Editing Brahmi script (section)

==Origins==
{{anchor|origin}}
{{Main|Early Indian epigraphy}}

While the contemporary [[Kharosthi|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,{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=19–30}} while Falk provided an overview in 1993.{{sfn|Falk|1993|pp=109–67}}

Early theories proposed a [[pictographic]]-[[acrophonic]] origin for the Brahmi script, on the model of the [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Egyptian hieroglyphic]] script. These ideas however have lost credence, as they are "purely imaginative and speculative".<ref name="RS19">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998|pp=19–20}}</ref> 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.<ref name="RS19" />

[[File:Theory of pictographic-acrophonic origin of the Brahmi script.jpg|upright=1.6|thumb|A later (mistaken) theory of a [[pictographic]]-[[acrophonic]] origin of the Brahmi script, on the model of the [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Egyptian hieroglyphic]] script, by [[Alexander Cunningham]] in 1877.]]
The mainstream view is that Brahmi has an origin in [[Phoenician alphabet|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).{{sfn|Salomon|1996|p=378}}<ref name="Salomon 1995">{{Cite journal|last=Salomon|first=Richard|title=On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article|journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=115|issue=2|year=1995|pages=271–279|doi=10.2307/604670|jstor=604670|url=http://indology.info/papers/salomon/|access-date=2013-06-18|archive-date=2019-05-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190522210705/http://www.indology.info/papers/salomon/|url-status=dead}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=2}}

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)<ref>{{cite book|first=S. R.|last=Goyal|editor1=S. P. Gupta|editor2=K. S. Ramachandran|title=The Origin of Brahmi Script|year=1979}}, apud Salomon (1998).</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|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."</ref> 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 Europe|continental]] scholars.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=2}} 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,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cunningham |first1=Alexander |title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum |volume=1: Inscriptions of Asoka |date=1877 |publisher=Superintendent of Government Printing |location=Calcutta |page=54}}</ref> but Bühler noted that, by 1891, Cunningham considered the origins of the script uncertain.

{{multiple image
| align = left
| total_width=300
| direction =horizontal
| footer = [[Heliodorus pillar]] in the Indian state of [[Madhya Pradesh]]. Installed about 113 BCE and now named after [[Heliodorus (ambassador)|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''.<ref>{{cite book|first1=F. R.|last1=Allchin|first2=George|last2=Erdosy|title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5kI02_zW70C&pg=PA309|year=1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-37695-2|pages=309–10|access-date=2017-03-24 |archive-date=2017-03-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170325040004/https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5kI02_zW70C&pg=PA309 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first=L. A. |last=Waddell |year=1914 |title=Besnagar Pillar Inscription B Re-Interpreted |journal=The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland |volume=46 |issue=4 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=1031–37 |doi=10.1017/S0035869X00047523 |s2cid=163470608 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1850595 |access-date=2022-07-13 |archive-date=2022-08-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220827173147/https://zenodo.org/record/1850595 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| image1 = Heliodorus pillar.jpg
| image2 = Heliodorus pillar inscription.jpg
}}
Most scholars believe that Brahmi was likely derived from or influenced by a Semitic script model, with Aramaic being a leading candidate.<ref name="britbrahmiscript">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brahmi |title=Brahmi |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |year=1999 |quote=Brāhmī, writing system ancestral to all Indian scripts except Kharoṣṭhī. Of Aramaic derivation or inspiration, it can be traced to the 8th or 7th century BCE, when it may have been introduced to Indian merchants by people of Semitic origin.… a coin of the 4th century BCE, discovered in Madhya Pradesh, is inscribed with Brāhmī characters running from right to left. |access-date=2017-03-21 |archive-date=2020-07-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200719005559/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brahmi |url-status=live}}</ref> However, the issue is not settled due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhī, and Brahmi.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=18–24}} 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.<ref name=":0">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998|pp=23, 46–54|oclc=252595337}}</ref>

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.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=18–24}} In contrast, some authors reject the idea of foreign influence.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=19–21 with footnotes}}{{Sfn|Annette Wilke|Oliver Moebus|2011|p=194 with footnote 421}}

