Editing Brahmi script (section)

==History==
[[File:Dhamma inscription.jpg|thumb|The [[Prakrit]] word "''[[Dhamma|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.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=72–81}} Prakrit records predominate the epigraphic records discovered in the Indian subcontinent through about the 1st century CE.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=72–81}} The earliest known Brahmi inscriptions in [[Sanskrit]] are from the 1st century BCE, such as the few discovered in [[Ayodhya]], [[Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions|Ghosundi and Hathibada]] (both near [[Chittorgarh]]).{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=86–87}}{{refn|group=note|More numerous inscribed Sanskrit records in Brahmi have been found near [[Mathura]] and elsewhere, but these are from the 1st century CE onwards.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=87–89}}}} 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".{{refn|group=note|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.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|p=82}}}} These are dated by modern techniques to between the 1st and 4th centuries CE.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=81–84}}{{sfn|Salomon|1996|p=377}} Surviving ancient records of the Brahmi script are found as engravings on pillars, temple walls, metal plates, terracotta, coins, crystals and manuscripts.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=122–123, 129–131, 262–307}}{{sfn|Salomon|1996|p=377}}

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 to between the 6th and the early 4th century BCE,{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=12–13}} although these finds are controversial (see {{slink|Tamil Brahmi|Conflicting theories about origin since 1990s}}). In 1996, Coningham et al.<ref name="Coningham 1996">{{cite journal|last1=Coningham|first1=R.A.E.|last2=Allchin|first2=F.R.|last3=Batt|first3=C.M.|last4=Lucy|first4=D.|title=Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script|journal=Cambridge Archaeological Journal|date=22 December 2008|volume=6|issue=1|pages=73|doi=10.1017/S0959774300001608|s2cid=161465267}}</ref> stated that the script on the Anuradhapura inscriptions is Brahmi, but stated that the language was a [[Prakrit]] rather than a [[Dravidian languages|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 route|trade networks]] in Sri Lanka was correlated with its first appearance in the area.<ref name="Coningham 1996" /> 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.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=12–13}} Indologist Harry Falk has argued that the Edicts of Ashoka represent an older stage of Brahmi, whereas certain [[paleography|paleographic]] features of even the earliest Anuradhapura inscriptions are likely to be later, and so these potsherds may date from after 250 BCE.<ref>Falk, H. (2014). "[https://www.academia.edu/11754083/Owners_graffiti_on_pottery_from_Tissamaharama Owner's graffiti on pottery from Tissamaharama] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211110235610/https://www.academia.edu/11754083/Owners_graffiti_on_pottery_from_Tissamaharama |date=2021-11-10}}", in ''Zeitchriftfür Archäeologie Aussereuropäischer Kulturen''. 6. pp.45–47.</ref>

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.<ref>Rajan prefers the term "Prakrit-Brahmi" to distinguish Prakrit-language Brahmi inscriptions.</ref> Their stratigraphic analysis combined with [[radiocarbon date]]s of paddy grains and charcoal samples indicated that inscription contexts date to as far back as the 6th and perhaps 7th centuries BCE.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Rajan|first1=K.|last2=Yatheeskumar|first2=V.P.|title=New evidences on scientific dates for Brāhmī Script as revealed from Porunthal and Kodumanal Excavations|journal=Prāgdhārā|date=2013|volume=21–22|pages=280–295|url=http://georgehart.net/resources/k-rajan.pmd.pdf|access-date=12 January 2016|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151013210707/http://georgehart.net/resources/k-rajan.pmd.pdf|archive-date=13 October 2015}}</ref> 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.<ref>Falk, H. (2014), p.46, with footnote 2</ref>

