king of the Indians; received more elephants, until he had a hundred and fifty altogether; and having once more provisioned his troops, set out again personally with his army: leaving Androsthenes of Cyzicus the duty of taking home the treasure which this king had agreed to hand over to him."Polybius 11.39 Archived October 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
12. "Obviously, for the Greeks who survived in India and suffered from the oppression of the Shunga (for whom they were aliens and heretics), Demetrios must have appeared as a saviour" Mario Bussagli, p. 101
13. Mentioned in Bopearachchi, "Monnaies Greco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques", p52. Original text in paragraph 19 of Parthian stations
14. Heliodotos inscription, in "Afghanistan, ancien carrefour entre l'Est et Ouest", p133. ISBN 2-503-51681-5
15. Strabo 11.11.1 full text
16. Kusâna Coins and History, D.K. Printworld, 1994, p.184, note 5; reprint of a 1985 article
17. Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya (1974). Some Early Dynasties of South India. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 44–50. ISBN 978-81-208-2941-1.
18. Sailendra Nath Sen (1999). Ancient Indian History and Civilization. New Age International. pp. 176–177. ISBN 978-81-224-1198-0.
19. Ancient Indian Coinage, Rekha Jain, D.K.Printworld Ltd, p.114
20. Osmund Bopearachchi, 2016, Emergence of Viṣṇu and Śiva Images in India: Numismatic and Sculptural Evidence
21. Thapar, Romila (1960). Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas. Oxford University Press. p. 200.

Bibliography

• McEvilley, Thomas (2002). The Shape of Ancient Thought. Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. Allworth Press and the School of Visual Arts. ISBN 1-58115-203-5.
• Puri, B. N. (2000). Buddhism in Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass Pub. ISBN 81-208-0372-8.
• Tarn, W. W. (1951). The Greeks in Bactria and India. Cambridge University Press.

External links

• Coins of Demetrius
• More coins of Demetrius
• Catalogue of coins of Demetrius

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Demetrius I Soter
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/22/21

Demetrius I Soter

Drachma coin depicting Demetrius I
Basileus of the Seleucid Empire
King of Syria
Reign: November 162 – June 150 BC
Predecessor: Antiochus V Eupator
Successor: Alexander Balas
Born: 185 BC
Died: June 150 BC (aged 34 or 35)
Spouse: Laodice V
Issue: Demetrius II Nicator; Antiochus VII Sidetes; Antigonus
Dynasty: Seleucid
Father: Seleucus IV Philopator
Mother: Laodice IV

Demetrius I (Greek: Δημήτριος Α`, 185 – June 150 BC), surnamed Soter (Greek: Σωτήρ - "Savior"), reigned as king (basileus) of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire from November 162 – June 150 BC. Demetrius grew up in Rome as a hostage, but returned to Greek Syria and overthrew his young cousin Antiochus V Eupator and regent Lysias. Demetrius took control during a turbulent time of the Empire, and spent much of his time fighting off revolts and challenges to his power from threats such as Timarchus and Alexander Balas.

Biography

Early confinement and escape

Demetirus was born around 185 BC. He was sent to Rome as a hostage at a young age during the reign of his father Seleucus IV Philopator[1] and his mother Laodice IV.[2] Rome taking prominent Seleucid family members hostage was one of the terms of the Treaty of Apamea that had ended the Roman-Seleucid War. His father was murdered by his finance minister Heliodorus in 175 BC;[3][4] his uncle Antiochus IV Epiphanes killed Heliodorus and took the throne himself. While the throne should have gone to Demetrius, he was both too young and also still held as a hostage in Rome. Antiochus IV died around October-November 164 BC while on campaign in Babylonia and Persia. His 9-year-old son Antiochus V Eupator became king, although real power rested in the regent Antiochus IV had left in Antioch, Lysias. Demetrius was then 22 years old. He requested the Roman Senate to restore the Syrian throne to him, but was rejected, since the Romans preferred a weak Syria and would rather it be ruled by a boy rather than a man.[2] Two years later, Antiochus V was greatly weakened because Rome sent an emissary to sink his ships and hamstring his elephants using the terms of the Treaty of Apamea as cause. Demetrius again petitioned the Senate on the grounds that his captivity would do little to inspire Antiochus V to heed Rome, but the appeal was again unsuccessful, as Rome preferred the perceived weak child over him. With the help of the Greek historian Polybius, Demetrius escaped from confinement and made his way to the Seleucid capital Antioch. There he successfully gained the support of the local aristocracy and was welcomed back on the Syrian throne around November 162 BC.[5][6] He immediately executed Antiochus V and Lysias.

This phase of Demetrius's life is unusually well-chronicled, as Polybius was an active participant and advisor to Demetrius, and his book The Histories survived out of antiquity rather than being a lost book.

Reign as King


Coin 162-150 ac.

Demetrius I is recorded in Jewish history (and later Christian history, after the Books of Maccabees were included in some denomination's Biblical canons) for defeating and killing Judas Maccabaeus, the leader of the Maccabean Revolt. Demetrius is recorded as sending a new High Priest to Judea, Alcimus, shortly after his reign started. Alcimus was able to successfully bring back at least some Jews to following the government. Demetrius also dispatched an expedition under Bacchides which broke Maccabee influence over the Judean cities and killed Judas at the Battle of Elasa in 160 BC, restoring Seleucid control to the province for a number of years. Demetrius acquired his surname of Soter, or Savior, from the Babylonians, where he defeated the rebellious Median satrap Timarchus.[1] Timarchus, who had distinguished himself by defending Media against the emergent Parthians, seems to have treated Demetrius' accession as an excuse to declare himself an independent king and extend his realm into Babylonia. His forces were, however, not enough for the legal Seleucid king: Demetrius defeated and killed Timarchus in 160 BC, and dethroned Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia. The Seleucid empire was temporarily united again. Demetrius may have married his sister Laodice V, by whom he had three sons: Demetrius II Nicator, Antiochus VII Sidetes, and Antigonus.

Downfall and death

Demetrius' downfall may be attributed to Heracleides, a surviving brother of the defeated rebel Timarchus, who championed the cause of Alexander Balas, a boy who claimed to be a natural son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Heracleides convinced the Roman Senate to support the young pretender against Demetrius I. Balas's mercenary army landed and occupied Ptolemais, and started a reign proclaiming himself as king of the Seleucids in Seleucid year 160 (153–152 BC).[7] The Seleucids now had two kings locked in civil war.

While the Jews were a minor part of Demetrius I's empire, their story was unusually well preserved. Jonathan Apphus, the brother of Judas and the new leader of the Maccabees, was able to negotiate a deal with Demetrius I that would allow him to remove some of the Seleucid forces from Judea to use against Balas. However, Jonathan promptly broke his temporary truce with Demetrius after Alexander Balas offered an even better deal to them. Balas allied with Jonathan: he appointed him as High Priest of Judea and strategos, and Jonathan agreed to send Jewish troops to support Balas's cause. Jonathan, who was born of a priestly family but not from Zadok, the high priestly stock, took the title in Tishri, 152 BC.[8] When Demetrius heard of it, he wrote a letter granting more privileges to Jonathan (1 Macc. 10:25-45). Jonathan did not accept the offer, whether from trust in Balas, distrust in Demetrius, belief that Balas was likely to win the civil war, or a combination of all three.[7]

Balas defeated and killed Demetrius I in 150 BC, becoming the sole king of Syria.[1][9]

Legacy

In 1919 Constantine Cavafy published a poem about Demetrius's time as a hostage in Rome.[10]

See also

• Ancient Greece portal
• List of Syrian monarchs
• Timeline of Syrian history

Notes

1. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Demetrius s.v. Demetrius I". Encyclopædia Britannica. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 983.
2. Appian, Roman History: Syrian Wars 8.46
3. 1 Macc 1:10 (312 - [A.S.] 137 = 175 [B.C.])
4. Appian, Syrian Wars 9.45
5. Bar-Kochva, Bezalel (1989). Judas Maccabaeus: The Jewish Struggle Against the Seleucids. Cambridge University Press. p. 544. ISBN 0521323525.
6. Schürer, Emil (1896) [1890]. A History of the Jewish People in the Times of Jesus Christ. Translated by MacPherson, John. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 226. ISBN 1565630491. Retrieved October 8, 2021.
7. Schürer, Emil (1896) [1890]. A History of the Jewish People in the Times of Jesus Christ. Translated by MacPherson, John. Hendrickson Publishers. p. 241–242. ISBN 1565630491. Retrieved October 8, 2021.
8. 1 Macc 10:21 (312 - [A.S.] 160 = 152 [B.C.])
9. 1 Macc 10:57 (312 - [A.S.] 162 = 150 [B.C.])
10. Δημήτριου Σωτήρος, snhell.gr

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Part 1 of 4

Brahmi script
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/22/21

Brāhmī

Brahmi script on Ashoka Pillar in Sarnath (circa 250 BCE)
Script type: Abugida
Time period: At least by the 3rd century BCE[1] to 5th century CE
Direction: left-to-right
Languages: Sanskrit language, Pali, Prakrit, Kannada, Tamil, Saka, Tocharian
Related scripts
Parent systems : Proto-Sinaitic script?; Phoenician alphabet?; Aramaic alphabet?; Brahmi
Child systems: Numerous descendant writing systems
Sister systems: Kharoṣṭhī
ISO 15924
ISO 15924: Brah, 300, Brahmi
Unicode
Unicode alias: Brahmi
Unicode range: U+11000–U+1107F

The theorised Semitic origins of the Brahmi script are not universally agreed upon.[2]

This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Brahmi (/ˈbrɑːmi/; [x]; ISO: Brāhmī) is a writing system of ancient South Asia.[3] The Brahmi writing system, or script, appeared as a fully developed universal one in South Asia in the third century BCE,[4] and is a forerunner of all writing systems that have found use in South Asia with the exception of the Indus script of the third millennium BCE, the Kharosthi script, which originated in what today is northwestern Pakistan in the fourth or possibly fifth century BCE,[5] the Perso–Arabic scripts since the medieval period, and the Latin scripts of the modern period.[4] Its descendants, the Brahmic scripts, continue to be in use today not only in South Asia, but also Southeast Asia.[6][7][8]

Brahmi is an abugida which 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.[9] Sometime thereafter, the capability 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.

As for the minor monuments henceforth referred to as the "Buddhist Inscriptions", including the Minor Rock Edicts and Minor Pillar Edicts, a casual inspection of the inscriptional evidence and the scholarship on them might indicate that they were inscribed by Chandragupta's grandson Asoka, since the author of the First Minor Rock Edict is explicitly named "Devanampriya Asoka" in two copies of the text.

Unfortunately, we do not have rich, reliable historical sources for the Mauryas. We have only extremely tenuous information about them -- most of it about "Asoka" -- from very late Buddhist "histories", which are in large part fantasy-filled hagiographies having nothing to do with actual human events in the real world. Moreover, as Max Deeg has argued, not only did the inscriptions remain in public view for centuries, but their script and language remained legible to any literate person through the Kushan period (at least to ca. AD 250). This strongly suggests that the inscriptions influenced the legendary "histories" of Buddhism that began to develop at about that time....

[The name Devanampriya Asoka occurs only in the late Buddhist Inscriptions known as the Minor Rock Edicts, specifically the Maski Inscription and the recently discovered Nittur Inscription. According to Sircar (1975), the Gujarra Inscription should be included with them, but it is extremely problematic, and seems to be a crude forgery, as discussed below. The rubbing of the Maski Inscription provided by Hultzsch (1925: 174) is very poor. Hultzsch reads Asok[a]sa 'of Asoka' without comment or explanation of the bracketed "[a]", but in the rubbing the part that includes his Asok[a] is actually written very clearly [[x] [d]eva-na[m]piyasa Asokesa, with the name in an eastern dialect form.]...

But in any case, the positive identification of Asoka as the author of the Maski and Nittur "Minor Rock Edict" inscriptions, which are radically different from any of the highly distinctive Major Inscriptions, makes it absolutely certain that "Devanampriya Asoka" cannot after all be the author of the Major Inscriptions, which explicitly and repeatedly say they are by Devanampriya Priyadarsi 'His Majesty Priyadarsi'. Considering the fact that we have absolutely no reliable historical information on "Asoka", and the fact noted by Deeg that the Major Inscriptions stood in open view for centuries after their erection and must have influenced the later writers of the Buddhist "histories" in question, it is most likely that "Asoka" was not in fact a Mauryan ruler. We do not really know when or where he ruled, if he existed at all; we do not actually know that Dasaratha was the grandson of a Mauryan ruler named Asoka; and so on....

Who, then, really was Devanampriya Asoka? The evidence suggests at least two possibilities. One is that he was imagined by the Kushan period Normative Buddhists on the basis of their understanding of the monumental Major Inscriptions erected by the Mauryas -- evidently by Amitrochates ~ Bindusara. "Asoka" was then projected back to the glorious Mauryan period as an ideal for good Kushan rulers to follow... At any rate, the inscriptions of this Devanampriya Asoka, the apparent author of some of the Late Inscriptions, simply do not have anything in common with the Major Inscriptions of the Mauryas decreed by Devanampriya Priyadarsi....

According to the traditional analysis, the single most important putative "Asoka" inscription for the history of Buddhism is the unique "Third Minor Rock Edict" found at Bairat, now known as the Calcutta-Bairat Inscription, in which "the king of Magadha, Piyadasa" addresses the "Samgha" (community of Buddhist monks) directly, and gives the names of a number of Buddhist sutras, saying, "I desire, Sirs, that many groups of monks and (many) nuns may repeatedly listen to these expositions of the Dharma, and may reflect (on them)." The problems with the inscription are many. It begins with the otherwise unattested phrase "The Magadha King Piyadasa", not Devanampriya Priyadarsi (or a Prakrit version of that name). The omission of the title Devanampriya is nothing short of shocking. Moreover, it is the only inscription to even mention Magadha. It is also undated, unlike the genuine Major Inscriptions, all of which are dated. In the text, the authorial voice declares "reverence and faith in the Buddha, the Dharma, (and) the Samgha".

This is the only occasion in all of the Mauryan inscriptions where the Triratna 'Three Jewels', the "refuge" formula well known from later devotional Buddhism, is mentioned. Most astonishingly, throughout the text the author repeatedly addresses the Buddhist monks humbly as bhamte, translated by Hultzsch as "reverend sirs". The text also contains a higher percentage of words that are found solely within it (i.e., not also found in some other inscription) than does any other inscription. From beginning to end, the Calcutta-Bairat Inscription is simply incompatible with the undoubtedly genuine Major Inscriptions. It is also evidently incompatible with the other Buddhist inscriptions possibly attributable to a later ruler named Devanampriya Asoka.

However, because the inscription is also the only putative Asokan inscription that mentions Buddhist texts, and even names seven of them explicitly, scholars are loath to remove it from the corpus....

The Vinaya per se cannot be dated back to the time of the Buddha (as the text intends), nor to the time of Asoka; it cannot be dated even to the Saka-Kushan period. All fully attested Vinaya texts are actually dated, either explicitly or implicitly, to the Gupta period, specifically to the fifth century AD: "In most cases, we can place the vinayas we have securely in time: the Sarvastivada-vinaya that we know was translated into Chinese at the beginning of the fifth century (404-405 C.E.). So were the Vinayas of the Dharmaguptakas (408), the Mahisasakas (423-424), and the Mahasamghikas (416). The Mulasarvastivada-vinaya was translated into both Chinese and Tibetan still later, and the actual contents of the Pali Vinaya are only knowable from Buddhaghosa's fifth century commentaries."

As Schopen has shown in many magisterial works, the Vinayas are layered texts, so they undoubtedly contain material earlier than the fifth century, but even the earliest layers of the Vinaya texts cannot be earlier than Normative Buddhism, which is datable to the Saka-Kushan period. It thus would require rather more than the usual amount of credulity to project the ancestors of the cited texts back another half millennium or more to the time of the Buddha...

As for other well-known but evidently spurious "Asokan" inscriptions, note that the "Minor Pillar Inscription" at Lumbini not only mentions "Buddha" (as does, otherwise uniquely, the Calcutta-Bairat Inscription), it explicitly calls him Sakyamuni 'the Sage of the Scythians (Sakas)', who it says was born in Lumbini.

The use of the Sanskrit form of his epithet, Sakyamuni, rather than the Prakrit form, Sakamuni, is astounding and otherwise unattested until the late Gandhari documents; that fact alone rules out ascription to such an early period. But it is doubly astounding because this Sanskritism occurs in a text otherwise written completely in Mauryan Prakrit and Brahmi script. What is a Sanskrit form doing there? Sanskrit is not attested in any inscriptions or manuscripts until the Common Era or at most a few decades before it....

Perhaps most telling of all, the inscription is uniquely written in ordinary third person (not royal third person) and is in the past tense. That means the text is narrated by some unknown person and does not even pretend to have been proclaimed by its putative sponsor Devanampriya Priyadarsi, the king who authored the synoptic Major Inscriptions (nor of course by Devanampriya Asoka, who may have authored the synoptic Buddhist Inscriptions). It says that it records events that supposedly happened at some time in the past, but those events have been shown to be fictitious.