[[Bruce Trigger]] states that Brahmi likely emerged from the Aramaic script (with extensive local development), but there is no evidence of a direct common source.<ref name="trigger60">{{cite book |first=Bruce G. |last=Trigger |chapter=Writing Systems: a case study in cultural evolution |title=The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2004 |editor-first=Stephen D. |editor-last=Houston |pages=60–61}}</ref> According to Trigger, Brahmi was in use before the Ashoka pillars, at least by the 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 the third century.<ref name="trigger60" /> According to Salomon, evidence of the use of Kharoṣṭhī is found primarily in Buddhist records and those of Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian, and Kushana dynasty era.<ref name=":0" />

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. {{IPA|/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.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Justeson |first1=J. S. |last2=Stephens |first2=L. D. |title=The evolution of syllabaries from alphabets |journal=Die Sprache |date=1993 |volume=35 |pages=2–46 |url=https://www.academia.edu/6805639 |access-date=2017-12-02 |archive-date=2021-03-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308140529/https://www.academia.edu/6805639/Justeson_Stephens_1994_evolution_of_syllabaries_from_alphabets |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Semitic hypothesis===
{{anchor|semitic}}
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px;"
|+ Bühler's aspirate derivations 
|-style="text-align:center"
|-
! IAST !! {{nowrap|–aspirate}} !! {{nowrap|+aspirate}} !! origin of aspirate according to Bühler
|-
| k/kh || [[File:Brahmi k.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi kh.svg|15px]] || Semitic emphatic ([[qoph]]) 
|-	
| g/gh || [[File:Brahmi g.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi gh.svg|15px]] || Semitic emphatic ([[heth]]) (hook addition in Bhattiprolu script)
|-
| c/ch || [[File:Brahmi c.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi ch.svg|15px]] || curve addition
|-
| j/jh || [[File:Brahmi j.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi jh.svg|15px]] || hook addition with some alteration
|-
| p/ph || [[File:Brahmi p.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi ph.svg|15px]] || curve addition	
|-
| b/bh || [[File:Brahmi b.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi bh.svg|15px]] || hook addition with some alteration	
|-	
| t/th || [[File:Brahmi t.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi th.svg|15px]] || Semitic emphatic ([[teth]])
|-
| d/dh || [[File:Brahmi d.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi dh.svg|15px]] || unaspirated glyph back formed
|-	
| ṭ/ṭh || [[File:Brahmi tt.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi tth.svg|15px]] || unaspirated glyph back formed as if aspirated glyph with curve
|-
| ḍ/ḍh || [[File:Brahmi dd.svg|15px]] || [[File:Brahmi ddh.svg|15px]] || curve addition 
|}
Many scholars link the origin of Brahmi to Semitic script models, particularly Aramaic.{{sfn|Salomon|1996|p=378}} The explanation of how this might have happened, the particular Semitic script, and the chronology of the derivation have been the subject of much debate. Bühler followed [[Albrecht Weber]] in connecting it particularly to Phoenician, and proposed an early 8th century BCE date{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=84–91}} 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.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=23–24}} 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.{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|p=28}}
{{clear}}
The chart below shows the close resemblance that Brahmi has with the first four letters of Semitic script, the first column representing the [[Phoenician alphabet]].

{| class="wikitable" id="letters_chart"
|-
! colspan="2" | Letter
! rowspan="2" | Name<ref>After {{cite book |first=Steven R. |last=Fischer |year=2001 |title=A History of Writing |publisher=Reaction Books |location=London |page=126}}</ref>
! rowspan="2" | [[Phoneme]]
! colspan="2" | Origin
! colspan="12" | Corresponding letter in
|-
! Image
! Text
! [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Hieroglyphs]]
! [[Proto-Sinaitic]]
! [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]]
! [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]]
! [[Syriac alphabet|Syriac]]
! [[Greek alphabet|Greek]]
! Brahmi
|-
| {{Anchor|aleph}}[[File:Phoenician aleph.svg|20px|Aleph]]
| {{huge|{{lang|phn|{{script|Phnx|𐤀}}}}}}
| [[Aleph|ʾālep]]
| ʾ {{IPAblink|ʔ}}
| 𓃾
| [[File:Proto-semiticA-01.svg|20px]]
| {{script|Armi|𐡀}}
| [[Aleph|א]]
| [[Aleph|ܐ]]
| [[Α]]α
| 𑀅