=== Calligraphic evolution (3rd century BCE – 1st century CE) ===
[[File:Brahmi script between the3rd century BCE and the 1st century CE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.38|{{center|1=Calligraphical evolution: 3rd century BCE calligraphy (top), and a sample of the new calligraphic style introduced by the [[Indo-Scythians]] (bottom, fragment of the [[Mirzapur stele inscription]], in the vicinity of [[Mathura]], {{circa|15 CE}}).<ref>Buddhist art of Mathurā, Ramesh Chandra Sharma, Agam, 1984 Page 26</ref><ref name="TPV" /><br> The text is ''Svāmisya Mahakṣatrapasya Śudasasya''<br>"Of the Lord and Great Satrap [[Sodasa|Śudāsa]]"<ref name="RCS">{{cite book |last1=Sharma |first1=Ramesh Chandra |title=Buddhist art of Mathurā |date=1984 |publisher=Agam |page=26 |isbn=9780391031401 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5OvVAAAAMAAJ |language=en |access-date=2022-01-26 |archive-date=2022-01-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220126073612/https://books.google.com/books?id=5OvVAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref>}}]]
The calligraphy of the Brahmi script remained virtually unchanged from the time of the [[Maurya Empire]] to the end of the 1st century BCE.<ref name="TPV">{{cite book |last1=Verma |first1=Thakur Prasad |title=The Palaeography Of Brahmi Script |date=1971 |pages=82–85 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.130329/page/n91}}</ref> Around this time, the [[Indo-Scythians]] ("[[Northern Satraps]]"), after their establishment in northern India introduced "revolutionary changes" in the way Brahmi was written.<ref name="TPV" /> In the 1st century BCE, the shape of Brahmi characters became more angular, and the vertical segments of letters were equalized, a phenomenon that is clearly visible in coin legends and that made the script visually more similar to the [[Greek script]].<ref name="TPV" /> In this new typeface, the letter were "neat and well-formed".<ref name="TPV" /> The probable introduction of ink and pen writing, with the characteristic thickenned start of each stroke generated by the usage of ink, was reproduced in the calligraphy of stone inscriptions by the creation of a triangle-shaped form at the beginning of each stroke.<ref name="TPV" />{{sfn|Salomon|1998|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XYrG07qQDxkC&pg=PA34 34]}} This new writing style is particularly visible in the numerous dedicatory inscriptions made in [[Mathura]], in association with devotional works of art.<ref name="TPV" /> This new calligraphy of the Brahmi script was adopted in the rest of the subcontinent of the next half century.<ref name="TPV" /> The "new-pen-style" initiated a rapid evolution of the script from the 1st century CE, with regional variations starting to emerge.<ref name="TPV" />

===Decipherment===
[[File:Classification of Brahmi characters by James Prinsep, March 1834, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Volume 3 (March1834).jpg|thumb|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).<ref name="RSP">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998|pp=204–208}} Equally impressive was Prinsep's arrangement, presented in plate V of JASB 3, of the unknown alphabet, wherein he gave each of the consonantal characters, whose phonetic values were still entirely unknown, with its "five principal inflections", that is, the vowel diacritics. Not only is this table almost perfectly correct in its arrangement, but the phonetic value of the vowels is correctly identified in four out of five cases (plus anusvard); only the vowel sign for i was incorrectly interpreted as o.</ref>]]
[[File:AgathoklesCoinage.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Norwegian scholar [[Christian Lassen]] used the bilingual Greek-Brahmi coinage of [[Indo-Greek]] king [[Agathocles of Bactria|Agathocles]] to correctly achieve in 1836 the first secure decipherment of several letters of the Brahmi script, which was later completed by [[James Prinsep]].<ref name="RS204" /><ref>{{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol V 1836 |page=723 |url=https://archive.org/stream/JournalOfTheAsiaticSocietyOfBengalVolV1836/Jasb1836Full#page/n837 |language=en}}</ref>]]
[[File:Brahmi script consonants according to James Prinsep March 1838.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|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: 𑀰(ś) and 𑀱(ṣ).<ref>{{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. |date=1838 |publisher=Calcutta : Printed at the Baptist Mission Press [etc.] |url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofasiatic775asia#page/n101}}</ref> Vowels and compounds [[:File:Brahmi script vowels according to James Prinsep March 1838.jpg|here]]. All scripts derived from Brahmi are gathered under the term "[[Brahmic scripts]]".]]
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.{{sfn|Salomon |1998 |pp=204–206}}<ref name="RHP" />

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.<ref name="RS202">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998|pp=206–207}}</ref> Wilkins seems to have relied essentially on the similarities with later [[Brahmic scripts]], such as the script of the [[Pala Empire|Pala period]] and early forms of [[Devanagari]].<ref name="RS202" />

Early Brahmi, however, remained unreadable.<ref name="RS202" /> 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]].<ref name="RS204">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998|pp=204–208}}</ref>