The inscription is strikingly unlike the unquestionably authentic Major Inscriptions in general, and based on its contents is much later in date than it evidently pretends to be. It is a spurious inscription....

Finally, the Delhi-Topra pillar includes a good version of the six synoptic Pillar Edicts, which are genuine Major Inscriptions, but it is followed by what is known as the "Seventh Pillar Edict". This is a section that occurs only on this particular monument -- not on any of the six other synoptic Pillar Edict monuments. It is "the longest of all the Asokan edicts. For the most part, it summarizes and restates the contents of the other pillar edicts, and to some extent those of the major rock edicts as well."

In fact, as Salomon suggests, it is a hodgepodge of the authentic inscriptions. It seems not to have been observed that such a melange could not have been compiled without someone going from stone to stone to collect passages from different inscriptions, and this presumably must have involved transmission in writing, unlike with the Major Rock Edict inscriptions, which were clearly dictated orally to scribes from each region of India, who then wrote down the texts in their own local dialects -- and in some cases, their own local script or language; knowledge of writing would seem to be required for that, but not actual written texts.

For the Delhi-Topra pillar addition, someone made copies of the texts and produced the unique "Seventh Pillar Edict".
bilingual Aramaic and Prakrit (both in Aramaic script) fragment from Kandahar known as Kandahar II or Kandahar III, which is written in an extremely odd fashion (Falk 2006: 246), has been identified as representing a portion of the "Seventh Pillar Edict" (Norman 2012: 43), but strong doubts remain about the reading of the text (Falk 2006: 246). It is also by no means exactly like the "Seventh Pillar Edict", not to speak of the peculiar presentation of text and translation. In fact, it looks like a student exercise. It is very similar to the content of the Taxila Inscription and the two Laghman Inscriptions, both of which are also highly problematic, q.v. Falk's (2006: 253) conclusion: "There is no clear evidence for an Asokan influence on this text [the Taxila Inscription]. Like the two Laghman 'edicts' this text as well could be of a rather profane nature, mentioning Asoka as king just in passing." However, Falk (2006: 241) also says of Kandahar II/III that "Asoka must have ordered to bring his words to the public unchanged regarding their sound and content. Presenting this text in two languages using one script for both is a remarkable thought, aimed at avoiding flaws in the translation." This is an unlikely speculation. Finally, the "Seventh Pillar Edict" shares some of the peculiarities of the other minor inscriptions from Afghanistan. (I.e., they are to be distinguished from the genuine fragments of a Greek translation of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Rock Edicts, found at Kandahar, q.v. Halkias 2014.) C. f. Ito (1996), a study of the Greek and Aramaic bilingual inscription from Kandahar. These texts all await detailed, serious study.]...

The "Seventh Pillar Edict" is palaeographically distinct from the text it has been appended to. It is obvious at first glance. The physical differences between the text of the "Seventh Pillar Edict", as compared even to the immediately preceding text of the Sixth Pillar Edict on the East Face, virtually leap out at one. The style of the script, the size and spacing of the letters, the poor control over consistency of style from one letter to the next, and the many hastily written, even scribbled, letters are all remarkable. These characteristics seem not to have been mentioned by the many scholars who have worked on the Mauryan inscriptions.

The text begins as an addition to the synoptic Sixth Pillar Edict, which occupies only part of the East Face "panel". After filling out the available space for text on the East Face, the new text incredibly continues around the pillar, that is, ignoring the four different "faces" already established by the earlier, genuine edicts. This circum-pillar format is unique among all the genuine Mauryan pillar inscriptions.

Another remarkable difference with respect to the genuine Major Inscriptions on pillars is that the latter are concerned almost exclusively with Devanampriya Priyadarsi's Dharma, but do not mention either the Sramanas ''Buddhists' or the Brahmanas 'Brahmanists' by name. This is strikingly unlike the Major Inscriptions on rocks, which mention them repeatedly in many of the edicts. In other words, though the Pillar Edicts are all dated later than the Rock Edicts, for some reason (perhaps their brevity), Devanampriya Priyadarsi does not mention the Sramanas or the Brahmanas in them. The "Seventh Pillar Edict" is thus unique in that it does mention the Buddhists (Sramanas) and Brahmanists (Brahmanas) by name, but the reoccurrence of the names in what claims to be the last of Devanampriya Priyadarsi's edicts suggests that the text is not just spurious, it is probably a deliberate forgery. This conclusion is further supported by the above-noted unique passage in the inscription in which the Buddhists are referred to as the "Samgha". This term occurs in the later Buddhist Inscriptions too; but it is problematic because it is otherwise unknown before well into the Saka-Kushan period.

The one really significant thing the text does is to add the claim that Devanampriya Priyadarsi supported not only the Buddhists and the Brahmanists but also the Ajivikas and Jains. However, all of the Jain holy texts are uncontestedly very late (long after the Mauryan period). The very mention of the sect in the same breath as the others is alone sufficient to cast severe doubt on the text's authenticity.

The "Seventh Pillar Edict" claims that it was inscribed when Devanampriya Priyadarsi had been enthroned for twenty-seven years; that is, only one year after the preceding text (the sixth of the synoptic Pillar Edicts), which says it was inscribed when Devanampriya Priyadarsi had been enthroned for twenty-six years. The "Seventh Pillar Edict" text consists of passages taken from many of the Major Inscriptions, both Rock and Pillar Edicts, in which the points mentioned are typically dated to one or another year after the ruler's coronation, but in the "Seventh Pillar Edict" the events are effectively dated to the same year. Most puzzling of all, why would the king add such an evidently important edict to only a single one of the otherwise completely synoptic pillar inscriptions?

Perhaps even more damning is the fact that in the text itself the very same passages are often repeated verbatim, sometimes (as near the beginning) immediately after they have just been stated, like mechanical dittoisms. Repetition is a known feature of Indian literary texts, but the way it occurs in the "Seventh Pillar Edict" is not attested in the authentic Major Inscriptions. Moreover, as Olivelle has noted, the text repeats the standard opening formula or "introductory refrain" many times; that is, "King Priyadarsin, Beloved of the Gods, says" is repeated verbatim nine times, with an additional shorter tenth repetition. "In all of the other edicts this refrain occurs only once and at the beginning. Such repetitions of the refrain which state that these are the words of the king are found in Persian inscriptions. However, this is quite unusual for Asoka."...

In short, based on its arrangement, palaeography, style, and contents, the "Seventh Pillar Edict" cannot be accepted as a genuine inscription of Devanampriya Priyadarsi. The text was added to the pillar much later than it claims and is an obvious forgery from a later historical period. These factors require that the "Seventh Pillar Edict" be removed from the corpus of authentic inscriptions of Devanampriya Priyadarsi.

The Calcutta-Bairat Inscription, the Lumbini Inscription, and the "Seventh Pillar Edict" of the Delhi-Topra pillar thus do not belong with either the authentic Major Inscriptions of Devanampriya Priyadarsi or the possibly authentic inscriptions of Devanampriya Asoka.

-- Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith

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.[10][11][12][13] Brahmi was deciphered by James Prinsep, the secretary of the Society, in a series of scholarly articles in the Society's journal in the 1830s.[14][15][16][17] His breakthroughs built on the epigraphic work of Christian Lassen, Edwin Norris, H. H. Wilson and Alexander Cunningham, among others.[18][19][20]

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, while others favor the idea of an indigenous origin or connection to the much older and as yet undeciphered Indus script of the Indus Valley Civilization.[2][21] Brahmi was at one time referred to in English as the "pin-man" script,[22] that is "stick figure" script. It was known by a variety of other names, including "lath", "Laṭ", "Southern Aśokan", "Indian Pali" or "Mauryan" (Salomon 1998, p. 17), until 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".[23] The Gupta script of the fifth century is sometimes called "Late Brahmi". The Brahmi script diversified into numerous local variants classified together as the Brahmic 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.[24][full citation needed] One survey found 198 scripts that ultimately derive from it.[25]

Among the inscriptions of Ashoka c. 3rd-century BCE written in the Brahmi script a few numerals were found, which have come to be called the Brahmi numerals.[26] The numerals are additive and multiplicative and, therefore, not place value;[26] it is not known if their underlying system of numeration has a connection to the Brahmi script.[???!!!][26] But in the second half of the first millennium CE, some inscriptions in India and Southeast Asia written in scripts derived from 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.[27] 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.[!!!][28][29][30]

Texts


A northern example of Brahmi epigraphy: ancient terracotta sculpture from Sugh "Child learning Brahmi", showing the first letters of the Brahmi alphabet, 2nd century BCE.[31]

The Brahmi script is mentioned in the ancient Indian texts of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, as well as their Chinese translations.[32][33] For example, the Lipisala samdarshana parivarta lists 64 lipi (scripts), with the Brahmi script starting the list. The Lalitavistara Sūtra states that young Siddhartha, the future Gautama Buddha (~500 BCE), mastered philology, Brahmi and other scripts from the Brahmin Lipikāra and Deva Vidyāiṃha at a school.[34][32]

A list of eighteen ancient scripts is found in the texts of Jainism, such as the Pannavana Sutra (2nd century BCE) and the Samavayanga Sutra (3rd century BCE).[35][36] These Jaina script lists include Brahmi at number 1 and Kharoṣṭhi at number 4 but also Javanaliya (probably Greek) [!!!] and others not found in the Buddhist lists.[36]

Origins

Main article: Early Indian epigraphy

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,[6] while Falk provided an overview in 1993.[37]

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".[38] Similar ideas have tried to connect 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.[38]


A later (mistaken) theory of a pictographic-acrophonic origin of the Brahmi script, on the model of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script, by Alexander Cunningham in 1877.

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).[39][7] Bühler's ideas have been particularly influential, though even by 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.[40]

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)[41] noted that most proponents of 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.[42] 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 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.[40] 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,[43] but Bühler noted that by 1891, Cunningham considered the origins of the script uncertain.



Heliodorus pillar in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Installed about 113 BCE and now named after Heliodorus, who was an ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas from Taxila, and was sent to the Indian ruler Bhagabhadra. The pillar's Brahmi-script inscription states that Heliodorus is a Bhagvatena (devotee) of Vāsudeva. A couplet in it closely paraphrases a Sanskrit verse from the Mahabharata.[44][45]

A far more promising approach to the problem, indeed a short cut, seemed to be heralded in a letter to Jones from Lieutenant Francis Wilford, a surveyor and an enthusiastic student of all things oriental, who was based at Benares. Jones had been sent copies of inscriptions found at Ellora and written in Ashoka Brahmi, the still undeciphered pin-men. He had probably sent them to Wilford because Benares, the holy city of the Hindus, was the most likely place to find a Brahmin who might be able to read them. In 1793 Wilford announced that he had found just such a man:

I have the honour to return to you the facsimile of several inscriptions with an explanation of them. I despaired at first of ever being able to decipher them... However, after many fruitless attempts on our part, we were so fortunate as to find at last an ancient sage, who gave us the key, and produced a book in Sanskrit, containing a great many ancient alphabets formerly in use in different parts of India. This was really a fortunate discovery, which hereafter may be of great service to us.

According to the ancient sage, most of Wilford's inscriptions related to the wanderings of the five heroic Pandava brothers from the Mahabharata. At the unspecified time in question they were under an obligation not to converse with the rest of mankind; so their friends devised a method of communicating with them by "writing short and obscure sentences on rocks and stones in the wilderness and in characters previously agreed upon betwixt them." The sage happened to have the key to these characters in his code book; obligingly he transcribed them into Devanagari Sanskrit and then translated them.

To be fair to Wilford, he was a bit suspicious about this ingenious explanation of how the inscriptions got there. But he had no doubts that the deciphering and translation were genuine. "Our having been able to decipher them is a great point in my opinion, as it may hereafter lead to further discoveries, that may ultimately crown our labours with success." Above all, he had now located the code book, "a most fortunate circumstance."

Poor Wilford was the laughing stock of the Benares Brahmins for a whole decade. They had already fobbed him off with Sanskrit texts, later proved spurious, on the source of the Nile and the origin of Mecca. After the code book there was a geographical treatise on The Sacred Isles of the West, which included early Hindu reference to the British Isles. The Brahmins, to whom Sanskrit had so long remained a sacred prerogative, were getting their own back. One wonders how much Wilford paid his "ancient sage."

Jones was already a little suspicious of Wilford's sources, but on the code book, which was as much a fabrication as the translations supposedly based on it, he reserved judgment until he might see it. He never did. In fact it was never heard of again. But in spite of these disappointments Jones continued to believe that in time this oldest script would be deciphered. He had been sent a copy of the writings on the Delhi pillar and told a correspondent that they "drive me to despair; you are right, I doubt not, in thinking them foreign; I believe them to be Ethiopian and to have been imported a thousand years before Christ." It was not one of his more inspired guesses and at the time of his death the mystery of the inscriptions and of the monoliths was as dark as ever.

-- India Discovered, by John Keay

Most scholars believe that Brahmi was likely derived from or influenced by a Semitic script model, with Aramaic being a leading candidate.[46] However, the issue is not settled due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhī, and Brahmi.[47] Though Brahmi and the Kharoṣṭhī script share some general features, the differences between 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.[48]

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 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.[47]

The main thing which makes of the grammarians' Sanskrit a special and peculiar language is its list of roots. Of these there are reported to us about two thousand, with no intimation of any difference in character among them, or warning that a part of them may and that another part may not be drawn upon for forms to be actually used; all stand upon the same plane. But more than half — actually more than half — of them never have been met with, and never will be met with, in the Sanskrit literature of any age. When this fact began to come to light, it was long fondly hoped, or believed, that the missing elements would yet turn up in some corner of the literature not hitherto ransacked; but all expectation of that has now been abandoned. One or another does appear from time to time; but what are they among so many? The last notable case was that of the root stigh, discovered in the Maitrayani-Sanhita, a text of the Brahmana period; but the new roots found in such texts are apt to turn out wanting in the lists of the grammarians. Beyond all question, a certain number of cases are to be allowed for, of real roots, proved such by the occurrence of their evident cognates in other related languages, and chancing not to appear in the known literature; but they can go only a very small way indeed toward accounting for the eleven hundred unauthenticated roots. Others may have been assumed as underlying certain derivatives or bodies of derivatives — within due limits, a perfectly legitimate proceeding; but the cases thus explainable do not prove to be numerous. There remain then the great mass, whose presence in the lists no ingenuity has yet proved sufficient to account for. And in no small part, they bear their falsity and artificiality on the surface, in their phonetic form and in the meanings ascribed to them; we can confidently say that the Sanskrit language, known to us through a long period of development, neither had nor could have any such roots. How the grammarians came to concoct their list, rejected in practice by themselves and their own pupils, is hitherto an unexplained mystery. No special student of the native grammar, to my knowledge, has attempted to cast any light upon it; and it was left for Dr. Edgren, no partisan of the grammarians, to group and set forth the facts for the first time, in the Journal of the American Oriental Society (Vol. XI, 1882 [but the article printed in 1879], pp. 1-55), adding a list of the real roots, with brief particulars as to their occurrence.1 [I have myself now in press a much fuller account of the quotable roots of the language, with all their quotable tense-stems and primary derivatives — everything accompanied by a definition of the period of its known occurrence in the history of the language.] It is quite clear, with reference to this fundamental and most important item, of what character the grammarians' Sanskrit is. The real Sanskrit of the latest period is, as concerns its roots, a true successor to that of the earliest period, and through the known intermediates; it has lost some of the roots of its predecessors, as each of these some belonging to its own predecessors or predecessor; it has, also like these, won a certain number not earlier found: both in such measure as was to be expected. As for the rest of the asserted roots of the grammar, to account for them is not a matter that concerns at all the Sanskrit language and its history; it only concerns the history of the Hindu science of grammar. That, too, has come to be pretty generally acknowledged.1 [Not, indeed, universally; one may find among the selected verbs that are conjugated in full at the end of F. M. Muller's Sanskrit Grammar, no very small number of those that are utterly unknown to Sanskrit usage, ancient or modern.] Every one who knows anything of the history of Indo-European etymology knows how much mischief the grammarians' list of roots wrought in the hands of the earlier more incautious and credulous students of Sanskrit: how many false and worthless derivations were founded upon them. That sort of work, indeed, is not yet entirely a thing of the past; still, it has come to be well understood by most scholars that no alleged Sanskrit root can be accepted as real unless it is supported by such a use in the literary records of the language as authenticates it — for there are such things in the later language as artificial occurrences, forms made for once or twice from roots taken out of the grammarians' list, by a natural license, which one is only surprised not to see oftener availed of (there are hardly more than a dozen or two of such cases quotable): that they appear so seldom is the best evidence of the fact already pointed out above, that the grammar had, after all, only a superficial and negative influence upon the real tradition of the language.

It thus appears that a Hindu grammarian's statement as to the fundamental elements of his language is without authority until tested by the actual facts of the language, as represented by the Sanskrit literature. But the principle won here is likely to prove of universal application; for we have no reason to expect to find the grammarians absolutely trustworthy in other departments of their work, when they have failed so signally in one; there can be nothing in their system that will not require to be tested by the recorded facts of the language, in order to determine its true value....