|-
| {{Anchor|Beth|Bet}}[[File:Phoenician beth.svg|20px|Beth]]
| {{huge|{{lang|phn|{{script|Phnx|𐤁}}}}}}
| [[Bet (letter)|bēt]]
| b {{IPAblink|b}}
| 𓉐
| [[File:Proto-semiticB-01.svg|20px]]
| {{script|Armi|𐡁}}
| [[Bet (letter)|ב]]
| [[Bet (letter)|ܒ]]
| [[Beta (letter)|Β]]β
| 𑀩
 
|-
| {{Anchor|Gimel}}[[File:Phoenician gimel.svg|20px|Gimel]]
| {{huge|{{lang|phn|{{script|Phnx|𐤂}}}}}}
| [[gimel|gīml]]
| g {{IPAblink|ɡ}}
| 𓌙
| [[File:Proto-semiticG-01.svg|20px]]
| {{script|Armi|𐡂}}
| [[Gimel|ג]]
| [[Gimel|ܓ]]
| [[Γ]]γ
| 𑀕
 
|-
| {{Anchor|Daleth|Dalet}}[[File:Phoenician daleth.svg|20px|Daleth]]
| {{huge|{{lang|phn|{{script|Phnx|𐤃}}}}}}
| [[Dalet|dālet]]
| d {{IPAblink|d}}
| 𓇯
| [[File:Proto-semiticD-01.svg|20px]] [[File:Proto-semiticD-02.svg|20px]]
| {{script|Armi|𐡃}}
| [[Dalet|ד]]
| [[Dalet|ܕ]]
| [[Δ]]δ
| 𑀥
|}

====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.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=59,68,71,75}}{{refn|group=note|Aramaic is written from right to left, as are several early examples of Brahmi.{{sfn|Salomon|1996}}{{page needed|date=March 2017}} For example, Brahmi and Aramaic ''g'' (𑀕 and 𐡂) and Brahmi and Aramaic ''t'' (𑀢 and 𐡕) 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'' 𐡐 and 𑀧 ''pa'', which he attributed to a stylistic preference against top-heavy characters.}} 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.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=28}}