[[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.<ref name="RS204" /> 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.<ref name="RS204" /> 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.<ref name="DanielsBright1996">{{cite book |last=Daniels |first=Peter T. |author-link=Peter T. Daniels |editor1=Peter T. Daniels |editor2=William Bright |title=The World's Writing Systems |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ospMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA144 |year=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-507993-7 |pages=141–159, 151 |chapter=Methods of Decipherment |quote=Brahmi: The Brahmi script of Ashokan India (SECTION 30) is another that was deciphered largely on the basis of familiar language and familiar related script—but it was made possible largely because of the industry of young James Prinsep (1799-1840), who inventoried the characters found on the immense pillars left by Ashoka and arranged them in a pattern like that used for teaching the Ethiopian abugida (FIGURE 12). Apparently, there had never been a tradition of laying out the full set of aksharas thus—or anyone, Prinsep said, with a better knowledge of Sanskrit than he had had could have read the inscriptions straight away, instead of after discovering a very minor virtual bilingual a few years later. (p. 151) |access-date=2021-03-20 |archive-date=2021-12-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209214228/https://books.google.com/books?id=ospMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA144 |url-status=live}}</ref>

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 and did not permit proper decipherment of the Brahmi.<ref>{{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. |date=1834 |pages=495–499|publisher=Calcutta : Printed at the Baptist Mission Press [etc.] |url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofasiatic334asia#page/n31}}</ref><ref name="RS204" />

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 of Bactria|Agathocles]] and similarities with the [[Pali]] script to correctly and securely identify several Brahmi letters.<ref name="RHP" /><ref name="RS204" /><ref name="ACXII">{{cite book |title=Four Reports Made During the Years 1862-63-64-65 by Alexander Cunningha M: 1/ by Alexander Cunningham. 1 |date=1871 |publisher=Government central Press |page=XII |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR12 |language=en |access-date=2019-05-25 |archive-date=2021-02-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210226040713/https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR12 |url-status=live}}</ref> The matching legends on the bilingual coins of Agathocles were:

{{blockquote|Greek legend: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ  /  ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ (''[[Basileus|Basileōs]] Agathokleous'', "of King [[Agathocles of Bactria|Agathocles]]")<br />
[[Brahmi]] legend:<big>𑀭𑀚𑀦𑁂  /  𑀅𑀕𑀣𑀼𑀼𑀓𑁆𑀮𑁂𑀬𑁂𑀲</big> (''Rajane Agathukleyesa'', "King Agathocles").<ref>{{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol V 1836 |page=723 |url=https://archive.org/stream/JournalOfTheAsiaticSocietyOfBengalVolV1836/Jasb1836Full#page/n837 |language=en}}</ref>}}

[[James Prinsep]] was then able to complete the decipherment of the Brahmi script.<ref name="RS204" /><ref name="Asiatic Society of Bengal 1837">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/journalasiatics06benggoog |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal|last=Asiatic Society of Bengal|date=1837|others=Oxford University|language=en}}</ref><ref name="RHP" /><ref name="asi.nic.in">[http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_sanchi_detail.asp More details about Buddhist monuments at Sanchi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721165126/http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_sanchi_detail.asp |date=2011-07-21}}, Archaeological Survey of India, 1989.</ref> After acknowledging Lassen's first decipherment,<ref>[[:File:Announcement of the decipherement of Brahmi letters by Lassen in the JASB in 1836.jpg|Extract of Prinsep's communication about Lassen's decipherment]] in {{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol V 1836 |date=1836 |pages=723–724 |url=https://archive.org/stream/JournalOfTheAsiaticSocietyOfBengalVolV1836/Jasb1836Full#page/n837/mode/2up |language=en}}</ref> Prinsep used a bilingual coin of Indo-Greek king [[Pantaleon]] to decipher a few more letters.<ref name="ACXII" /> 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: "𑀤𑀦𑀁". Prinsep guessed correctly that they stood for "''[[:File:Danam letters on Sanchi inscription.jpg|danam]]''", the [[Sanskrit]] word for "gift" or "donation", which permitted to further increase the number of known letters.<ref name="RS204" /><ref>{{cite book |title=Four Reports Made During the Years 1862-63-64-65 by Alexander Cunningha M: 1/ by Alexander Cunningham. 1 |date=1871 |publisher=Government central Press |page=XI |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR11 |language=en |access-date=2019-05-25 |archive-date=2021-08-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815170004/https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR11 |url-status=live}}</ref> With the help of Ratna Pâla, a [[Sinhalese people|Singhalese]] Pali scholar and linguist, Prinsep then completed the full decipherment of the Brahmi script.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Keay |first1=John |title=To cherish and conserve the early years of the archaeological survey of India |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeological Survey of India |pages=30–31 |url=https://archive.org/details/tocherishconserv00keay/page/30}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Four Reports Made During the Years 1862-63-64-65 by Alexander Cunningha M: 1/ by Alexander Cunningham. 1 |date=1871 |publisher=Government central Press |page=XIII |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR13 |language=en |access-date=2019-05-25 |archive-date=2021-06-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602131809/https://books.google.com/books?id=x9jNVBV97kkC&pg=RA1-PR13 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Salomon |1998 |p=207}}<ref>''Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor'', [[Charles Allen (writer)|Charles Allen]], Little, Brown Book Group Limited, 2012</ref> 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 G. Salomon (professor of Asian studies)|Richard Salomon]], a "virtually perfect" rendering of the full Brahmi alphabet.<ref>{{cite book |title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. |date=1838 |publisher=Calcutta : Printed at the Baptist Mission Press [etc.] |pages=219–285 |url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofasiatic775asia#page/n51}}</ref>{{sfn|Salomon |1998 |p=208}}