A curious kind of superstition appears to prevail among certain Sanskrit scholars: they cannot feel that they have the right to accept a fact of the language unless they find it set down in Panini's rules. It may well be asked, on the contrary, of what consequence it is, except for its bearing on the grammatical science itself, whether a given fact is or is not so set down. A fact in the pre-classical language is confessedly quite independent of Panini; he may take account of it and he may not; and no one knows as yet what the ground is of the selection he makes for inclusion in his system. As for a fact in the classical language, it is altogether likely to fall within the reach of one of the great grammarian's rules — at least, as these have been extended and restricted and amended by his numerous successors: and this is a thing much to the credit of the grammar; but what bearing it has upon the language would be hard to say. If, however, we should seem to meet with a fact ignored by the grammar, or contravening its rules, we should have to look to see whether supporting facts in the language did not show its genuineness in spite of the grammar. On the other hand, there are facts in the language, especially in its latest records, which have a false show of existence, being the artificial product of the grammar's prescription or permission; and there was nothing but the healthy conservatism of the true tradition of the language to keep them from becoming vastly more numerous....

It needs to be impressed on the minds of scholars that the study of the Sanskrit language is one thing, and the study of the Hindu science of grammar another and a very different thing; that while there has been a time when the latter was the way to the former, that time is now long past, and the relation of the two reversed; that the present task of the students of the grammar is to make their science accessible, account if possible for its anomalies, and determine how much and what can be extracted from it to fill out that knowledge of the language which we derive from the literature; and that the peculiar Hindu ways of grouping and viewing and naming facts familiar to us from the other related languages are an obstacle in the way of a real and fruitful comprehension of those facts as they show themselves in Sanskrit, and should be avoided.

-- The Study of Hindu Grammar and the Study of Sanskrit, by William Dwight Whitney, American Journal of Philology, Vol. V, 3, Whole No. 19, 1884

The argument of "brahmanical fantasy" has been used in other areas as well. Cf. Mill's statement on the Brahmins above. Also, in connection with the Dhatupatha, a list of some two thousand verbal roots of which more than half have not been met with in Sanskrit literature, it has been suggested that it was "concocted" by the Indian grammarians (Whitney 1884; reprinted in Staal 1992: 142). In fact, the Indian pandits have been accused of inventing the Sanskrit language (Dugald Stewart and Christoph Meiners, quoted in Rosane Rocher 1983: 78).

-- Chapter 4: Law Books in an Oral Culture: The Indian Dharmasastras, Excerpt from "Studies in Hindu Law and Dharmaśastra", by Ludo Rocher

The Brahmi script appeared in the third century B.C. as a fully developed pan-Indian national script (sometimes used as a second script even within the proper territory of Kharosthi in the northwest) …

Terrien de Lacouperie… suggested that the name Brahmi should refer to the left-to-right "Indo-Pali" script of the Asokan pillar inscriptions, and Kharosthi to the right-to-left "Bactro-Pali" script of the rock inscriptions from the northwest. Lacouperie's suggestion was adopted by his contemporaries, most significantly by Buhler… While the name Brahmi for the ancient Indian national script is no doubt in a general sense correct, it should be kept in mind that we do not really know precisely what form or derivative of the script the authors of the early script lists were referring to as "Brahmi," nor whether this term was actually applied to the script used in the time of Asoka.41 [On this point, see the warnings in IC 11.667 [L. Renou and J. Filliozat, L'Inde classique (Classical India, by Louis Renou and Jean Filliozat, Classical India Volume Two, Political History of India From the Earliest Times to the 7th Century A.D., by Jean Filliozat, Translated from the French by Philip Spratt, 1957)] and OBS 99 [S. P. Gupta and K. S. Ramachandran, The Origin of Brahmi Script].

VI.

The key papers by Dr. S.R. Goyal and Shri K.V. Soundara Rajan are very interesting and have raised several important points connected with the origin of the Brahmi script. Goyal's paper especially interested me because I also share most of his views. But before involving into the discussion I wish to point out that Goyal has not been able to take note of all the published material on the subject during the last two decades. For example, he seems to have failed to utilise and analyse properly the views of Dani, Upasaka and the present author on the subject. As it may be pointed out that it was Upasaka who, for the first time, has conclusively proved by giving a diagram that Yerragudi inscription of Asoka follows no method. Mr Soundara Rajan also does not seem to have utilised these recent publications thoroughly.

The first confusing thing about the origin of Brahmi script is its name. The late Prof R.R Pandey observes, "As its-very name suggests the Brahmi script was invented by the Indo-Aryans for the preservation of 'Brahma' or Veda and was originally and mainly employed by the Brahmanas, whose duty was to conserve the Vedic literature and to hand it down to the succeeding generations by writing and copying the text from time to time and by teaching them to their students".91 [Pandey, R.B., Indian Palaeography, p. 35.] This confusion is due to the name Brahmi. It was perhaps Buhler who first advocated this designation for the characters in which majority of the edicts of Asoka are written. But there is no definite ground to accept that the name Brahmi given to the Asokan script is correct beyond doubt. In Buddhist and Jaina works lists of the scripts prevalent in ancient India are given. Almost all the lists begin with the name Brahmi. In Vedic literature there are some references where the word 'Brahmi' occurs but there it has been used in the sense of a speech (Brahmi-Vak) and not in the sense of a script.92 [Pathak, V.S., Brahmi athava Brahmi Vaidika Bhasha aur Lip (Hindi), Madhay Bharati, Vol. II, pp. 13-16.] Therefore, the designation Brahmi to the script of Asoka and its derivatives is simply a matter of convenience and not a matter of fact. Dr Pandey's view that 'as the very name suggests the script was invented by the Indo-Aryans for the preservation of Brahma or Veda' is illusory because he presupposes the name Brahmi for that script. Goyal himself does not make any distinction between the two while writing the lines under the heading Traditional Inventor of Brahmi'. This has resulted in the confusion between two separate issues, i.e., the antiquity of the art of writing in India and the origin of the so-called (Asokan) Brahmi. This has inspired many scholars to search for the latter's roots in Vedic period. Although sceptic about accepting the name Brahmi for the Asokan script we will refer this name on following pages to avoid any possible confusion.

-- The Origin of Brahmi Script, by S.P. Gupta and K.S. Ramachandran, 1979

The various inscriptions which were not made in order to be read must be interpreted as magical, at least in this sense that they were votive, and intended not to make their prayers public but to bring about their realisation by materialising the expression in writing.

-- A Portion translated from l'Inde Classique, Vol. I, Manuel Des Etudes Indiennes, Classical India, by Louis Renou and Jean Filliozat, Classical India Volume Two, Political History of India From the Earliest Times to the 7th Century A.D., by Jean Filliozat, Translated from the French by Philip Spratt, 1957

The name Brahmi is thus used loosely, as a matter of convenience, by modern scholars to refer to the Asokan script and to its varieties and earlier derivatives (distinguished by regional or dynastic terms such as "early southern Brahmi" or "eastern Gupta Brahmi") until about the end of the Gupta period in the sixth century A.D. After this time, the scripts have for the most part differentiated into distinct regional and local varieties, and are conceived as separate scripts denoted by descriptive or, more commonly, geographical terms (e.g., Siddhamatrka [post-Gupta northern script] or proto-Kannada). The terminology for the various premodern Brahmi-derived scripts is, however, largely unstandardized and typically made up ad hoc, due mainly to the lack of attested indigenous terms for many of them....

The origin of the Brahmi script is one of the most problematic and controversial problems in Indian epigraphy ...

Recently several writers have put forth theories to the effect that Brahmi was purposefully invented ex nihilo ["creation out of nothing"] in or around the time of Asoka. S. R. Goyal, for example, 55 ["Brahmi—An Invention of the Early Mauryan Period," in OBS 1-53.] argued that the phonetically logical structure, primary geometric forms, and geographical uniformity of early Brahml show that it was "an invention of the grammarians" of the time of Asoka. Similar arguments were presented by T. P. Verma, who proposed an origin in Buddhist circles.56 [The Palaeography of Brahmi Script in North India, 8, and "Fresh Light on the Origin of Brahmi Alphabet," JOI 13, 1964, 360-71 (esp. 367).] ...

The strongest point in favor of the invention theory is the stiffly symmetrical, geometric appearance of Asokan Brahmi, which does indeed give the impression of an arbitrarily created script....

[T]he discovery ... of six Mauryan inscriptions in Aramaic strongly supports the hypothesis of an Aramaic connection.

However, a possible objection to the derivation of Brahmi from Aramaic is that, since it has been established with virtual certainty that the Kharosthi script is derived from Aramaic, it is hard to see why another, very different, Indic script would have developed from the same prototype in a contiguous region. If the hypothesis of the invention of Brahmi under Asoka's sponsorship is correct, this re-creation may be attributed to the emperor's desire to invent a distinct imperial script, perhaps under the inspiration of Old Persian cuneiform, which would be suited to the promulgation of edicts in written form….

Prinsep's final decipherment was ultimately to rely on paleographic and contextual rather than statistical methods.

-- Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages, by Richard Salomon

In contrast, some authors reject the idea of foreign influence.[49][50]

Bruce Trigger states that Brahmi likely emerged from the Aramaic script but with extensive local development but there is no evidence of a direct common source.[51] According to Trigger, Brahmi was in use before the Ashoka pillars, at least by 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 a while before it died out in ancient times.[51] According to Salomon, the evidence of Kharosthi script's use is found primarily in Buddhist records and those of Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian and Kushana dynasty era. The Kharosthi likely fell out of general use in or about the 3rd-century CE.[48]

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 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.[52]

Semitic model hypothesis

Bühler's aspirate derivations

IAST / -aspirate / +aspirate / origin of aspirate according to Bühler

k/kh / [x] / [x] / Semitic emphatic (qoph)
g/gh / [x] / [x] / Semitic emphatic (heth) (hook addition in Bhattiprolu script)
c/ch / [x] / [x] / curve addition
j/jh / [x] / [x] / hook addition with some alteration
p/ph / [x] / [x] / curve addition
b/bh / [x] / [x] / hook addition with some alteration
t/th / [x] / [x] / Semitic emphatic (teth)
d/dh / [x] / [x] / unaspirated glyph back formed
ṭ/ṭh / [x] / [x] / unaspirated glyph back formed as if aspirated glyph with curve
ḍ/ḍh / [x] / [x] / curve addition

Many scholars link the origin of Brahmi to Semitic script models, particularly Aramaic.[39] The explanation of how this might have happened, the particular Semitic script and the chronology 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[53] 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.[54] Finally, 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 is no evidence to support this conjecture.[55]

The below chart shows the close resemblance that Brahmi has with the first four letters of Semitic script, the first column representing the Phoenician alphabet.

Image / Text / Name[56] / Phoneme / Hieroglyphs / Proto-Sinaitic / Aramaic / Hebrew / Syriac / Greek / Brahmi

Bühler's hypothesis

According to the Semitic hypothesis as laid out by Bühler in 1898, the oldest Brahmi inscriptions were derived from a Phoenician prototype.[57][note 1] Salomon states Bühler's arguments are "weak historical, geographical, and chronological justifications for 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.[55]

Comparison of North Semitic and Brahmi scripts[59][note 2]

Phoenician /Aramaic / Value / Brahmi / Value

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 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, [x]), and it appears that these unneeded emphatic letters filled in for some of Brahmi's aspirates: Aramaic q for Brahmi kh, Aramaic [x] ([x]) for Brahmi th ([x]), etc. And just where Aramaic did not have 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, Brahmi [x]), while d and [x] (not to be confused with the Semitic emphatic [x]) were derived by back formation from dh and ṭh.[61]

The attached table lists the correspondences between Brahmi and North Semitic scripts.[62][59]

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 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 [x] to tsade [x] rather than kaph [x], 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 the relevant period.[55] 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.[53]

The weakest forms of 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.[63]

The Prakrits were Middle Indo-Aryan languages spoken between about 500 B.C. and 500 A.D. The name Prakrit (prākṛta) means ‘derived’, a name contrasting with Sanskrit (saṃskṛta) ‘complete, perfected’, reflecting the fact that the Prakrit languages were considered historically secondary to, and less prestigious than, Sanskrit.

The oldest stage of Middle Indo-Aryan language is attested in the inscriptions of Ashoka (ca. 260 BCE), as well as in the earliest forms of Pāli, the language of the Theravāda Buddhist canon. The most prominent form of Prakrit is Ardhamāgadhı̄, associated with the ancient kingdom of Magadha, in modern Bihar, and the subsequent Mauryan Empire. Mahāvı̄ra, the founder of Jainism, was born in Magadha, and the earliest Jain texts were composed in Ardhamāgadhı̄.

The other main Prakrit languages include Māhārāṣṭrı̄, Śaurasenī, Māgadhī, and Avantī, used in dramatic literature and lyric poetry, and Gāndhārī, a far North-Western Indo-Aryan language once used extensively as a language of Buddhist literature in Central Asia. The latest Middle Indo-Aryan period is represented by the Apabhraṃśas, used as literary languages from around the 8th century A.D. well into the second millennium.

Ardhamāgadhı̄ and some other forms of Prakrit became learned, literary languages, much like Classical Sanskrit, but at the earliest period originated as either genuine vernacular dialects, or as lingua francas based on such dialects. It was these vernacular dialects which ultimately developed into the Modern Indo-Aryan languages spoken across South Asia today.

Currently there is no independent degree in Prakrit, but it is offered as a subsidiary language for the BA in Sanskrit. Students will study Prakrit language and literature, as well as the doctrine and early history of Jainism. Students on graduate courses in Indian Studies may also attend Prakrit classes when these are offered.

-- Prakrit, by Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford

Another evidence cited in favor of Persian influence has been the Hultzsch proposal in 1925 that the Prakrit/Sanskrit word for writing itself, lipi is similar to the Old Persian word dipi, suggesting a probable borrowing.[64][65] 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 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.[66]

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Part 2 of 4

Greek-Semitic model hypothesis


Coin of Agathocles with Hindu deities, in Greek and Brahmi.
Obv: Balarama-Samkarshana with Greek legend: [x].
Rev: Vasudeva-Krishna with Brahmi legend:[x] Rājane Agathukleyesa "King Agathocles". Circa 180 BCE.

Falk's 1993 book Schrift im Alten Indien is a study on writing in ancient India,[67][68] and has a section on the origins of Brahmi.[37] It features an extensive review of the literature up to that time. Falk sees the basic writing system of Brahmi as being derived from 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"[69] over time, which he takes to indicate that the script had been recently developed.[37][70] Falk deviates from the mainstream of opinion in seeing Greek as also being 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".[71] Further, adds Salomon, in a "limited sense Brahmi can be said to be derived from Kharosthi, but in terms of the actual forms of the characters, the differences between the two Indian scripts are much greater than the similarities".[72]

Falk also dated the origin of Kharoṣṭhī to no earlier than 325 BCE, based on a proposed connection to the Greek conquest.[73] 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 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".[70]

Unlike Bühler, Falk does not provide details of which and how 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.[70][74]

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 the phonemic analysis of the Sanskrit language achieved by the Vedic scholars is much closer to the Brahmi script than the Greek alphabet".[21]

Sanskrit is not attested in any inscriptions or manuscripts until the Common Era or at most a few decades before it.66 [Bronkhorst (2011: 46, 50), who cites Salomon (1998:86) on the existence of four inscriptions ascribed by some, including Salomon, to the first century BC; otherwise the earliest inscriptions in Sanskrit are from Mathura in the first and second centuries AD (Salomon 1998: 87).]

-- Appendix C: On The Early Indian Inscriptions, Excerpt from Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith

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.[75] Greek-style letter types were selected for their "broad, upright and symmetrical form", and writing from left to right was also adopted for its convenience.[75] 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.[75] In addition, a new system of combining consonants vertically to represent complex sounds was also developed.[75]

In between experimenting with rust-proof treatments for the new steamboats to be employed on the Ganges, he wrestled next with the Ashoka Brahmi pin-men on the Allahabad column. Coryat's idea that it was some kind of Greek was back in fashion. One scholar claimed to have identified no less than seven letters of the Greek alphabet and another had actually read a Greek name written in this script on an ancient coin. Prinsep was sceptical. The Greek name was only Greek if read upside down. [???!!!] Turn it round and the pinmen letters were just like those on the pillars.

-- India Discovered, by John Keay

The Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription, (also Kandahar Edict of Ashoka, sometimes "Chehel Zina Edict"), is a famous bilingual edict in Greek and Aramaic, proclaimed and carved in stone by the Indian Maurya Empire ruler Ashoka (r.269-233 BCE) around 260 BCE. It is the very first known inscription of Ashoka, written in year 10 of his reign (260 BCE), preceding all other inscriptions, including his early Minor Rock Edicts, his Barabar caves inscriptions or his Major Rock Edicts. This first inscription was written in Classical Greek and Aramaic exclusively. It was discovered in 1958, during some excavation works below a 1m high layer of rubble, and is known as KAI 279.

-- Aramaic Inscription of Laghman [Ashokan Inscriptions], by Wikipedia

Indigenous origin hypothesis


A 2nd-century BCE Tamil Brahmi inscription from Arittapatti, Madurai India. The southern state of Tamil Nadu has emerged as a major source of Brahmi inscriptions dated between 3rd to 1st-centuries BCE.[76][77]

The possibility of an indigenous origin such as a connection to the Indus script 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[78] and the Assyriologist Stephen Langdon,.[79] 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 the Indus Script, the match being considerably higher than that of Aramaic in his estimation.[80] 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.[81] However, Allchin and Erdosy later in 1995 expressed the opinion that there was as yet insufficient evidence to resolve the question.[82]


A proposed connection between the Brahmi and Indus scripts, made in the 19th century by Alexander Cunningham.