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 0px;"
 |+ Comparison of North Semitic and Brahmi scripts{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=25}}{{refn|group=note|Bühler notes that other authors derive [[File:Brahmi ch.svg|15px]] (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 𐤀 and particularly ʿayin 𐤏 only developed this function in later phases of Phoenician and related scripts, though 𐤀 also sometimes functioned to mark an initial [[Prothesis (linguistics)|prosthetic (or prothetic)]] vowel from a very early period.<ref>{{cite book|last1= Andersen|first1=F. I.|last2=Freedman|first2=D. N.|title=Studies in Hebrew and Aramaic Orthography|date=1992|publisher=Eisenbrauns|location=Winona Lake, [[Indiana|IN]] |pages=79–90|chapter=Aleph as a vowel in Old Aramaic}}</ref>}}
 |-style="text-align:center"
 ![[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] !! [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]] !! Value !! style="background: #ffaa66;" | Brahmi !! style="background: #ffaa66;" |Value
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician aleph.svg|15px|Aleph]] || [[Image:Aleph.svg|15px]] || * || [[File:Brahmi a.svg|15px]] || a
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician beth.svg|15px|Beth]] || [[Image:Beth.svg|15px]] || b {{IPAblink|b}} || [[File:Brahmi b.svg|15px]] ||ba 
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician gimel.svg|15px|Gimel]] || [[Image:Gimel.svg|15px]] || g {{IPAblink|ɡ}} || [[File:Brahmi g.svg|15px]] || ga
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician daleth.svg|15px|Daleth]]||[[File:daleth.svg|15px]] || d {{IPAblink|d}} || [[File:Brahmi dh.svg|15px]] || dha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician he.svg|15px|He]] || [[Image:he0.svg|15px|He]] || h {{IPAblink|h}}, M.L. || [[File:Brahmi h.svg|15px]] || ha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician waw.svg|15px|Waw]] || [[File:waw.svg|15px|Waw]] || w {{IPAblink|w}}, M.L. || [[File:Brahmi v.svg|15px]] || va 
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician zayin.svg|15px|Zayin]] || [[Image:zayin.svg|15px|Zayin]] ||  z {{IPAblink|z}} || [[File:Brahmi j.svg|15px]] || ja
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician heth.svg|15px|Heth]] || [[Image:heth.svg|15px|Heth]] || ḥ {{IPAblink|ħ}}  || [[File:Brahmi gh.svg|15px]] || gha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician teth.svg|15px|Teth]] ||[[File:teth.svg|15px|Teth]] || ṭ {{IPAblink|tˤ}} || [[File:Brahmi th.svg|15px]] || tha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician yodh.svg|15px|Yodh]] || [[Image:yod.svg|15px|Yodh]] || y {{IPAblink|j}}, M.L. || [[File:Brahmi y.svg|15px]] || ya
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician kaph.svg|15px|Kaph]] || [[File:kaph.svg|15px|Kaph]] || k {{IPAblink|k}} || [[File:Brahmi k.svg|15px]] || ka
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician lamedh.svg|15px|Lamedh]] ||[[Image:lamed.svg|15px|Lamedh]]|| l {{IPAblink|l}} || [[File:Brahmi l.svg|15px]] || la 
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician mem.svg|15px|Mem]] || [[Image:mem.svg|15px|Mem]] || m {{IPAblink|m}} || [[File:Brahmi m.svg|15px]] || ma 
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician nun.svg|15px|Nun]] ||[[Image:nun.svg|15px|Nun]] || n {{IPAblink|n}} || [[File:Brahmi n.svg|15px]] || na
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician samekh.svg|15px|Samekh]] ||[[Image:samekh.svg|15px|Samekh]] || s {{IPAblink|s}} || [[File:Brahmi ss.svg|15px]] || ṣa
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician ayin.svg|15px|Ayin]] ||[[Image:ayin.svg|15px|Ayin]] || ʿ {{IPAblink|ʕ}},  M.L. || [[File:Brahmi e.svg|15px]] || e
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician pe.svg|15px|Pe]] ||[[File:pe0.svg|15px|Pe]] || p {{IPAblink|p}} || [[File:Brahmi p.svg|15px]] || pa
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician sade.svg|15px|Sadek]] ||[[Image:sade_1.svg|15px|Sadek]] || ṣ {{IPAblink|sˤ}} || [[File:Brahmi c.svg|15px]] || ca
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician qoph.svg|15px|Qoph]] ||[[Image:qoph.svg|15px|Qoph]] || q {{IPAblink|q}} || [[File:Brahmi kh.svg|15px]] || kha
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[Image:Phoenician res.svg|15px|Res]] ||[[Image:resh.svg|15px|Res]] || r {{IPAblink|r}} || [[File:Brahmi r.svg|15px]] || ra
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician sin.svg|15px|Sin]] ||[[File:shin.svg|15px|Sin]] || š {{IPAblink|ʃ}} || [[File:Brahmi sh.svg|15px]] || śa
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |[[File:Phoenician taw.svg|15px|Taw]] ||[[File:taw.svg|15px|Taw]]|| t {{IPAblink|t}} || [[File:Brahmi t.svg|15px]] || ta
 |-style="text-align:center"
 |}
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 [[retroflex consonant|phonetic retroflex feature]] that appears among Prakrit [[Dental consonant|dental]] stops, such as {{IAST|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#Consonants|Tibetan alphabet]] for a similar later development.) Aramaic did not have Brahmi's [[aspirated consonant]]s ({{IAST|kh}}, {{IAST|th}}, etc.), whereas Brahmi did not have Aramaic's [[emphatic consonant]]s (''{{transliteration|sem|q, ṭ, ṣ}}''), and it appears that these unneeded emphatic letters filled in for some of Brahmi's aspirates: Aramaic ''q'' for Brahmi ''kh,'' Aramaic ''ṭ'' (Θ) for Brahmi ''th'' ({{IPA|ʘ}}), 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'', [[File:Brahmi h.svg|15px]]), while ''d'' and ''ṭ'' (not to be confused with the Semitic emphatic {{transliteration|sem|ṭ}}) were derived by back formation from ''dh'' and ''ṭh''.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=76–77}}

The attached table lists the correspondences between Brahmi and North Semitic scripts.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=82–83}}{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=25}}

Bühler states that both Phoenician and Brahmi had three voiceless [[sibilant]]s, 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'' [[File:Brahmi c.svg|15px]] to [[tsade]] 𐤑 rather than [[kaph]] 𐤊, 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.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=28}} 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&nbsp;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.{{sfn|Bühler|1898|p=84–91}}