===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 script|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 script|Kannada]] and [[Telugu script]].

[[Tamil-Brahmi]] is a variant of the Brahmi alphabet that was in use in South India by about the 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.<ref name="mahadevan">{{cite book|author=Iravatham Mahadevan|title=Early Tamil Epigraphy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DZBkAAAAMAAJ|year=2003|publisher=Harvard University Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies|isbn=978-0-674-01227-1|pages=91–94|access-date=2018-10-27|archive-date=2019-12-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191211084615/https://books.google.com/books?id=DZBkAAAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}; {{cite book|author=Iravatham Mahadevan|title=Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MuMZAAAAIAAJ|year=1970|publisher=State Department of Archaeology, Government of Tamil Nadu|pages=1–12|access-date=2018-10-27|archive-date=2021-11-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104042608/https://books.google.com/books?id=MuMZAAAAIAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="spuler1975">{{cite book|author=Bertold Spuler|title=Handbook of Oriental Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kx4uqyts2t4C&pg=PA44|year=1975|publisher=Brill Academic|isbn=90-04-04190-7|page=44|access-date=2018-10-27|archive-date=2021-11-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104042608/https://books.google.com/books?id=Kx4uqyts2t4C&pg=PA44|url-status=live}}</ref>

In English, the most widely available set of reproductions of Brahmi texts found in Sri Lanka is ''Epigraphia Zeylanica''; in volume&nbsp;1 (1976), many of the inscriptions are dated to the 3rd–2nd century BCE.<ref>Epigraphia Zeylanica: 1904–1912, Volume&nbsp;1.  Government of Sri Lanka, 1976.  http://www.royalasiaticsociety.lk/inscriptions/?q=node/12 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826230648/http://www.royalasiaticsociety.lk/inscriptions/?q=node%2F12 |date=2016-08-26}}</ref>

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]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Raghupathy |first=Ponnambalam |title=Early settlements in Jaffna, an archaeological survey |url=http://www.noolaham.org/wiki/index.php?title=Early_Settlements_in_Jaffna&uselang=en |publisher=Raghupathy |year=1987 |location=Madras |access-date=2015-07-19 |archive-date=2012-06-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120611034232/http://www.noolaham.org/wiki/index.php?title=Early_Settlements_in_Jaffna |url-status=live}}</ref> The earliest widely accepted examples of writing in Brahmi are found in [[Anuradhapura]], [[Sri Lanka]].<ref name="Coningham 1996" />

===Red Sea and Southeast Asia===
The Khuan Luk Pat inscription discovered in [[Thailand]] is in Tamil Brahmi script. Its date is uncertain; the first century CE has been proposed.<ref>{{cite book|author=P Shanmugam|editor=Hermann Kulke|display-editors=et al|title=Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to Southeast Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2swhCXJVRzwC&pg=PA208|year=2009|publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies|isbn=978-981-230-937-2|page=208|access-date=2018-10-27|archive-date=2021-12-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211202164519/https://books.google.com/books?id=2swhCXJVRzwC&pg=PA208|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Cobb2018" /> 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.<ref name="Cobb2018" /> Additional Tamil Brahmi inscription has been found in Khor Rori region of [[Oman]] on an archaeological site storage jar.<ref name="Cobb2018">{{cite book|author=Frederick Asher|editor=Matthew Adam Cobb|title=The Indian Ocean Trade in Antiquity: Political, Cultural and Economic Impacts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bPJNtAEACAAJ|year=2018|publisher=Taylor & Francis Group|isbn=978-1-138-73826-3|page=158|access-date=2018-10-27|archive-date=2021-10-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211014160629/https://books.google.com/books?id=bPJNtAEACAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>