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.[83][84][85] Subhash Kak disagrees with the proposed Semitic origins of the script,[86] instead states that the interaction between the Indic and the Semitic worlds before the rise of the Semitic scripts might imply a reverse process.[87] 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 the late Indus script, where the ten most common ligatures correspond with the form of one of the ten most common glyphs in Brahmi.[88] There is also corresponding evidence of continuity in the use of numerals.[89] Further support for this continuity comes from statistical analysis of the relationship carried out by Das.[90] Salomon considered simple graphic similarities between characters to be insufficient evidence for 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.[91]

The main obstacle to this idea 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 the two.[92]

CHAPTER TWO: THE ORAL TRADITION
 
The outstanding feature of the oldest Indian education and Indian culture in general, especially in the centuries B.C., is its orality. The Vedic texts make no reference to writing, and there is no reliable indication that writing was known in India except perhaps in the northwestern provinces when these were under Achaemenid rule, since the time of Darius or even Cyrus. Those who write down the Veda go to hell, as the Mahabharata tells us,1 [Mahabharata XIII 24.70 vedanam lekhakas caiva te vai niraya-gaminah.] and Kumarila confirms: "That knowledge of the truth is worthless which has been acquired from the Veda, if the Veda has not been rightly comprehended or if it has been learnt from writing."2 [Tantra-varttika 13 (p.86); p.123.20 in K.V. Abhyankar's ed., Pune 1970. Al-Biruni (Alberuni's India, trans. E.C. Sachau, London 1910, vol.1 p. 125) reported in the eleventh century: "They do not allow the Veda to be committed to writing."] Sayana wrote in the introduction to his Rgveda commentary that "the text of the Veda is to be learned by the method of learning it from the lips of the teacher and not from a manuscript."3 [Rig-Veda Samhita, ed. F.Max Muller, 2nd ed. London 1890 (repr. Varanasi 1966), p. 14 line 15 adhyayana-vidhis ca likhita-pathadi vyavrtydhyayana-samskrtatvam svadhyayasya gamayati.] Several reasons are given for this restriction, among them the fear that the sacred knowledge could fall into the hands of members of the lower castes, or that the student may not be fit for the sacred and supposedly powerful knowledge; the need to recite the Vedic mantras4 [AsGS III 2,2 informs us of the correct way to recite the Veda for oneself: outside the village, on a clean spot, facing east, "looking at the point where heaven and earth touch each other, or shutting his eyes, in whatever way he may deem himself apt" (dyava-prthivyoh sandhim iksamanah sammilya va yatha va yuktam atmanam manyeta).] with correct accents and intonations, if disaster is to be avoided, reinforced the need for oral instruction.5 [A.S. Altekar, Education in Ancient India, 6th ed., Benares 1965, p.46.] The original and most powerful—if unspoken—reason probably is the belief that the instruction in Vedic lore had always been conducted in this way, a holdover from the time when script was completely unknown in India. Some later authors6 [D.D. Kosambi. Ancient India, New York 1966, p. 78: from the fourteenth century on. But the practice must be older, or else the condemnation in Mbh XIII 24.70 (see p. 8 fn. 1; how old this stanza is would be hard to tell) makes little sense. A manuscript of a minor Vedic text, the Naksatra-kalpa (found also in the Atharvaveda-parisista), discovered in Central Asia was dated by its editor A.F. Hoernle (JAS Bengal 62 [1893], pp.11-40) in the fifth century A.D.; H. Falk, Die Schrift im alien Indicn, Tubingen 1993, p. 284. Al Biruni reported in the early eleventh century that "recently" Vasukra from Kashmir had written down and explained the Veda: Alberuni's India, vol. I p. 126. L. Renou, Classical India, vol. 3: Vedic India, p. 2 refers to an eleventh century manuscript.] permit the writing down of Vedic texts, but only as a teaching aid, for reviewing previous oral instruction.
 
The antiquity of writing in India is a controversial topic. A script has been discovered in the excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization that flourished in 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.7 [B.B. Lai, in Vivekananda Memorial Volume. India's Contribution to the World Thought and Culture, edd. Lokesh Chandra et al., Madras 1970, pp. 189-202; Kamil V. Zvelebil, Dravidian Linguistics: An Introduction, Pondicherry 1990, pp. 84-98; Gregory L. Possehl, Indus Age. The Writing System, Philadelphia 1996, reviews all recent attempts of decipherment.] Aberrations are also attempts to conclude from Rgvedic expressions like aksara8 [J. van Buitenen, JAOS 79 (1959), pp. 176-187 argues that the meaning "syllable" is the primary meaning of the word, the others secondary, possibly by etymological reanalysis.] "immovable, imperishable, syllable, and (very much later) syllabic letter" that script was known to the authors of the Rgvedic hymns.9 [Radha Kumud Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 3rd ed. Delhi 1960, pp. 227f.]
 
For a century the prevailing view, among Western scholars at least, was based on the studies of Albrecht Weber and Georg Buhler, who noticed the strong similarity of several letters of Asokan Brahmi with letters in Phoenician and old Aramaic inscriptions, notably on the stone of Mesa dated in the eighth century B.C.10 [Albrecht Weber. ZDMG 31 (1877), pp. 598-612 and Georg Buhler, On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet, 2nd ed. Strassburg 1898, pp. 55f. and Plate 1.] Buhler assumed therefore that the Brahmi script was borrowed from the old Aramaic script sometime in the eighth century (or at least based on it), probably for commercial purposes; it was only emperor Asoka who used it for his monumental stone inscriptions and thus left us the earliest proof of Indian writing.11 [There is also a coin from Eran containing four letters and often dated at 350 B.C.; but the date is not at all certain.] The fatal flaw12 [Another flaw is the fact that there is a credible likeness only between a few of the Aramaic and Brahmi letters, and that Buhler resorts for the remainder to rather fanciful distortions. But most of those who cannot accept that the Vedic tradition was oral continue to rely on his theories -- or on the even more fanciful derivation of the Brahmi script from the script of the Indus Valley Civilization.] of this theory is the exact phonemic character of the Brahmi script which assigns one and only one letter to each phoneme of the Sanskrit language (or Middle Indic, in the case of Asoka). This would be a dramatic improvement over the Aramaic script that leaves vowels usually unmarked and has no devices to mark the Indian aspirate stops, whereas the Brahmi script matches the phonemic analysis which had been perfected in the Vedic schools in their effort to preserve the exact pronunciation of the Vedic hymns -- but these Vedic schools had no use for a script! Why would then, as the theory goes, Indian merchants modify the Aramaic script so as to conform to the phonetic theory of the Veda reciters?
 
In a daring approach, J.Bronkhorst13 [J.Bronkhorst, IIJ24 (1982), pp. 181-189.] has recently argued that the padapatha of the Rgveda (a form of recitation in which each stanza is broken up into its individual words) was perhaps a clumsy attempt (in the eighth or seventh century B.C.) to write the Rgveda text down. But he has to assume that Indians soon afterwards changed their mind about such use of writing, while they added several more distorted forms of recitation: e.g., the kramapatha14 [G.V. Devasthali, ABORI 58/59, Diamond Jubilee Volume (1978), pp. 573-582.] that "steps" as it were haltingly through a stanza -- all mnemotechnic devices to insure the integrity of the original text. It appears also that the Brahmi script was created for a language that had lost the old vocalic r and l sounds, since the post-Asokan letters for these sounds are derivatives of the letter a with attached hooks; the same may be true for the letters for ai and au that are derived from the letters for e and o with additional strokes.15 [Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy, New York 1998, p. 30.] If the Brahmi alphabet had been created for writing Vedic texts (for whom these additional letters are needed), we would have to assume a break in tradition, causing the loss of the original letters for r, 1, ai, and au and a later reinventing of these letters.16 [The incidence of these vowels in initial position is not high, and thus the first attestations in Sanskrit inscriptions and manuscripts are rather late: G. Buhler, Indische Palaeographie, Strassburg 1896, Tafeln 4-6 and On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet, Strassburg 1898, pp. 34f.; R. Salomon, Indian Epigraphy, pp. 30, 34.]
 
Some recent publications,17 [Gerard Fussman, Annuaire du College de France 1988-89: Resume des cours et travaux, pp.507-514; Oskar von Hinuber, Der Beginn der Schrift und fruhe Schriftlichkeit in Indien, AAWL, Mainz 1989 nr.1 1; Harry Falk, Die Schrift im alien Indien; R. Salomon, JAOS 115 (1995), pp. 271-279 and Indian Epigraphy.] on the other hand, stress that Megasthenes, Seleucus' envoy to the court of Candragupta in Pataliputra [rather, Sandrocottus in Palibothra] around 300 B.C. claims that writing was unknown in India and that, e.g., all legal business was dealt with on the basis of oral evidence and orally preserved rules. Megasthenes was an educated Greek who should have been able to recognize Indian writing if he saw it. According to this view, the Brahmi script was an Indian invention, probably commissioned by King Asoka,18 [S.R. Goyal, in The Origin of Brahmi Script (edd. S.P. Gupta and K.S. Ramachandran), Delhi 1979, pp. 1-53. Similarly, the Persian cuneiform script is now widely considered an invention made at the behest of Cyrus or, more probably, Darius: M. Mayrhofer, BSOAS 42 (1979), pp. 290-296 and KZ 102 (1989), pp. 174-186.] and carried out by brahmin scholars brought up in the tradition of Vedic phonetics who applied their knowledge to creating a script for a Middle Indic idiom. Of course the idea of writing was known through long established contacts with the empire of the Achaemenids and later the Greek successors of Alexander the Great. A word for script was probably already known to Panini (sixth century B.C.?), but it was borrowed from Iranian (lipi/libi from Iranian dipi, in turn derived from Sumerian dup).19 [Panini III 2 21 teaches the formation of the words lipikara/libikara "scribe (?)" which could be an Iranian rather than an Indian formation originally; von Hinuber, ibid., p. 58 considers the possibility that lipi could refer to something like painting rather than writing. AitA V 3,3 prohibits the study of the mahavrata after several polluting activities, including ullikhya and avalikhya which A.B. Keith, The Aitareya Aranyaka, Oxford 1909 repr. 1969, pp. 301f. translated as "had...written, or obliterated writing." The date of that text is not certain, nor is the reference to writing.] The Kharosti script, closely linked to the later Aramaic script, was widely used in the provinces of the Indian Northwest, presumably under the influence of the Achaemenid overlords who used Aramaic as the administrative lingua franca for their empire. Oddly enough, no Aramaic inscriptions or any other written documents have been found so far from the whole easternmost part of their empire -- except after the demise of the empire. The first Kharosti inscriptions we have are those of Asoka, and the tradition of this script continued in the extreme Northwest into the fourth century A.D.
 
Buhler's theory must assume that the more adequate Brahmi script (which differentiated between short and long vowels) was superseded in the Northwest by the less adequate Kharosti script (which did not differentiate between short and long vowels) under the influence of the Iranian overlords and their Aramaic writing20 [But that has not happened in other provinces of the Persian empire where Egyptian hieroglyphics, Babylonian cuneiform script, and Greek alphabetic scripts were in use -- and continued to be used. We must also consider that the scribes in the service of the empire were probably ethnic Arameans who protected their art and privilege as long as the empire lasted; Falk, Die Schrift, pp. 103f. assumes therefore that locals with a superficial knowledge of the Aramaic system developed the Kharosti after the empire collapsed (doubted by R. Salomon, JAOS 115 [1995], p. 276).] -- and that this imposed script remained in use long after their departure. It is more likely that the Kharosti script was the earlier attempt to write an Indian dialect and was in time replaced by the superior Brahmi developed in Magadha. The Brahmi script is a phonemically correct representation of Prakrit21 [That includes the letter for /n/ which is an oddity in a description of Sanskrit, because it is a predictable allophone of /n/.] that abandoned the graphic reliance of the vowel onset (aleph) in its notation of initial vowels, a major improvement on the Kharosti alphabet.22 [H. Scharfe, forthcoming in JAOS.] This analysis precludes, however, any attempt, such as Buhler's, to directly derive the Brahmi from a much older North Semitic alphabet.
 
The best evidence today is that no script was used or even known in India before 300 B.C., except in the extreme Northwest that was under Persian domination. That is in complete accord with the Indian tradition which at every occasion stresses the orality of the cultural and literary heritage. Whereas the biblical tradition has statements like this: "as it is written in the book of prophecies of Isaiah,"23 [Gospel of St. Luke 3:4 with reference to Isaiah 40:3-5; also Matthew 19:4f. "Have you read 'that in the beginning the Creator made them male and female' and he added, That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and the two become one flesh'" referring to Genesis 1:27 and 2:24.] Indian texts stress that "Thus it is heard in the Svetasvatara-upanisad:..."24 [Sarva-darsana-sangraha ed. Vasudev Shastri Abhyankar, 3rd ed., Poona 1978, chapter XIV p. 327: tatha ca Svetasvataropanisadi sruyate:...] There were no books; the common Indian work for "book" (pusta[ka]) is found not before the early centuries A.D. and is probably a loanword from Persian (post),25 [H. Falk, Schrift, pp. 305f.] and grantha denoted originally only "knot, nexus, text" acquiring the meaning "manuscript" much later.
 
The older Indian literature (including some texts as late as the early centuries A.D.) belongs to one of two classes: sruti "hearing" and smrti "remembering." It behooves us to pay attention to this distinction made by the Indians themselves early on. This use of sruti is first found in AitB VII 9, and ManavaSS 182.4, that of smrti in LatyS S VI 1.6,13 and TaitAr I 2,1 in a late period of canon formation in the eastern Ganges valley.26 [M.Witzel, in: Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts, ed. M. Witzel, Cambridge / Mass., 1997, pp. 328f.]
 
It is condescending and dangerous to deny Indians their own vision and immediately apply our own schemes, something that historians are fond of doing: note the now debunked "village community" of Sir Henry Maine27 [Louis Dumont, Contributions to Indian Sociology 9 (1966), pp. 82-89.] or Burton Stein's "segmental state." It is preferable to move in two stages: first describe the Indian point of view (be it of the state, ayurveda, or textual traditions), then view the material and the Indian concept from our viewpoint or from a more comprehensive, universalistic position.
 
Sruti, the more authoritative (and, on the whole, older and more carefully preserved)28 ["Vedic schools did not regard as unalterable the texts of formulas which were foreign to their own samhita": J. Gonda, The Ritual Sutras, Wiesbaden 1977, p. 565 with references to V.M. Apte, NIA 3 (1940/41), p. 49 and P.K. Narayana Pillai, Non-rgvedic Mantras in the Marriage Ceremonies, Trivandrum 1958, pp. 44, 202.] class consists of the Vedic hymns29 [It is a curious feature of A. Lord's definition of "oral poetry" that the tightly structured Vedic hymns are excluded because there are no improvised variations by the performers: Albert Lord, The Singer of Tales, Cambridge/Mass. 2nd ed. 1964, p. 280: "could not be oral in any except the most literal sense."] and mantras as well as the theological and philosophical speculations of the Brahmanas and Upanisads which are considered timeless revealed truths, something ordinary men can never hope to perceive themselves but can "hear" through the endless chain of oral tradition.30 [VasDhS VI 43 speaks of the paramparya-gato vedah "The Veda that has come down in a chain of tradition." The Greek historian Thucydides writes in his History of the Peloponnesian War I 4 [x] "Minos, the oldest of those we know from tradition (lit. hearing)."] The original revelation of sruti, though, is often said to be by "seeing,"31 [I would disagree, therefore, with M. Witzel, Inside the Texts, p. 329 "heard by Rsis (sruti)." In Buddhism, sravaka "hearer" may, at least according to some sources, have denoted those followers (monks and lay people alike) who had heard Buddha's message in person: Peter Masefield, Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism, Colombo/ London 1986, esp. pp. 142f.] but there was also a subtle distinction: in RV VIII 59,6 the seer "saw" through tapas the origins (tapasdbhyapasyam), in TS V 3,5,4 the seers "saw" the meters with tapas (tani tapasdpasyari)32 [AitB VI 34; VII 17; SB I 5,3,3; XIII 2,2,14 (Brhaduktha "saw" not the verses but their application as apri-verses): Hermann Oldenberg, Vorwissenschaftliche Wissenschaft -- Die Weltanschauung der Brahmana-Texte, Gottingen 1919. pp. 222f.] -- but the claim that they "saw" the hymns came only later.33 [Nirukta II 11 stotran dadarsa; VII 3 evam...rsinam mantra-drstayo bhavanti. Panini IV 2 7 drstam sama teaches the formation of names for melodies named after the men who "saw" them.] The contrast in the Sunahsepa story is striking: after Sunahsepa praised several gods with hymns,34 [These hymns are found in the Rgveda and were presumably composed by Sunahsepa on the spot (AB VII 16).] he "saw" an abbreviated pressing ritual35 [AitB VII 17.] that took care of the changed situation when the sacrificial animal, i.e., Sunahsepa himself, was no longer available. The Vedic rsis (whom we call "seers"), in the standard doctrine championed by the Mimamsa, "saw" the eternally existing Vedic hymns and ritual procedures36 [Mahabharata XVIII 5,33 claims that Vyasa "saw" the epic with his divine eye (divyena caksusa), apparently a later development that claimed the Mahabharata as the fifth Veda -- just as later also the Bharatiya Natyasastra claimed to be the fifth Veda: Natyasastra ed. Manomohan Ghosh, Calcutta 1967, I 15ff. These developments are necessarily later than the recognition of the Atharvaveda as the fourth Veda.] -- not with their physical eyes it seems but with a special vision. This view which has become the established dogma of orthodox Hinduism37 [This assertion—that the Veda is apauruseya "not based on humans"—may have been a response to Buddhist arguments that no work involving human agency can give us the assurance of absolute truth: K.N. Jayatilleke, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge, London 1963, pp. 191f. and Francis Clooney, Thinking Ritually, Wien 1990, p. 215.] is at variance with the statements of the Vedic poets themselves who say in their hymns that they skillfully created these new songs just as a carpenter builds a chariot,38 [RV V 2,11 tam te stomam...ratham na dhirah...ataksam.] with the help of divine inspiration.39 [dhi RV I 129, 2; IX 100,3 and often; cf. R.N. Dandekar, Der vedische Mensch, Heidelberg 1938, pp. 65f. and Jan Gonda, The Vision of the Vedic Poets, The Hague 1963.] It was perhaps this divinely inspired creativity that elevated the rsi, the brahman (or in the Skandinavian tradition a gifted skald) to such height that he was considered inviolate.40 [Cf. the Vedic stories of Sunahsepa (AitB VII 13-18 and SSS XV 17-20) and Nrmedha (JB 1171) and the Islandic Egils saga Skallagrimssonar, ed. F. Jonsson, 2nd ed., Halle 1924, ch.59-61 and App. A.; H. Scharfe, The State in Indian Tradition, pp. 106f.] The contrast to sruti is not a book but the equally oral tradition of smrti; Monier-Williams is wrong to refer to smrti as "what is only remembered and handed down in writing";41 [A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Oxford 1899, p. 1101 under sruti.] there is indeed no prohibition of writing smrti-texts down and manuscripts of them abound, but they are no less products of an oral tradition.
 