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.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Amalia E. |last=Gnanadesikan |title=The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet |publisher=John Wiley and Sons Ltd. |year=2009 |pages=173–174}}</ref>

Further 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hultzsch|first1=E.|title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum |volume=1: Inscriptions of Asoka|date=1925|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford |page=xlii|url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n44/mode/1up|access-date=8 April 2015}}</ref><ref name="Scharfe 2002" /> 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 language|Elamite]] loanword.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Tavernier|first1=Jan|title=The Case of Elamite Tep-/Tip- and Akkadian Tuppu|journal=Iran|date=2007|volume=45|pages=57–69|url=https://archive.org/stream/Tavernier2007THECASEOFELAMITETEPTIPANDAKKADIANTUPPU/Tavernier%202007%20THE%20CASE%20OF%20ELAMITE%20TEP-TIP-%20AND%20AKKADIAN%20%E1%B9%ACUPPU_djvu.txt|access-date=8 April 2015|doi=10.1080/05786967.2007.11864718|s2cid=191052711}}</ref>
{{clear}}

====Greek-Semitic model hypothesis====
[[File:Coin of the Bactrian King Agathokles.jpg|thumb|upright=1.36|Coin (circa 180 BCE) of [[Agathocles of Bactria|Agathocles]] with Indian deities, in Greek and Brahmi.<br />Obverse: With Greek legend: {{lang|grc|ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ}} (''Basileōs Agathokleous'').<br />Reverse: With [[Brahmi]] legend:{{script|Brah|𑀭𑀸𑀚𑀦𑁂 𑀅𑀕𑀣𑀼𑀓𑁆𑀮𑀬𑁂𑀲}} {{Transliteration|Brah|Rājane Agathukleyesa}}  .<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bopearachchi|first=Osmund|date=1993|title=On the so-called earliest representation of Ganesa|url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/topoi_1161-9473_1993_num_3_2_1479|journal=Topoi. Orient-Occident|volume=3|issue=2|doi=10.3406/topoi.1993.1479|page=436|access-date=2022-07-27|archive-date=2022-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220727044511/https://www.persee.fr/doc/topoi_1161-9473_1993_num_3_2_1479|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Bopearachchi" />]]
Falk's 1993 book {{lang|de|Schrift im Alten Indien}} is a study on writing in ancient India,<ref name="bronkhorst2002lar" />{{sfn|Falk|1993}} and has a section on the origins of Brahmi.{{sfn|Falk|1993|pp=109–167}} 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"{{Sfn|Annette Wilke |Oliver Moebus |2011|p=194, footnote 421}} over time, which he takes to indicate that the script had been recently developed.{{sfn|Falk|1993|pp=109–167}}<ref name="salomon1995rev" /> 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".{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|p=22}} 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".{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=23}}

Falk also dated the origin of Kharoṣṭhī to no earlier than 325&nbsp;BCE, based on a proposed connection to the Greek conquest.{{sfn|Falk|1993|pp=104}} 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".<ref name="salomon1995rev">{{cite journal |last=Salomon |first=Richard |title=Review: On the Origin of the Early Indian Scripts |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=115 |issue=2 |year=1995 |pages=271–278 |doi=10.2307/604670 |jstor=604670}}</ref>

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.<ref name="salomon1995rev" />{{Sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=19–24}}

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".<ref name="scharfe391" />

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.<ref name="HF57" /> 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.<ref name="HF57" /> 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.<ref name="HF57" /> In addition, a new system of combining consonants vertically to represent complex sounds was also developed.<ref name="HF57">{{cite journal |last1=Falk |first1=Harry |title=The Creation and Spread of Scripts in Ancient India |journal=Literacy in Ancient Everyday Life |pages=43–66 (online 57–58) |date=2018 |doi=10.1515/9783110594065-004 |isbn=9783110594065 |s2cid=134470331 |url=https://www.academia.edu/37342561 |language=en |access-date=2020-01-04 |archive-date=2021-12-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211210121509/https://www.academia.edu/37342561 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Indigenous origin hypothesis===