Smrti comprises the epics and various manuals of correct behavior (grhya-sutra-s and dharma-sutra-s), also many later legal texts and the Puranas, attributed to revered but nevertheless human authors; they are often said to be based on sruti,42 [This is implied in Mimamsa-sutra I 3,3 and made explicit in Sabara-bhasya ed. K. V. Abhyankar, Pune 1970, p. 77. ApDhS I 4 8 srutir hi ballyasy anumanikad acarat "For heard revelation is stronger than an inferential custom" and 112,10 brahmanokta vidhayas; tesam utsannah pathah proyogad anumlyante "The precepts were taught in the Brahmanas; the lost recitations are inferred from usage" show a similar attitude, though the word smrti is not used.] but lack the rigidity and textual faithfulness of that tradition. The reciter of a revealed Vedic text that he had "heard" had no right to make even the slightest changes, but those who recite old "remembrances" were more free to follow their individual style. In the classical Mimamsa doctrine the sruti is "heard" and thus directly perceived during instruction (pratyaksa),43 [Learned brahmins who have memorized the Veda and pass their knowledge on to students are therefore called sruti-pratyaksa-hetavah "causes for the direct perception of sruti" in Manu XII 109 and VasDhS VI 43. Cf. S. Pollock, in: S. Lienhard and I. Piovano (edd.), Lex et Litterae (Fs.O.Botto), Torino 1997, pp. 395-417.] whereas the smrti is based on men's remembrance or inference of doctrines "heard," but not preserved in their exact wording. Both are part of the oral tradition, both are ultimately based on revelation, and there was later a tendency to downplay their distinction,

-- Education in Ancient India, by Hartmut Scharfe, 2002

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 the appearance of the Brahmi and Tamil Brahmi 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.[93] 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.[94] Iravatham Mahadevan, decipherer of Tamil-Brahmi and a noted expert on the Indus script, has supported the idea that both those semiotic traditions may have some continuity with the Indus script, but regarding the idea of continuity with Brahmi, he has categorically stated that he does not believe that theory "at all".[92]

Another form of 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.[95]

Foreign origination


The word Lipī ([x]) used by Ashoka to describe his "Edicts". Brahmi script (Li=[x] La+[x]i; pī=[x]Pa+[x]ii). The word would be of Old Persian origin ("Dipi").

Main article: Lipi (script)

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 the Old Persian dipi, in turn derived from Sumerian dup.[65][96] 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,[note 3] comes from an Old Persian prototype dipî also meaning "inscription", which is used for example by Darius I in his Behistun inscription,[note 4] suggesting borrowing and diffusion.[97][98][99]

Scharfe adds that 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",[65] yet Scharfe in the same book admits that "a script has been discovered in the excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization that flourished in 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."[100]

Megasthenes' observations

Megasthenes, a Greek ambassador to the Mauryan court in Northeastern India only 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."[101] 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.[102] Timmer considers it to reflect 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."[103]

Some proponents of the indigenous origin theories[who?] 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 the context of the kingdom of "Sandrakottos" (Chandragupta [no, Sandrocottus!!!]). 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,[104] but this detail does not appear in parallel extracts of Megasthenes found in Arrian and Diodorus Siculus.[105][106] The implication of writing per se is also not totally clear in the original Greek as the term "[x]" (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 the Aramaic alphabet. Salomon regards the evidence from Greek sources to be inconclusive.[107] Strabo himself notes this inconsistency regarding reports on the use of writing in India (XV.i.67).

Debate on time depth


Connections between Phoenician (4th column) and Brahmi (5th column). Note that 6th-to-4th-century BCE Aramaic (not shown) is in many cases intermediate in form between the two.

Kenneth Norman (2005) suggests that Brahmi was devised over a longer period of time predating Ashoka's rule:[108]

"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 much as two centuries before Ashoka."[109]

He also notes that 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.[110] 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.[110]

Jack Goody (1987) had similarly suggested that ancient India likely had 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.[???][111][112]

Opinions on this point, the possibility that there may not have been any writing scripts including Brahmi during the Vedic age, given the quantity and quality of the Vedic literature, are divided. While Falk (1993) disagrees with Goody,[113] while Walter Ong and John Hartley (2012) concur,[114] 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 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).[67]

It is generally well known also that the Hindu science, after a however long history of elaboration, became fixed for all future time in the system of a single grammarian, named Panini (believed, though on grounds far from convincing, to have lived two or three centuries before the Christian era). Panini's work has been commented without end, corrected in minor points, condensed, re-cast in arrangement, but never rebelled against or superseded; and it is still the authoritative standard of good Sanskrit. Its form of presentation is of the strangest: a miracle of ingenuity, but of perverse and wasted ingenuity. The only object aimed at in it is brevity, at the sacrifice of everything else — of order, of clearness, of even intelligibility except by the aid of keys and commentaries and lists of words, which then are furnished in profusion. To determine a grammatical point out of it is something like constructing a passage of text out of an index verborum [An index of words.]: if you are sure that you have gathered up every word that belongs in the passage, and have put them all in the right order, you have got the right reading; but only then. If you have mastered Panini sufficiently to bring to bear upon the given point every rule that relates to it, and in due succession, you have settled the case; but that is no easy task. For example, it takes nine mutually limitative rules, from all parts of the text-book, to determine whether a certain aorist shall be ajgarisam or ajagarisam (the case is reported in the preface to Muller's grammar): there is lacking only a tenth rule, to tell us that the whole word is a false and never-used formation. Since there is nothing to show how far the application of a rule reaches, there are provided treatises of laws of interpretation to be applied to them; but there is a residual rule underlying and determining the whole: that both the grammar and the laws of interpretation must be so construed as to yield good and acceptable forms, and not otherwise — and this implies (if that were needed) a condemnation of the whole mode of presentation of the system as a failure.

Theoretically, all that is prescribed and allowed by Panini and his accepted commentators is Sanskrit, and nothing else is entitled to the name. The young pandit, then, is expected to master the system and to govern his Sanskrit speech and writing by it. This he does, with immense pains and labor, then naturally valuing the acquisition in part according to what it has cost him. The same course was followed by those European scholars who had to make themselves the pupils of Hindu teachers, in acquiring Sanskrit for the benefit of Europe; and (as was said above) they did so to their very great advantage. Equally as a matter of course, the same must still be done by any one who studies in India, who has to deal with the native scholars, win their confidence and respect, and gain their aid: they must be met upon their own ground. But it is a question, and one of no slight practical importance, how far Western scholars in general are to be held to this method: whether Panini is for us also the law of Sanskrit usage; whether we are to study the native Hindu grammar in order to learn Sanskrit.

There would be less reason for asking this question, if the native grammar were really the instrumentality by which the conserving tradition of the old language had been carried on. But that is a thing both in itself impossible and proved by the facts of the case to be untrue. No one ever mastered a list of roots with rules for their extension and inflection, and then went to work to construct texts upon that basis. Rather, the transmission of Sanskrit has been like the transmission of any highly cultivated language, only with differences of degree. The learner has his models which he imitates; he makes his speech after the example of that of his teacher, only under the constant government of grammatical rule, enforced by the requirement to justify out of the grammar any word or form as to which a question is raised. Thus the language has moved on by its own inertia, only falling, with further removal from its natural vernacular basis, more and more passively and mechanically into the hands of the grammarians. All this is like the propagation of literary English or German; only that here there is much more of a vernacular usage that shows itself able to override and modify the rules of grammar. It is yet more closely like the propagation of Latin; only that here the imitation of previous usage is frankly acknowledged as the guide, there being no iron system of grammar to assume to take its place. That such has really been the history of the later or classical Sanskrit is sufficiently shown by the facts. There is no absolute coincidence between it and the language which Panini teaches. The former, indeed, includes little that the grammarians forbid; but, on the other hand, it lacks a great deal that they allow or prescribe. The difference between the two is so great that Benfey, a scholar deeply versed in the Hindu science, calls it a grammar without a corresponding language, as he calls the pre-classical dialects a language without a grammar.1 [Einleitung in die Grammatik der vedischen Sprache, 1874, pp. 3, 4.] If such a statement can be made with any reason, it would appear that there is to be assumed, as the subject of Hindu grammatical science, a peculiar dialect of Sanskrit, which we may call the grammarians' Sanskrit, different both from the pre-classical dialects and from the classical, and standing either between them or beside them in the general history of Indian language. And it becomes a matter of importance to us to ascertain what this grammarians' Sanskrit is, how it stands related to the other varieties of Sanskrit, and whether it is entitled to be the leading object of our Sanskrit study. Such questions must be settled by a comparison of the dialect referred to with the other dialects, and of them with one another. And it will be found, upon such comparison, that the earlier and later forms of the Vedic dialect, the dialects of the Brahmanas and Sutras, and the classical Sanskrit, stand in a filial relation, each to its predecessor, are nearly or quite successive forms of the same language; while the grammarians' Sanskrit, as distinguished from them, is a thing of grammatical rule merely, having never had any real existence as a language, and being on the whole unknown in practice to even the most modern pandits.

-- The Study of Hindu Grammar and the Study of Sanskrit, by William Dwight Whitney

Origin of the name

Several divergent accounts of the origin of the name "Brahmi" (ब्राह्मी) appear in history. Some Buddhist sutras such as the Lalitavistara Sūtra (possibly 4th century CE), list Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭī as some of the sixty-four scripts the Buddha knew as a child.[115] Several Sutras of Jainism such as the Vyakhya Pragyapti Sutra, the Samvayanga Sutra and the Pragyapna Sutra of the Jain Agamas include a list of 18 writing scripts known to teachers before the Mahavira was born, the first one being Bambhi (बाम्भी) in the original Prakrit, which has been interpreted as "Bramhi".[115] The Brahmi script is missing from the 18 script list in the surviving versions of two later Jaina Sutras, namely the Vishesha Avashyaka and the Kalpa Sutra. Jain legend recounts that 18 writing scripts were taught by their first Tirthankara Rishabhanatha to his daughter Bambhi (बाम्भी), she emphasized बाम्भी as the main script as she taught others, and therefore the name Brahmi for the script comes after her name.[116] There is no early epigraphic proof for the expression "Brahmi script". Ashoka himself when he created the first known inscriptions in the new script in the 3rd century BCE, used the expression Dhaṃma Lipi (Prakrit in the Brahmi script: [x], "Inscriptions of the Dharma") but this is not to describe the script of his own Edicts.[/size][/b][117]

A Chinese Buddhist account of the 6th century CE attributes 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.[118][119]

The term Brahmi (बाम्भी in original) appears in Indian texts in different contexts. According to the rules of the Sanskrit language, it is a feminine word which literally means "of Brahma" or "the female energy of the Brahman".[120] In other 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".[121]

History


The Prakrit word "Dha-ṃ-ma" (Dharma) in the Brahmi script, as inscribed by Ashoka in his Edicts. Topra Kalan pillar, now in New Delhi (3rd century BCE).

The earliest known full inscriptions of Brahmi are in Prakrit, dated to be from the 3rd to 1st centuries BCE, particularly the Edicts of Ashoka, c. 250 BCE.[122] Prakrit records predominate the epigraphic records discovered in the Indian subcontinent through about the 1st century CE.[122] The earliest known Brahmi inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the few discovered in Ayodhya, Ghosundi and Hathibada (both near Chittorgarh).[???][123][note 5]

Sanskrit is not attested in any inscriptions or manuscripts until the Common Era or at most a few decades before it.66 [Bronkhorst (2011: 46, 50), who cites Salomon (1998:86) on the existence of four inscriptions ascribed by some, including Salomon, to the first century BC; otherwise the earliest inscriptions in Sanskrit are from Mathura in the first and second centuries AD (Salomon 1998: 87).]

-- Appendix C: On The Early Indian Inscriptions, Excerpt from Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith

Ancient inscriptions have also been discovered in many North and Central Indian sites, occasionally in South India as well, that are in hybrid Sanskrit-Prakrit language called "Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit".[note 6] These are dated by modern techniques to between the 1st and 4th centuries CE.[126][127] Surviving ancient records of the Brahmi script are found as engravings on pillars, temple walls, metal plates, terracotta, coins, crystals and manuscripts.[128][ Salomon 1998, pp. 122–123, 129–131, 262–307. Salomon, Richard (1998). Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-535666-3.] [127] [Salomon 1996, p. 377. Salomon, Richard (1995). "On the Origin of the Early Indian Scripts". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 115 (2): 271–279. doi:10.2307/604670. JSTOR 604670.]

One of the most important recent developments regarding the origin of Brahmi has been the discovery of Brahmi characters inscribed on fragments of pottery from the trading town of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, which have been dated between the sixth to early fourth century BCE.[129] [Salomon 1998, pp. 12–13. Salomon, Richard (1998). Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-535666-3.] Coningham et al. in 1996,[130] [Coningham, R.A.E.; Allchin, F.R.; Batt, C.M.; Lucy, D. (22 December 2008). "Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 6 (1): 73. doi:10.1017/S0959774300001608. S2CID 161465267.] stated that the script on the Anuradhapura inscriptions is Brahmi, but stated that the language was a Prakrit rather than a Dravidian language. The historical sequence of the specimens was interpreted to indicate an evolution in the level of stylistic refinement over several centuries, and they concluded that the Brahmi script may have arisen out of "mercantile involvement" and that the growth of trade networks in Sri Lanka was correlated with its first appearance in the area.[130] Salomon in his 1998 review states that the Anuradhapura inscriptions support the theory that Brahmi existed in South Asia before the Mauryan times, with studies favoring the 4th century BCE, but some doubts remain whether the inscriptions might be intrusive into the potsherds from a later date.[129] Indologist Harry Falk has argued that the Edicts of Ashoka represent an older stage of Brahmi, whereas certain paleographic features of even the earliest Anuradhapura inscriptions are likely to be later, and so these potsherds may date from after 250 BCE.[131] [ Falk, H. (2014). "Owner's graffiti on pottery from Tissamaharama Archived 2021-11-10 at the Wayback Machine", in Zeitchriftfür Archäeologie Aussereuropäischer Kulturen. 6. pp.45–47.]

More recently in 2013, Rajan and Yatheeskumar published excavations at Porunthal and Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu, where numerous both Tamil-Brahmi and "Prakrit-Brahmi" inscriptions and fragments have been found.[132] [Rajan prefers the term "Prakrit-Brahmi" to distinguish Prakrit-language Brahmi inscriptions.] Their stratigraphic analysis combined with radiocarbon dates of paddy grains and charcoal samples indicated that inscription contexts date to as far back as the 6th and perhaps 7th centuries BCE.[133] [Rajan, K.; Yatheeskumar, V.P. (2013). "New evidences on scientific dates for Brāhmī Script as revealed from Porunthal and Kodumanal Excavations" (PDF). Prāgdhārā. 21–22: 280–295. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 October 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2016.] As these were published very recently, they have as yet not been commented on extensively in the literature. Indologist Harry Falk has criticized Rajan's claims as "particularly ill-informed"; Falk argues that some of the earliest supposed inscriptions are not Brahmi letters at all, but merely misinterpreted non-linguistic Megalithic graffiti symbols, which were used in South India for several centuries during the pre-literate era.[134] [Falk, H. (2014), p.46, with footnote 2 ]

Megalithic markings, megalithic graffiti marks, megalithic symbols or non-Brahmi symbols are markings found on mostly potsherds found in Central India, South India and Sri Lanka during the Megalithic Iron Age period. A number of scholars have tried to decipher the symbols since 1878, and currently there is no consensus as to whether they constitute undeciphered writing or graffiti or symbols without any syllabic or alphabetic meaning.

-- Megalithic graffiti symbols, by Wikipedia

Decipherment


Classification of Brahmi characters by James Prinsep in March 1834. The structure of Brahmi (consonantal characters with vocalic "inflections") was properly identified, but the individual values of characters remained undetermined, except for four of the vocalic inflections. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Volume 3 (March 1834).[135]


Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen used the bilingual Greek-Brahmi coinage of Indo-Greek king Agathocles to correctly achieve in 1836 the first secure decipherement of several letters of the Brahmi script, which was later completed by James Prinsep.[136][137]


Consonants of the Brahmi script, and evolution down to modern Devanagari, according to James Prinsep, as published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in March 1838. All the letters are correctly deciphered, except for two missing on the right: [x](ś) and [x](ṣ).[138] Vowels and compounds here. All scripts derived from Brahmi are gathered under the term "Brahmic scripts".

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Part 3 of 4

Besides a few inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic (which were only discovered in the 20th century), the Edicts of Ashoka were written in the Brahmi script and sometimes in the Kharoshthi script in the northwest, which had both become extinct around the 4th century CE, and were yet undeciphered at the time the Edicts were discovered and investigated in the 19th century.[139][20]

Inscriptions of the 6th century CE in late Brahmi were already deciphered in 1785 by Charles Wilkins, who published an essentially correct translation of the Gopika Cave Inscription written by the Maukhari king Anantavarman.[140] Wilkins seems to have relied essentially on the similarities with later Brahmic scripts, such as the script of the Pala period and early forms of Devanagari.[140]

Early Brahmi however remained unreadable.[140] Progress resumed in 1834 with the publication of proper facsimiles of the inscriptions on the Allahabad pillar of Ashoka, notably containing Edicts of Ashoka as well as inscriptions by the Gupta Empire ruler Samudragupta.[136]

James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the East India Company, started to analyse the inscriptions and made deductions on the general characteristics of the early Brahmi script essentially relying on statistical methods.[136] This method, published in March 1834, allowed him to classify the characters found in inscriptions, and to clarify the structure of Brahmi as being composed of consonantal characters with vocalic "inflections". He was able to correctly guess four out of five vocalic inflections, but the value of consonants remained unknown.[136] Although this statistical method was modern and innovative, the actual decipherment of the script would have to wait until after the discovery of bilingual inscriptions, a few years later.[141]

The same year, in 1834, some attempts by Rev. J. Stevenson were made to identify intermediate early Brahmi characters from the Karla Caves (circa 1st century CE) based on their similarities with the Gupta script of the Samudragupta inscription of the Allahabad pillar (4th century CE) which had just been published, but this led to a mix of good (about 1/3) and bad guesses, which did not permit proper decipherment of the Brahmi.[142][136]

The next major step towards deciphering the ancient Brahmi script of the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE was made in 1836 by Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen, who used a bilingual Greek-Brahmi coin of Indo-Greek king Agathocles and similarities with the Pali script to correctly and securely identify several Brahmi letters.[20][136][143] The matching legends on the bilingual coins of Agathocles were:

Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ / ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ (Basileōs Agathokleous, "of King Agathocles")
Brahmi legend:[x] (Rajane Agathukleyesa, "King Agathocles").[144]

James Prinsep was then able to complete the decipherment of the Brahmi script.[136][145][20][146] After acknowledging Lassen's first decipherment,[147] Prinsep used a bilingual coin of Indo-Greek king Pantaleon to decipher a few more letters.[143] James Prinsep then analysed a large number of donatory inscriptions on the reliefs in Sanchi, and noted that most of them ended with the same two Brahmi characters: "[x]". Prinsep guessed correctly that they stood for "danam", the Sanskrit word for "gift" or "donation", which permitted to further increase the number of known letters.[136][148] With the help of Ratna Pâla, a Singhalese Pali scholar and linguist, Prinsep then completed the full decipherment of the Brahmi script.[149][150][151][152] In a series of results that he published in March 1838 Prinsep was able to translate the inscriptions on a large number of rock edicts found around India, and provide, according to Richard Salomon, a "virtually perfect" rendering of the full Brahmi alphabet.[153][154]

Southern Brahmi

Ashokan inscriptions are found all over India and a few regional variants have been observed. The Bhattiprolu alphabet, with earliest inscriptions dating from a few decades of Ashoka's reign, is believed to have evolved from a southern variant of the Brahmi alphabet. The language used in these inscriptions, nearly all of which have been found upon Buddhist relics, is exclusively Prakrit, though Kannada and Telugu proper names have been identified in some inscriptions. Twenty-three letters have been identified. The letters ga and sa are similar to Mauryan Brahmi, while bha and da resemble those of modern Kannada and Telugu script.

Tamil-Brahmi is a variant of the Brahmi alphabet that was in use in South India by about 3rd century BCE, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Inscriptions attest their use in parts of Sri Lanka in the same period. The language used in around 70 Southern Brahmi inscriptions discovered in the 20th century have been identified as a Prakrit language.[76][77]

In English, the most widely available set of reproductions of Brahmi texts found in Sri Lanka is Epigraphia Zeylanica; in volume 1 (1976), many of the inscriptions are dated from the 3rd to 2nd century BCE.[155]

Unlike the edicts of Ashoka, however, the majority of the inscriptions from this early period in Sri Lanka are found above caves. The language of Sri Lanka Brahmi inscriptions has been mostly been Prakrit though some Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have also been found, such as the Annaicoddai seal.[156] The earliest widely accepted examples of writing in Brahmi are found in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.[130]

Red Sea and Southeast Asia

The Khuan Luk Pat inscription discovered in Thailand is in Tamil Brahmi script. Its date is uncertain and has been proposed to be from the early centuries of the common era.[157][158] According to Frederick Asher, Tamil Brahmi inscriptions on potsherds have been found in Quseir al-Qadim and in Berenike, Egypt which suggest that merchant and trade activity was flourishing in ancient times between India and the Red Sea region.[158] Additional Tamil Brahmi inscription has been found in Khor Rori region of Oman on an archaeological site storage jar.[158]

Characteristics

Brahmi is usually written from left to right, as in the case of its descendants. However, an early coin found in Eran is inscribed with Brahmi running from right to left, as in Aramaic. Several other instances of variation in the writing direction are known, though directional instability is fairly common in ancient writing systems.[159]


The word 'Brahmi' in modern Brahmi font

Consonants

Brahmi is an abugida, meaning that each letter represents a consonant, while vowels are written with obligatory diacritics called mātrās in Sanskrit, except when the vowels commence a word. When no vowel is written, the vowel /a/ is understood. This "default short a" is a characteristic shared with Kharosthī, though the treatment of vowels differs in other respects.


Brahmi consonants.

Conjunct consonants

See also: Conjunct consonant


Some major conjunct consonants in the Brahmi script.

Special conjunct consonants are used to write consonant clusters such as /pr/ or /rv/. In modern Devanagari the components of a conjunct are written left to right when possible (when the first consonant has a vertical stem that can be removed at the right), whereas in Brahmi characters are joined vertically downwards.


Kya (vertical assembly of consonants "Ka" [x] and "Ya" [x]), as in "Sa-kya-mu-nī " ([x], "Sage of the Shakyas")


Sva (Sa+Va)


Sya (Sa+Ya)


Hmī (Ha+Ma+i+i), as in the word "Brāhmī" ([x]).

Vowels


Brahmi diacritic vowels.


The Brahmi symbol for /ka/, modified to represent different vowels

Vowels following a consonant are inherent or written by diacritics, but initial vowels have dedicated letters. There are three "primary" vowels in Ashokan Brahmi, which each occur in length-contrasted forms: /a/, /i/, /u/; long vowels are derived from the letters for short vowels. There are also four "secondary" vowels that do not have the long-short contrast, /e/, /ai/, /o/, /au/.[160] Note though that the grapheme for /ai/ is derivative from /e/ in a way which parallels the short-long contrast of the primary vowels. However, there are only nine distinct vowel diacritics, as short /a/ is understood if no vowel is written. The initial vowel symbol for /au/ is also apparently lacking in the earliest attested phases, even though it has a diacritic. Ancient sources suggest that there were either 11 or 12 vowels enumerated at the beginning of the character list around the Ashokan era, probably adding either aṃ or aḥ.[161] Later versions of Brahmi add vowels for four syllabic liquids, short and long /ṛ/ and /ḷ/. Chinese sources indicate that these were later inventions by either Nagarjuna or Śarvavarman, a minister of King Hāla.[162]

It has been noted that the basic system of vowel marking common to Brahmi and Kharosthī, in which every consonant is understood to be followed by a vowel, was well suited to Prakrit,[163] but as Brahmi was adapted to other languages, a special notation called the virāma was introduced to indicate the omission of the final vowel. Kharoṣṭhī also differs in that the initial vowel representation has a single generic vowel symbol that is differentiated by diacritics, and long vowels are not distinguished.

The collation order of Brahmi is believed to have been the same as most of its descendant scripts, one based on Shiksha, the traditional Vedic theory of Sanskrit phonology. This begins the list of characters with the initial vowels (starting with a), then lists a subset of the consonants in five phonetically-related groups of five called vargas, and ends with four liquids, three sibilants, and a spirant. Thomas Trautmann attributes much of the popularity of the Brahmic script family to this "splendidly reasoned" system of arrangement.[164]



Punctuation


A 1st century BCE/CE inscription from Sanchi: "Vedisakehi daṃtakārehi rupakaṃmaṃ kataṃ" ([x], "Ivory workers from Vidisha have done the carving").[165]

Punctuation[166] can be perceived as more of an exception than as a general rule in Asokan Brahmi. For instance, distinct spaces in between the words appear frequently in the pillar edicts but not so much in others. ("Pillar edicts" refers to the texts that are inscribed on the stone pillars oftentimes with the intention of making them public.) The idea of writing each word separately was not consistently used.

In the early Brahmi period, the existence of punctuation marks is not very well shown. Each letter has been written independently with some occasional space between words and longer sections.

In the middle period, the system seems to be developing. The use of a dash and a curved horizontal line is found. A lotus (flower) mark seems to mark the end, and a circular mark appears to indicate the full stop. There seem to be varieties of full stop.

In the late period, the system of interpunctuation marks gets more complicated. For instance, there are four different forms of vertically slanted double dashes that resemble "//" to mark the completion of the composition. Despite all the decorative signs that were available during the late period, the signs remained fairly simple in the inscriptions. One of the possible reasons may be that engraving is restricted while writing is not.

Baums identifies seven different punctuation marks needed for computer representation of Brahmi:[167]
• single ([x]) and double ([x]) vertical bar (danda) – delimiting clauses and verses
• dot (x[), double dot ([x]), and horizontal line (x[) – delimiting shorter textual units
• crescent ([x]) and lotus ([x]) – delimiting larger textual units

Evolution of the Brahmi script

Brahmi is generally classified in three main types, which represent three main historical stages of its evolution over nearly a millennium:[168]
• Early Brahmi or "Ashokan Brahmi" (3rd-1st century BCE)
• Middle Brahmi or "Kushana Brahmi" (1st-3rd centuries CE)
• Late Brahmi or "Gupta Brahmi", also called Gupta script (4th-6th centuries CE)

Evolution of the Brahmi script[169]

Early Brahmi or "Ashokan Brahmi" (3rd–1st century BCE)

Early "Ashokan" Brahmi (3rd–1st century BCE) is regular and geometric, and organized in a very rational fashion:

Independent vowels


Early Brahmi vowel diacritics.

Letter / IAST and Sanskrit IPA / Mātrā / IAST and
Sanskrit IPA / Letter / IAST and Sanskrit IPA / Mātrā / IAST and Sanskrit IPA

Consonants

The final letter does not fit into the table above; it is [x] ḷa.

Unicode and digitization

Main article: Brahmi (Unicode block)

Early Ashokan Brahmi was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2010 with the release of version 6.0.

The Unicode block for Brahmi is U+11000–U+1107F. It lies within Supplementary Multilingual Plane. As of August 2014 there are two non-commercially available fonts that support Brahmi, namely Noto Sans Brahmi commissioned by Google which covers all the characters,[174] and Adinatha which only covers Tamil Brahmi.[175] Segoe UI Historic, tied in with Windows 10, also features Brahmi glyphs.[176]

The Sanskrit word for Brahmi, ब्राह्मी (IAST Brāhmī) in the Brahmi script should be rendered as follows: [x].

Brahmi[1][2]

Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)



Notes:
1. As of Unicode version 14.0
2. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Some famous inscriptions in the Early Brahmi script

See also: Early Indian epigraphy

The Brahmi script was the medium for some of the most famous inscriptions of ancient India, starting with the Edicts of Ashoka, circa 250 BCE.

Birthplace of the historical Buddha

Main article: Lumbini pillar inscription

In a particularly famous Edict, the Rummindei Edict in Lumbini, Nepal, Ashoka describes his visit in the 21st year of his reign, and designates Lumbini as the birthplace of the Buddha. He also, for the first time in historical records, uses the epithet "Sakyamuni" (Sage of the Shakyas), to describe the Buddha.[177]

Rummindei pillar, inscription of Ashoka (circa 248 BCE)

Translation (English)

When King Devanampriya Priyadarsin had been anointed twenty years, he came himself and worshipped (this spot) because the Buddha Shakyamuni was born here. (He) both caused to be made a stone bearing a horse (?) and caused a stone pillar to be set up, (in order to show) that the Blessed One was born here. (He) made the village of Lummini free of taxes, and paying (only) an eighth share (of the produce).

— The Rummindei Edict, one of the Minor Pillar Edicts of Ashoka.[177]

As for other well-known but evidently spurious "Asokan" inscriptions, note that the "Minor Pillar Inscription" at Lumbini not only mentions "Buddha" (as does, otherwise uniquely, the Calcutta-Bairat Inscription), it explicitly calls him Sakyamuni 'the Sage of the Scythians (Sakas)',64 [The Lumbini Inscription, line 3, has Budhe jate Sakyamuni ti "the Buddha Sakyamuni was born here" (Hultzsch 1925: 164).] who it says was born in Lumbini.65 [See the discussion of this and other related issues in Phelps (2008).] The use of the Sanskrit form of his epithet, Sakyamuni, rather than the Prakrit form, Sakamuni, is astounding and otherwise unattested until the late Gandhari documents; that fact alone rules out ascription to such an early period. But it is doubly astounding because this Sanskritism occurs in a text otherwise written completely in Mauryan Prakrit and Brahmi script. What is a Sanskrit form doing there? Sanskrit is not attested in any inscriptions or manuscripts until the Common Era or at most a few decades before it.66 [Bronkhorst (2011: 46, 50), who cites Salomon (1998:86) on the existence of four inscriptions ascribed by some, including Salomon, to the first century BC; otherwise the earliest inscriptions in Sanskrit are from Mathura in the first and second centuries AD (Salomon 1998: 87).]

-- Appendix C: On The Early Indian Inscriptions, Excerpt from Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith

Transliteration (original Brahmi script)

Transliteration is the process of transferring a word from the alphabet of one language to another. ... Unlike a translation, which tells you the meaning of a word that's written in another language, a transliteration only gives you an idea of how the word is pronounced, by putting it in a familiar alphabet.

-- Transliteration, by vocabulary.com

[x]
Devānaṃpiyena Piyadasina lājina vīsati-vasābhisitena
[x]
atana āgāca mahīyite hida Budhe jāte Sakyamuni ti
[x]
silā vigaḍabhī cā kālāpita silā-thabhe ca usapāpite
[x]
hida Bhagavaṃ jāte ti Luṃmini-gāme ubalike kaṭe
[x]
aṭha-bhāgiye ca

— Adapted from transliteration by E. Hultzsch,[177]

Inscription (Prakrit in the Brahmi script)


The Rummindei pillar edict in Lumbini.