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 (archaeologist)|John Marshall]]<ref>{{cite book|author=John Marshall|title=Mohenjo-daro and the Indus civilization: being an official account of archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-Daro carried out by the government of India between the years 1922 and 1927|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ds_hazstxY4C&pg=PA423|year=1931|publisher=Asian Educational Services|isbn=978-81-206-1179-5|page=423|quote=Langdon also suggested that the Brahmi script was derived from the Indus writing,&nbsp;...|access-date=2016-10-24|archive-date=2020-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727131608/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ds_hazstxY4C&pg=PA423|url-status=live}}</ref> and the Assyriologist [[Stephen Herbert Langdon|Stephen Langdon]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Senarat Paranavitana|author2=Leelananda Prematilleka|author3=Johanna Engelberta van Lohuizen-De Leeuw|title=Studies in South Asian Culture: Senarat Paranavitana Commemoration Volume|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OIceAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119|year=1978|publisher=Brill Academic|isbn=90-04-05455-3|page=119|access-date=2016-10-24|archive-date=2016-12-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161224163153/https://books.google.com/books?id=OIceAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Hunter 1934">{{cite book |title=The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its Connection with Other Scripts |last=Hunter |first=G. R. |year=1934 |location=London |publisher=K. Paul, Trench, Trubner |series=Studies in the history of culture |url=http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00013642/ |access-date=2013-06-20 |archive-date=2021-02-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224171105/https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00013642/00001 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goody |first=Jack |title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1987 |pages=301–302 (note 4)}}</ref> However, Allchin and Erdosy later in 1995 expressed the opinion that there was as yet insufficient evidence to resolve the question.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Allchin |first1=F. Raymond |last2=Erdosy |first2=George |title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995 |page=336}}</ref>

[[File:Brahmi and Indus seal proposed connection.jpg|thumb|left|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]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Georg Feuerstein|author2=Subhash Kak|author3=David Frawley|title=The Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wNlsRZh3rwgC&pg=PA136|year=2005 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-2037-1|pages=136–37|access-date=2016-10-24|archive-date=2020-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727131430/https://books.google.com/books?id=wNlsRZh3rwgC&pg=PA136|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Jack|last=Goody|title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TepXQMN6lfUC&pg=PA301|year=1987 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-33794-6|page=301 fn. 4 |quote=In recent years, I have been leaning towards the view that the Brahmi script had an independent Indian evolution, probably emerging from the breakdown of the old Harappan script in the first half of the second millennium BC.|access-date=2016-10-24 |archive-date=2016-12-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161224153233/https://books.google.com/books?id=TepXQMN6lfUC&pg=PA301 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Paranavitana119>{{cite book|author1=Senarat Paranavitana|author2=Leelananda Prematilleka|author3=Johanna Engelberta van Lohuizen-De Leeuw|title=Studies in South Asian Culture: Senarat Paranavitana Commemoration Volume|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OIceAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119|year=1978 |publisher=Brill Academic|isbn=90-04-05455-3|pages=119–20 with footnotes|access-date=2016-10-24 |archive-date=2016-12-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161224163153/https://books.google.com/books?id=OIceAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA119 |url-status=live}}</ref> Subhash Kak disagrees with the proposed Semitic origins of the script,<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Subhash |last=Kak |title=The evolution of early writing in India |journal=Indian Journal of History of Science |volume=28 |pages=375–88 |year=1994 |url=http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/writ.pdf |access-date=2013-06-19 |archive-date=2021-02-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224150452/https://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/writ.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> instead stating that the interaction between the Indic and the Semitic worlds before the rise of the Semitic scripts might imply a reverse process.<ref>Kak, S. (2005). [http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/Akhenaten.pdf "Akhenaten, Surya, and the Rigveda"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070204161430/http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/Akhenaten.pdf |date=2007-02-04}}. In [[Govind Chandra Pande]] (ed.), ''The Golden Chain'', CRC, 2005.</ref> 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.<ref>Kak, S. (1988). [http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/IndusFreqAnalysis.pdf "A frequency analysis of the Indus script"] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224125037/https://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/IndusFreqAnalysis.pdf |date=2021-02-24}}. ''Cryptologia'' 12: 129–143.</ref> There is also corresponding evidence of continuity in the use of numerals.<ref>Kak, S. (1990). "Indus and Brahmi – further connections". ''Cryptologia'' 14: 169–83</ref> Further support for this continuity comes from statistical analysis of the relationship carried out by Das.<ref>Das, S.; Ahuja, A.; Natarajan, B.; Panigrahi, B. K. (2009). "Multi-objective optimization of Kullback-Leibler divergence between Indus and Brahmi writing". ''World Congress on Nature & Biologically Inspired Computing 2009''. NaBIC 2009. 1282–86. {{ISBN|978-1-4244-5053-4}}</ref>