Heliodorus Pillar inscription

The Heliodorus pillar is a stone column that was erected around 113 BCE in central India[178] in Vidisha near modern Besnagar, by Heliodorus, an ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas in Taxila[179] to the court of the Shunga king Bhagabhadra. Historically, it is one of the earliest known inscriptions related to the Vaishnavism in India.[180][181][182]

Heliodorus pillar inscription (circa 113 BCE)

Translation (English)

This Garuda-standard of Vāsudeva, the God of Gods
was erected here by the devotee Heliodoros,
the son of Dion, a man of Taxila,
sent by the Great Yona King Antialkidas, as ambassador
to King Kasiputra Bhagabhadra,
the Savior son of the princess from Varanasi,
in the fourteenth year of his reign. [183]

Three immortal precepts (footsteps)... when practiced
lead to heaven: self-restraint, charity, consciousness

Transliteration (original Brahmi script)

[x]
Devadevasa Vā[sude]vasa Garuḍadhvaje ayaṃ
[x]
karito i[a] Heliodoreṇa bhāga-
[x]
vatena Diyasa putreṇa Takhkhasilākena
[x]
Yonadatena agatena mahārājasa
[x]
Aṃtalikitasa upa[ṃ]tā samkāsam-raño
[x]
Kāsīput[r]asa [Bh]āgabhadrasa trātārasa
[x]
vasena [catu]daseṃna rājena vadhamānasa
[x]
Trini amuta[x]pādāni (i me) (su)anuthitāni
[x]
neyamti sva(gam) dama cāga apramāda

— Adapted from transliterations by E. J. Rapson,[184] Sukthankar,[185] Richard Salomon,[186] and Shane Wallace.[179]

[b]Inscription (Prakrit in the Brahmi script)[179]


Heliodorus pillar rubbing (inverted colors). The text is in the Brahmi script of the Sunga period.[186] For a recent photograph.

Middle Brahmi or "Kushana Brahmi" (1st–3rd centuries CE)

Middle Brahmi or "Kushana Brahmi" was in use from the 1st-3rd centuries CE. It is more rounded than its predecessor, and introduces some significant variations in shapes. Several characters ([x]and [x]), classified as vowels, were added during the "Middle Brahmi" period between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, in order to accommodate the transcription of Sanskrit:[187][188]

Independent vowels


Middle Brahmi vowel diacritics

Letter / IAST and Sanskrit IPA / Letter / IAST and Sanskrit IPA

Consonants

Examples


Early/Middle Brahmi legend on the coinage of Chastana: RAJNO MAHAKSHATRAPASA GHSAMOTIKAPUTRASA CHASHTANASA "Of the Rajah, the Great Satrap, son of Ghsamotika, Chashtana". 1st–2nd century CE.[189]


Inscribed Kushan statue of Western Satraps King Chastana, with inscription "Shastana" in Middle Brahmi script of the Kushan period ([x] Sa-sta-na).[190]
Here, sta [x] is the conjunct consonant of sa [x] and ta [x], vertically combined. Circa 100 CE.


The rulers of the Western Satraps were called Mahākhatapa ("Great Satrap") in their Brahmi script inscriptions, as here in a dedicatory inscription by Prime Minister Ayama in the name of his ruler Nahapana, Manmodi Caves, circa 100 CE.[191]


Nasik Cave inscription No.10. of Nahapana, Cave No.10.

Late Brahmi or "Gupta Brahmi" (4th–6th centuries CE)

Main article: Gupta script

See also: Gupta Empire

Independent vowels

Late Brahmi vowel diacritics


Gupta script vowel diacritics (Allahabad standard).[192][193]


Usage examples.[192][193]

Letter / IAST and Sanskrit IPA / Letter / IAST and Sanskrit IPA

Consonants

Examples


Gupta script on stone Kanheri Caves, one of the earliest descendants of Brahmi


The Gopika Cave Inscription of Anantavarman, in the Sanskrit language and using the Gupta script. Barabar Caves, Bihar, or 6th century CE.


Coin of Alchon Huns ruler Mihirakula. Obv: Bust of king, with legend in Gupta script ([x],[194] (Ja)yatu Mihirakula ("Let there be victory to Mihirakula").[195][196][197]


Sanchi inscription of Chandragupta II.

Descendants

Main article: Brahmic scripts


1800 years separate these two inscriptions: Brahmi script of the 3rd century BCE (Edict of Ashoka), and its derivative, 16th century CE Devanagari script (1524 CE), on the Delhi-Topra pillar.

Over the course of a millennium, Brahmi developed into numerous regional scripts. Over time, these regional scripts became associated with the local languages. A Northern Brahmi gave rise to the Gupta script during the Gupta Empire, sometimes also called "Late Brahmi" (used during the 5th century), which in turn diversified into a number of cursives during the Middle Ages, including the Siddhaṃ script (6th century) and Śāradā script (9th century).

Southern Brahmi gave rise to the Grantha alphabet (6th century), the Vatteluttu alphabet (8th century), and due to the contact of Hinduism with Southeast Asia during the early centuries CE, also gave rise to the Baybayin in the Philippines, the Javanese script in Indonesia, the Khmer alphabet in Cambodia, and the Old Mon script in Burma.

Also in the Brahmic family of scripts are several Central Asian scripts such as Tibetan, Tocharian (also called slanting Brahmi), and the one used to write the Saka language.

The Brahmi script also evolved into the Nagari script which in turn evolved into Devanagari and Nandinagari. Both were used to write Sanskrit, until the latter was merged into the former. The resulting script is widely adopted across India to write Sanskrit, Marathi, Hindi and its dialects, and Konkani.

The arrangement of Brahmi was adopted as the modern order of Japanese kana, though the letters themselves are unrelated.[198]

Evolution from Brahmi to Gupta, and to Devanagari[199]

Possible tangential relationships

Some authors have theorized that some of the basic letters of hangul may have been influenced by the 'Phags-pa script of the Mongol Empire, itself a derivative of the Tibetan alphabet, a Brahmi script (see origin of Hangul).[200][201] However, one of the authors, Gari Ledyard, on whose work much of this theorized connection rests, cautions against giving 'Phags-pa much credit in the development of Hangul:

I have devoted much space and discussion to the role of the Mongol ʼPhags-pa alphabet in the origin of the Korean alphabet, but it should be clear to any reader that in the total picture, that role was quite limited. [...] The origin of the Korean alphabet is, in fact, not a simple matter at all. Those who say it is "based" in ʼPhags-pa are partly right; those who say it is "based" on abstract drawings of articulatory organs are partly right. [...] Nothing would disturb me more, after this study is published, than to discover in a work on the history of writing a statement like the following: "According to recent investigations, the Korean alphabet was derived from the Mongol ʼPhags-pa script" [...] ʼPhags-pa contributed none of the things that make this script perhaps the most remarkable in the world.[202]

[admin]

Part 4 of 4

See also

• Early Indian epigraphy
• Lipi
• Pre-Islamic scripts in Afghanistan
• Sankhalipi
• Tamil-Brahmi
• Annaicoddai seal

Notes

1. Aramaic is written from right to left, as are several early examples of Brahmi.[58][page needed] For example, Brahmi and Aramaic g ([x] and [x] ) and Brahmi and Aramaic t ([x] and [x] ) are nearly identical, as are several other pairs. Bühler also perceived a pattern of derivation in which certain characters were turned upside down, as with pe [x ] and [x] pa, which he attributed to a stylistic preference against top-heavy characters.
2. Bühler notes that other authors derive [x] (cha) from qoph. "M.L." indicates that the letter was used as a mater lectionis in some phase of Phoenician or Aramaic. The matres lectionis functioned as occasional vowel markers to indicate medial and final vowels in the otherwise consonant-only script. Aleph [x] and particularly ʿayin [x] only developed this function in later phases of Phoenician and related scripts, though [x] also sometimes functioned to mark an initial prosthetic (or prothetic) vowel from a very early period.[60]


"Dhrama-Dipi" in Kharosthi script.

3. For example, according to Hultzsch, the first line of the First Edict at Shahbazgarhi (or at Mansehra) reads: "(Ayam) Dhrama-dipi Devanapriyasa Raño likhapitu" ("This Dharma-Edicts was written by King Devanampriya" Inscriptions of Asoka. New Edition by E. Hultzsch (in Sanskrit). 1925. p. 51.

This appears in the reading of Hultzsch's original rubbing of the Kharoshthi inscription of the first line of the First Edict at Shahbazgarhi (here attached, which reads "Di" [x] rather than "Li" [x] ).
4. For example Column IV, Line 89
5. More numerous inscribed Sanskrit records in Brahmi have been found near Mathura and elsewhere, but these are from the 1st century CE onwards.[124]
6. The archeological sites near the northern Indian city of Mathura has been one of the largest source of such ancient inscriptions. Andhau (Gujarat) and Nasik (Maharashtra) are other important sources of Brahmi inscriptions from the 1st century CE.[125]

The Indo-Greeks may have ruled as far as the area of Mathura until sometime in the 1st century BCE: the Maghera inscription, from a village near Mathura, records the dedication of a well "in the one hundred and sixteenth year of the reign of the Yavanas", which could be as late as 70 BCE....

"Menander became the ruler of a kingdom extending along the coast of western India, including the whole of Saurashtra and the harbour Barukaccha. His territory also included Mathura, the Punjab, Gandhara and the Kabul Valley", Bussagli p101)

-- History of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, by Wikipedia

The Hathigumpha inscription of the Kalinga king Kharavela mentions that fearing him, a Yavana (Greek) king or general retreated to Mathura with his demoralized army. The name of the Yavana king is not clear, but it contains three letters, and the middle letter can be read as ma or mi. Some historians, such as R. D. Banerji and K.P. Jayaswal reconstructed the name of the Yavana king as "Dimita", and identified him with Demetrius.

-- Demetrius I of Bactria, by Wikipedia

The amount of power delegated to Apollodotus may show that Demetrius did not expect to be able to return from Bactria to India for some time, and it is unfortunate that there is no hint to be got of what it was which kept him in Bactria. At the same time, the appointment of Demetrius II to take his brother's place as joint-king in Bactria itself is proof that Demetrius did intend to return to India sooner or later; it was obvious that he would have to, if his plan was to be carried out to its conclusion. Whether he really did return can hardly be said with any confidence; the question depends on the much defaced Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela (App. 5), which throws an uncertain light. But if it says what some scholars claim that it says, then he did return and was somewhere in Menander's sphere in the south-east, perhaps at Mathura, when the news came of Eucratides' attack in 168; and certainly it would fit in very well with Eucratides' story if we suppose that Eucratides rather had things his own way at the start and that Demetrius did not come on the scene in Bactria till late in 168 or even 167, especially as it is just possible (p. 100) that he brought Indian troops. If so, what took Demetrius to the south-east was either that Menander was being attacked and needed reinforcements, or else he came to arrange the final campaign in which Apollodotus and Menander were to join hands; in either case he can have had no suspicion of the plans of Antiochus IV....

Alexander had found a country divided between local kings and 'free peoples' (Aratta) under their own oligarchic rule. With the kings accommodation was possible to him, for he understood kings, but it was not common: Taxiles joined him and Porus became reconciled to him, but three others -- Sambos, Musicanus, and the second Paurava king, the 'bad Porus' -- were irreconcilable, and one, Abisares, held aloof. But the free peoples -- the Asvaka of Gandhara, the Cathaei between the Ravi and the Beas, the Malavas (Malli) of the lower Ravi -- all fought him desperately; he did not understand them and they did not understand him. Subsequently this whole complex of states became part of the Mauryan empire, but that empire was nothing organic, merely a covering framework; it functioned while the central power was strong, but easily fell back into its component parts when it became weak, though the component parts might have altered meanwhile. The Greeks met with local kings in Cutch and Surastrene, as has been seen, and at Mathura.

-- Chapter IV: Demetrius and the Invasion of India, Excerpt from The Greeks in Bactria and India, by William Woodthorpe Tarn

The Datta rulers are never mentioned as "king" or Raja on their coins, suggesting that they may only have been local rulers subservient to another king. Since the Indo-Greeks were in control of Mathura around the same time frame (150–50 BCE) according to the Yavanarajya inscription, it is thought that there may have been a sort of tributary relationship between the local Datta or Mitra dynasty and the Indo-Greek kings.[History of Early Stone Sculpture at Mathura: Ca. 150 BCE – 100 CE, Sonya Rhie Quintanilla, BRILL, 2007, p.8–10]

-- Datta dynasty, by Wikipedia

The Mitra dynasty refers to a group of local rulers whose name incorporated the suffix "-mitra" and who are thought to have ruled in the area of Mathura from around 150 BCE to 50 BCE, at the time of Indo-Greek hegemony over the region, and possibly in a tributary relationship with them. They are not known to have been satraps nor kings, and their coins only bear their name without any title, therefore they are sometimes simply called "the Mitra rulers of Mathura". Alternatively, they have been dated from 100 BCE to 20 BCE.

-- Mitra dynasty (Mathura), by Wikipedia

The "Great Stupa" at Sanchi is the oldest structure and was originally commissioned by the emperor Ashoka the Great of the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BCE. Its nucleus was a hemispherical brick structure built over the relics of the Buddha, with a raised terrace encompassing its base, and a railing and stone umbrella on the summit, the chatra, a parasol-like structure symbolizing high rank. The original Stupa only had about half the diameter of today's stupa, which is the result of enlargement by the Sungas.

The Shunga Empire (IAST: Śuṅga) was an ancient Indian dynasty from Magadha that controlled areas of the central and eastern Indian subcontinent from around 184 to 75 BCE.[???]

-- Shunga Empire, by Wikipedia

It was covered in brick, in contrast to the stones that now cover it.

-- Sanchi, by Wikipedia

As for other well-known but evidently spurious "Asokan" inscriptions, note that the "Minor Pillar Inscription" at Lumbini not only mentions "Buddha" (as does, otherwise uniquely, the Calcutta-Bairat Inscription), it explicitly calls him Sakyamuni 'the Sage of the Scythians (Sakas)',64 [The Lumbini Inscription, line 3, has Budhe jate Sakyamuni ti "the Buddha Sakyamuni was born here" (Hultzsch 1925: 164).] who it says was born in Lumbini.65 [See the discussion of this and other related issues in Phelps (2008).] The use of the Sanskrit form of his epithet, Sakyamuni, rather than the Prakrit form, Sakamuni, is astounding and otherwise unattested until the late Gandhari documents; that fact alone rules out ascription to such an early period. But it is doubly astounding because this Sanskritism occurs in a text otherwise written completely in Mauryan Prakrit and Brahmi script. What is a Sanskrit form doing there? Sanskrit is not attested in any inscriptions or manuscripts until the Common Era or at most a few decades before it.66 [Bronkhorst (2011: 46, 50), who cites Salomon (1998:86) on the existence of four inscriptions ascribed by some, including Salomon, to the first century BC; otherwise the earliest inscriptions in Sanskrit are from Mathura in the first and second centuries AD (Salomon 1998: 87).]

-- Appendix C: On The Early Indian Inscriptions, Excerpt from Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith

The traditional idea that all were originally quarried at Chunar, just south of Varanasi and taken to their sites, before or after carving, "can no longer be confidently asserted",15 [Harle, J.C., The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent, 2nd edn. 1994, Yale University Press Pelican History of Art, p. 22] and instead it seems that the columns were carved in two types of stone. Some were of the spotted red and white sandstone from the region of Mathura, the others of buff-colored fine grained hard sandstone usually with small black spots quarried in the Chunar near Varanasi. The uniformity of style in the pillar capitals suggests that they were all sculpted by craftsmen from the same region. It would therefore seem that stone was transported from Mathura and Chunar to the various sites where the pillars have been found, and there was cut and carved by craftsmen.

-- Pillars of Ashoka, by Wikipedia

Indo-Scythians [150 BCE–400 CE] (also called Indo-Sakas) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples of Scythian origin who migrated from Central Asia southward into northern and western regions of ancient India from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 4th century CE.

The first Saka king of India was Maues/Moga (1st century BC) who established Saka power in Gandhara, and Indus Valley. The Indo-Scythians extended their supremacy over north-western India, conquering the Indo-Greeks and other local kingdoms. The Indo-Scythians were apparently subjugated by the Kushan Empire, by either Kujula Kadphises or Kanishka....

The Indo-Scythians ultimately established a kingdom in the northwest, based near Taxila, with two great Satraps, one in Mathura in the east, and one in Surastrene (Gujarat) in the southwest....

In northern India, the Indo-Scythians conquered the area of Mathura over Indian kings around 60 BCE. Some of their satraps were Hagamasha and Hagana, who were in turn followed by the Saca Great Satrap Rajuvula.

The Mathura lion capital, an Indo-Scythian sandstone capital in crude style, from Mathura in northern India, and dated to the 1st century CE, describes in kharoshthi the gift of a stupa with a relic of the Buddha, by Queen Nadasi Kasa, the wife of the Indo-Scythian ruler of Mathura, Rajuvula. The capital also mentions the genealogy of several Indo-Scythian satraps of Mathura.

Rajuvula apparently eliminated the last of the Indo-Greek kings Strato II around 10 CE, and took his capital city, Sagala.

The coinage of the period, such as that of Rajuvula, tends to become very crude and barbarized in style. It is also very much debased, the silver content becoming lower and lower, in exchange for a higher proportion of bronze, an alloying technique (billon) suggesting less than wealthy finances.

The Mathura lion capital inscriptions attest that Mathura fell under the control of the Sakas. The inscriptions contain references to Kharahostes and Queen Ayasia, the "chief queen of the Indo-Scythian ruler of Mathura, satrap Rajuvula." Kharahostes was the son of Arta as is attested by his own coins. Arta is stated to be brother of King Moga or Maues.