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.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=20–21}}

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.<ref name="Mahadevan interview">{{cite web|last1=Khan|first1=Omar|title=Mahadevan Interview: Full Text|url=http://www.harappa.com/script/mahadevantext.html|website=Harappa|access-date=4 June 2015|archive-date=4 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211004072737/https://www.harappa.com/script/mahadevantext.html|url-status=live}}</ref> 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 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.<ref>{{cite book |title=Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE |chapter=Inscribed pots, emerging identities |first=Himanshu Prabha |last=Ray |pages=121–122 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2006 |editor=Patrick Olivelle |editor-link=Patrick Olivelle}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Fábri|first1=C. L.|title=The Punch-Marked Coins: A Survival of the Indus Civilization|journal=The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland|date=1935|volume=67|issue=2|pages=307–318|doi=10.1017/S0035869X00086482|jstor=25201111|s2cid=162603638}}</ref>

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.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=21}}

====Foreign origination====
[[File:Ashoka Sarnath Lipii word.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|The word ''[[Lipī]]'' ({{script|Brah|𑀮𑀺𑀧𑀻}}) used by [[Ashoka]] to describe his "[[Edicts of Ashoka|Edicts]]". Brahmi script (Li=<code>{{script|Brah|&#x1102E;}}</code>La+<code>{{script|Brah|&#x1103A;}}</code>i; pī=<code>{{script|Brah|&#x11027;}}</code>Pa+<code>{{script|Brah|&#x1103B;}}</code>ii). The word would be of [[Old Persian]] origin ("Dipi").]]
{{main|Lipi (script)}}
[[Pāṇini]] (6th to 4th century BCE) mentions ''[[Lipi (script)|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''.<ref name="Scharfe 2002">{{cite book |last=Scharfe |first=Hartmut |series=Handbook of Oriental Studies |title=Education in Ancient India |pages=10–12 |year=2002 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |location=Leiden, Netherlands}}</ref>{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=135}} 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,{{refn|group=note|[[File:Dhrama Dipi inscription in the Shahbazgarhi First Edict in the Kharosthi script.jpg|right|120px|thumb|"[[Dharma|Dhrama]]-[[Lipi (script)|Dipi]]" in [[Kharosthi]] script.]]For example, according to Hultzsch, the first line of the First Edict at [[Shahbazgarhi]] (or at [[Mansehra]]) reads: ''(Ayam) [[Dharma|Dhrama]]-[[Lipi (script)|dipi]] Devanapriyasa Raño likhapitu'' ("This Dharma-Edict was written by King [[Devanampriya]]" {{cite book |title=Inscriptions of Asoka |edition=New |first=E. |last=Hultzsch |date=1925 |page=51 |url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n191/mode/2up |language=sa}} 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" [[File:Kharoshthi letter Di.jpg|15px]] rather than "Li" [[File:Kharoshthi letter Li.jpg|15px]]).}} comes from an [[Old Persian]] prototype ''dipî'' also meaning "inscription", which is used for example by [[Darius I]] in his [[Behistun inscription]],{{refn|group=note|For example [https://www.livius.org/sources/content/behistun-persian-text/behistun-t-42/ Column IV, Line 89]}} suggesting borrowing and diffusion.<ref name="Hultzsch">{{cite book|last1=Hultzsch|first1=E.|title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum |volume=1: Inscriptions of Asoka|year=1925 |publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford |page=xlii |url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n44/mode/1up}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sharma |first1=R. S. |title=India's Ancient Past |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199087860 |page=163 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=giwpDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT163 |language=en |access-date=2018-09-19 |archive-date=2021-07-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210713053839/https://books.google.com/books?id=giwpDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT163 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>"The word dipi appears in the Old Persian inscription of Darius I at Behistan (Column IV. 39) having the meaning inscription or 'written document'." {{cite book |title=Proceedings – Indian History Congress |date=2007 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GhVDAAAAYAAJ |language=en |access-date=2018-09-19 |archive-date=2019-12-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191227150154/https://books.google.com/books?id=GhVDAAAAYAAJ |url-status=live |last1=Congress |first1=Indian History}}</ref>{{full citation needed|reason=Author and contribution missing|date=April 2022}}