The Indo-Scythian satraps of Mathura are sometimes called the "Northern Satraps", in opposition to the "Western Satraps" ruling in Gujarat and Malwa. After Rajuvula, several successors are known to have ruled as vassals to the Kushans, such as the "Great Satrap" Kharapallana and the "Satrap" Vanaspara, who are known from an inscription discovered in Sarnath, and dated to the 3rd year of Kanishka (c. AD 130), in which they were paying allegiance to the Kushans.

-- Indo-Scythians, by Wikipedia

A map of India in the 2nd century AD showing the extent of the Kushan Empire (in yellow) during the reign of Kanishka. Most historians consider the empire to have variously extended as far east as the middle Ganges plain, to Varanasi on the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, or probably even Pataliputra....

Several inscriptions in Sanskrit in the Brahmi script, such as the Mathura inscription of the statue of Vima Kadphises, refer to the Kushan Emperor as "Kushana"....

Rosenfield notes that archaeological evidence of a Kushan rule of long duration is present in an area stretching from Surkh Kotal, Begram, the summer capital of the Kushans, Peshawar, the capital under Kanishka I, Taxila, and Mathura, the winter capital of the Kushans....

During the Kushan Empire, many images of Gandhara share a strong resemblance to the features of Greek, Syrian, Persian and Indian figures. These Western-looking stylistic signatures often include heavy drapery and curly hair, representing a composite (the Greeks, for example, often possessed curly hair).

As the Kushans took control of the area of Mathura as well, the Art of Mathura developed considerably, and free-standing statues of the Buddha came to be mass-produced around this time, possibly encouraged by doctrinal changes in Buddhism allowing to depart from the aniconism that had prevailed in the Buddhist sculptures at Mathura, Bharhut or Sanchi from the end of the 2nd century BC. The artistic cultural influence of kushans declined slowly due to Hellenistic Greek and Indian influences.

-- Kushan Empire, by Wikipedia

GAUTAMA BUDDHA, THE SCYTHIAN SAGE

The dates of Gautama Buddha are not recorded in any reliable historical source, and the traditional dates are calculated on unbelievable lineages…

His personal name, Gautama, is evidently earliest recorded in the Chuangtzu, a Chinese work from the late fourth to third centuries BC….

His epithet Sakamuni (later Sanskritized as Sakyamuni), 'Sage of the Scythians ("Sakas")', is unattested in the genuine Mauryan inscriptions or the Pali Canon.

It is earliest attested, as Sakamuni, in the Gandhari Prakrit texts, which date to the first centuries AD (or possibly even the late first century BC)….

It is thus arguable that the epithet could have been applied to the Buddha during the Saka (Saka or "Indo-Scythian") Dynasty -- which dominated northwestern India on and off from approximately the first century BC, continuing into the early centuries AD as satraps or "vassals" under the Kushans -- and that the reason for it was strong support for Buddhism by the Sakas, Indo-Parthians, and Kushans....

The Buddha must have passed away well before 325 to 304 BC, the dates for the appearance of the earliest hard evidence on the existence of Buddhism or elements of Buddhism. This is still three centuries before even the earliest Gandhari texts and the traditional (high) date of the Pali Canon. Despite widespread belief that the latter collections of material, both of which are from the Saka-Kushan period or later, represent "Early Buddhism", the work of many scholars has shown that even by internal evidence alone it must be already quite far removed from the earliest Buddhism -- the teachings and practices of the followers of the Buddha himself and the next few generations after him, up to the mid-third century BC.

-- Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith

References

1. Salomon 1998, pp. 11–13.
2. Salomon 1998, p. 20.
3. Salomon 1998, p. 17 Quote: " Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as “lath” or “Lat,” “Southern Aśokan,” “Indian Pali,” “Mauryan,” and so on. The application to it of the name Brahmi [sc. lipi], which stands at the head of the Buddhist and Jaina script lists, was first suggested by T[errien] de Lacouperie, who noted that in the Chinese Buddhist encyclopedia Fa yiian chu lin the scripts whose names corresponded to the Brahmi and Kharosthi of the Lalitavistara are described as written from left to right and from right to left, respectively. He therefore suggested that the name Brahmi should refer to the left-to-right “Indo-Pali” script of the Aśokan pillar inscriptions, and Kharosthi to the right-to-left “Bactro-Pali” script of the rock inscriptions from the northwest."
4. Salomon 1998, p. 17 Quote: "... the Brahmi script appeared in the third century B.c. as a fully developed pan-Indian national script (sometimes used as a second script even within the proper territory of Kharosthi in the north-west) and continued to play this role throughout history, becoming the parent of all of the modern Indic scripts both within India and beyond. Thus, with the exceptions of the Indus script in the protohistoric period, of Kharosthi in the northwest in the ancient period, and of the Perso–Arabic and European scripts in the medieval and modern periods, respectively, the history of writing in India is virtually synonymous with the history of the Brahmi script and its derivatives.
5. Salomon 1998, pp. 42–46 "The presumptive homeland and principal area of the use of Kharoṣțhī script ... was the territory along and around the Indus, Swat, and Kabul River Valleys of the modern North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan; ... [pp. 42–44] In short, there is no clear evidence to allow us to specify the date of the origin of Kharoṣțhī with any more precision than sometime in the fourth, or possibly the fifth, century B.C. [p. 46]"
6. Salomon 1998, pp. 19–30.
7. Salomon, Richard (1995). "On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 115 (2): 271–279. doi:10.2307/604670. JSTOR 604670. Archived from the original on 2019-05-22. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
8. "Brahmi". Encyclopedia Britannica. 1999. Among the many descendants of Brāhmī are Devanāgarī (used for Sanskrit, Hindi and other Indian languages), the Bengali and Gujarati scripts and those of the Dravidian languages
9. Beckwith, Christopher I. (2017). Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. Princeton University Press. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-691-17632-1.
10. Lahiri, Nayanjot (2015), Ashoka in Ancient India, Harvard University Press, pp. 14, 15, ISBN 978-0-674-05777-7, Facsimiles of the objects and writings unearthed—from pillars in North India to rocks in Orissa and Gujarat—found their way to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The meetings and publications of the Society provided an unusually fertile environment for innovative speculation, with scholars constantly exchanging notes on, for instance, how they had deciphered the Brahmi letters of various epigraphs from Samudragupta’s Allahabad pillar inscription, to the Karle cave inscriptions. The Eureka moment came in 1837 when James Prinsep, a brilliant secretary of the Asiatic Society, building on earlier pools of epigraphic knowledge, very quickly uncovered the key to the extinct Mauryan Brahmi script. Prinsep unlocked Ashoka; his deciphering of the script made it possible to read the inscriptions.
11. Thapar, Romila (2004), Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, University of California Press, pp. 11, 178–179, ISBN 978-0-520-24225-8, The nineteenth century saw considerable advances in what came to be called Indology, the study of India by non-Indians using methods of investigation developed by European scholars in the nineteenth century. In India the use of modern techniques to ‘rediscover’ the past came into practice. Among these was the decipherment of the brahmi script, largely by James Prinsep. Many inscriptions pertaining to the early past were written in brahmi, but knowledge of how to read the script had been lost. Since inscriptions form the annals of Indian history, this decipherment was a major advance that led to the gradual unfolding of the past from sources other than religious and literary texts. (p. 11) ... Until about a hundred years ago in India, Ashoka was merely one of the many kings mentioned in the Mauryan dynastic list included in the Puranas. Elsewhere in the Buddhist tradition he was referred to as a chakravartin, ..., a universal monarch but this tradition had become extinct in India after the decline of Buddhism. However, in 1837, James Prinsep deciphered an inscription written in the earliest Indian script since the Harappan, brahmi. There were many inscriptions in which the King referred to himself as Devanampiya Piyadassi (the beloved of the gods, Piyadassi). The name did not tally with any mentioned in the dynastic lists, although it was mentioned in the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka. Slowly the clues were put together but the final confirmation came in 1915, with the discovery of yet another version of the edicts in which the King calls himself Devanampiya Ashoka. (pp. 178-179)
12. Coningham, Robin; Young, Ruth (2015), The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c.6500 BCE–200 CE, Cambridge University Press, pp. 71–72, ISBN 978-0-521-84697-4, Like William Jones, Prinsep was also an important figure within the Asiatic Society and is best known for deciphering early Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. He was something of a polymath, undertaking research into chemistry, meteorology, Indian scriptures, numismatics, archaeology and mineral resources, while fulfilling the role of Assay Master of the East India Company mint in East Bengal (Kolkatta). It was his interest in coins and inscriptions that made him such an important figure in the history of South Asian archaeology, utilising inscribed Indo-Greek coins to decipher Kharosthi and pursuing earlier scholarly work to decipher Brahmi. This work was key to understanding a large part of the Early Historical period in South Asia ...
13. Kopf, David (2021), British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization 1773-1835, Univ of California Press, pp. 265–266, ISBN 978-0-520-36163-8, In 1837, four years after Wilson's departure, James Prinsep, then Secretary of the Asiatic Society, unravelled the mystery of the Brahmi script and thus was able to read the edicts of the great Emperor Asoka. The rediscovery of Buddhist India was the last great achievement of the British orientalists. The later discoveries would be made by Continental Orientalists or by Indians themselves.
14. Verma, Anjali (2018), Women and Society in Early Medieval India: Re-interpreting Epigraphs, London: Routledge, pp. 27–, ISBN 978-0-429-82642-9, In 1836, James Prinsep published a long series of facsimiles of ancient inscriptions, and this series continued in volumes of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The credit for decipherment of the Brahmi script goes to James Prinsep and thereafter Georg Buhler prepared complete and scientific tables of Brahmi and Khrosthi scripts.
15. Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (2016), A History of India, London: Routledge, pp. 39–, ISBN 978-1-317-24212-3, Ashoka’s reign of more than three decades is the first fairly well-documented period of Indian history. Ashoka left us a series of great inscriptions (major rock edicts, minor rock edicts, pillar edicts) which are among the most important records of India’s past. Ever since they were discovered and deciphered by the British scholar James Prinsep in the 1830s, several generations of Indologists and historians have studied these inscriptions with great care.
16. Wolpert, Stanley A. (2009), A New History of India, Oxford University Press, p. 62, ISBN 978-0-19-533756-3, James Prinsep, an amateur epigraphist who worked in the British mint in Calcutta, first deciphered the Brāhmi script.
17. Chakrabarti, Pratik (2020), Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity, Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 48–, ISBN 978-1-4214-3874-0, Prinsep, the Orientalist scholar, as the secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1832-39), oversaw one of the most productive periods of numismatic and epigraphic study in nineteenth-century India. Between 1833 and 1838, Prinsep published a series of papers based on Indo-Greek coins and his deciphering of Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts.
18. Salomon 1998, pp. 204–205 "Prinsep came to India in 1819 as assistant to the assay master of the Calcutta Mint and remained until 1838, when he returned to England for reasons of health. During this period Prinsep made a long series of discoveries in the fields of epigraphy and numismatics as well as in the natural sciences and technical fields. But he is best known for his breakthroughs in the decipherment of the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. ... Although Prinsep's final decipherment was ultimately to rely on paleographic and contextual rather than statistical methods, it is still no less a tribute to his genius that he should have thought to apply such modern techniques to his problem."
19. Sircar, D.C. (2017) [1965]. Indian Epigraphy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 11–. ISBN 978-81-208-4103-1. The work of the reconstruction of the early period of Indian history was inaugurated by European scholars in the 18th century. Later on, Indians also became interested in the subject. The credit for the decipherment of early Indian inscriptions, written in the Brahmi and Kharosthi alphabets, which paved the way for epigraphical and historical studies in India, is due to scholars like Prinsep, Lassen, Norris and Cunningham.
20. Garg, Sanjay (2017). "Charles Masson: A footloose antiquarian in Afghanistan and the building up of numismatic collections in museums in India and England". In Himanshu Prabha Ray (ed.). Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections. Taylor & Francis. pp. 181–. ISBN 978-1-351-25274-4.
21. Scharfe, Hartmut (2002). "Kharosti and Brahmi". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 122 (2): 391–393. doi:10.2307/3087634. JSTOR 3087634.
22. Keay 2000, p. 129–131.
23. Falk 1993, p. 106.
24. Rajgor 2007.
25. Trautmann 2006, p. 64.
26. Plofker 2009, pp. 44–45.
27. Plofker 2009, p. 45.
28. Plofker 2009, p. 47"A firm upper bound for the date of this invention is attested by a Sanskrit text of the mid-third century CE, the Yavana-jātaka or “Greek horoscopy” of one Sphujidhvaja, which is a versified form of a translated Greek work on astrology. Some numbers in this text appear in concrete number format"
29. Hayashi 2003, p. 119.
30. Plofker 2007, pp. 396–397.
31. Chhabra, B. Ch. (1970). Sugh Terracotta with Brahmi Barakhadi: appears in the Bulletin National Museum No. 2. New Delhi: National Museum.
32. Georg Bühler (1898). On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet. K.J. Trübner. pp. 6, 14–15, 23, 29., Quote: "(...) a passage of the Lalitavistara which describes the first visit of Prince Siddhartha, the future Buddha, to the writing school..." (page 6); "In the account of Prince Siddhartha's first visit to the writing school, extracted by Professor Terrien de la Couperie from the Chinese translation of the Lalitavistara of 308 AD, there occurs besides the mention of the sixty-four alphabets, known also from the printed Sanskrit text, the utterance of the Master Visvamitra[.]"
33. Salomon 1998, pp. 8–10 with footnotes
34. Nado, Lopon (1982). "The Development of Language in Bhutan". The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. 5 (2): 95. Under different teachers, such as the Brahmin Lipikara and Deva Vidyasinha, he mastered Indian philology and scripts. According to Lalitavistara, there were as many as sixty-four scripts in India.
35. Tsung-i, Jao (1964). "Chinese Sources on Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī". Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. 45 (1/4): 39–47. JSTOR 41682442.
36. Salomon 1998, p. 9.
37. Falk 1993, pp. 109–167.
38. Salomon 1998, pp. 19–20
39. Salomon 1996, p. 378.
40. Bühler 1898, p. 2.
41. Goyal, S. R. (1979). S. P. Gupta; K. S. Ramachandran (eds.). The Origin of Brahmi Script., cited after Salomon (1998).
42. Salomon 1998, p. 19, fn. 42: "there is no doubt some truth in Goyal's comment that some of their views have been affected by 'nationalist bias' and 'imperialist bias,' respectively."
43. Cunningham, Alexander (1877). Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum v. 1: Inscriptions of Asoka. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing. p. 54.
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47. Salomon 1998, pp. 18–24.
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67. "Falk goes too far. It is fair to expect that we believe that Vedic memorisation — though without parallel in any other human society — has been able to preserve very long texts for many centuries without losing a syllable. (...) However, the oral composition of a work as complex as Pāṇini's grammar is not only without parallel in other human cultures, it is without parallel in India itself. (...) It just will not do to state that our difficulty in conceiving any such thing is our problem." Bronkhorst, Johannes (2002). "Literacy and Rationality in Ancient India". Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques. 56 (4): 803–804, 797–831.
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190. "The three letters give us a complete name, which I read as Ṣastana (vide facsimile and cast). Dr. Vogel read it as Mastana but that is incorrect for Ma was always written with a circular or triangular knob below with two slanting lines joining the knob" in Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society. The Society. 1920.
191. Burgess, Jas (1883). Archaeological Survey Of Western India. p. 103.
192. Das Buch der Schrift: Enthaltend die Schriftzeichen und Alphabete aller ... (in German). K. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei. 1880. p. 126.
193. "Gupta Unicode" (PDF).
194. The "h" ( ) is an early variant of the Gupta script
195. Verma, Thakur Prasad (2018). The Imperial Maukharis: History of Imperial Maukharis of Kanauj and Harshavardhana (in Hindi). Notion Press. p. 264. ISBN 9781643248813.
196. Sircar, D. C. (2008). Studies in Indian Coins. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 376. ISBN 9788120829732.
197. Tandon, Pankaj (2013). Notes on the Evolution of Alchon Coins Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society, No. 216, Summer 2013. Oriental Numismatic Society. pp. 24–34. also Coinindia Alchon Coins (for an exact description of this coin type)
198. Smith, Janet S. (Shibamoto) (1996). "Japanese Writing". In Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (eds.). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. pp. 209–17. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
199. Evolutionary chart, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol 7, 1838 [2]
200. Ledyard 1994, p. 336–349.
201. Daniels, Peter T. (Spring 2000). "On Writing Syllables: Three Episodes of Script Transfer" (PDF). Studies in the Linguistic Sciences. 30 (1): 73–86.
202. The Korean language reform of 1446 : the origin, background, and Early History of the Korean Alphabet, Gari Keith Ledyard. University of California, 1966:367–368, 370, 376.

Bibliography

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• Bühler, Georg (1898). On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet. Strassburg K.J. Trübner.
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• Ledyard, Gari (1994). The Korean Language Reform of 1446: The Origin, Background, and Early History of the Korean Alphabet. University Microfilms.
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Further reading

• Buswell Jr., Robert E.; Lopez Jr., David S., eds. (2017). "Brāhmī". The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691157863.
• Hitch, Douglas A. (1989). "BRĀHMĪ". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 4. pp. 432–433.
• Matthews, P. H. (2014). "Brahmi". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-967512-8.
• Red. (2017). "Brahmi-Schrift". Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens Online (in German). Brill Online.