Scharfe adds that the best evidence is that no script was used or ever known in India, aside from the [[Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley|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",<ref name="Scharfe 2002" /> 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."<ref>{{cite book |last=Scharfe |first=Hartmut |series=Handbook of Oriental Studies |title=Education in Ancient India |page=9 |year=2002 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |location=Leiden, Netherlands}}</ref>

====Megasthenes' observations====
[[Megasthenes]], a Greek ambassador to the Mauryan court in Northeastern India only a quarter century before [[Ashoka]], noted "...&nbsp;and this among a people who have no written laws, who are ignorant even of writing, and regulate everything by memory."<ref>{{cite book|author=Strabo|editor1-last=Hamilton|editor1-first=H. C.|editor2-last=Falconer|editor2-first=W.|title=Geography|date=1903|publisher=George Bell and Sons|location=London|page=15.1.53|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D53|access-date=2021-02-20|archive-date=2021-03-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210312050008/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0239:book=15:chapter=1:section=53|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Rocher|2014}} 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."{{sfn|Timmer|1930|p=245}}

Some proponents of the indigenous origin theories{{Who|date=March 2017}} 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). 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,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Strabo|editor1-last=Hamilton|editor1-first=H. C.|editor2-last=Falconer|editor2-first=W.|title=Geography|date=1903|publisher=George Bell and Sons|location=London|page=15.1.39|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D39|access-date=2021-02-20|archive-date=2021-03-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308152437/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0239:book=15:chapter=1:section=39|url-status=live}}</ref> but this detail does not appear in parallel extracts of Megasthenes found in [[Arrian]] and [[Diodorus Siculus]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sterling|first1=Gregory E.|title=Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke–Acts, and Apologetic Historiography|date=1992|publisher=Brill|page=95}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=McCrindle|first1=J. W. |title=Ancient India As Described By Megasthenes And Arrian |date=1877|publisher=Trübner and Co. |location=London |pages=40, 209|url=https://archive.org/stream/AncientIndiaAsDescribedByMegasthenesAndArrianByMccrindleJ.W |access-date=14 April 2015}}</ref> The implication of writing per se is also not totally clear in the original Greek as the term "[[wiktionary:σύνταξις|συντάξῃ]]" (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.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|p=11}} Strabo himself notes this inconsistency regarding reports on the use of writing in India (XV.i.67).

===Debate on time depth===
[[File:Sanskrit Brhama English alphabets.jpg|thumb|right|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.]]
[[K. R. Norman|Kenneth Norman]] (2005) suggests that Brahmi was devised over a longer period of time predating Ashoka's rule:<ref name="Hinüber1989">{{cite book|author=Oskar von Hinüber|title=Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xiYTAQAAMAAJ|year=1989|publisher=Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur|oclc=22195130|pages=241–245|isbn=9783515056274|access-date=2016-10-24|archive-date=2020-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727133141/https://books.google.com/books?id=xiYTAQAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{blockquote|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 [[radiocarbon dating|Carbon 14]] and [[thermoluminescence dating|Thermo-luminescence dating]], to pre-Ashokan times, perhaps as much as two centuries before Ashoka.<ref>{{cite book|author=Kenneth Roy Norman|title=Buddhist Forum Volume V: Philological Approach to Buddhism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qYyRAgAAQBAJ|year=2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-75154-8|pages=67, 56–57, 65–73|access-date=2016-10-24|archive-date=2020-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727133125/https://books.google.com/books?id=qYyRAgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

However, these finds are controversial, see {{slink|Tamil Brahmi|Conflicting theories about origin since 1990s}}.

He also notes that the variations seen in the [[Edicts of Asoka|Asokan edicts]] would be unlikely to have emerged so quickly if Brahmi had a single origin in the chancelleries of the Mauryan Empire.<ref name="dow">Norman, Kenneth R. "The Development of Writing in India and its Effect upon the Pāli Canon". ''Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Südasiens'' [Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies], vol. 36, 1992, pp. 239–249. {{JSTOR|24010823}}. Accessed 11 May 2020.</ref> 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.<ref name="dow" />

[[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.<ref>{{cite book |author=Jack Goody |title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TepXQMN6lfUC |year=1987 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-33794-6 |pages=110–24 |access-date=2016-10-24 |archive-date=2017-02-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170225013254/https://books.google.com/books?id=TepXQMN6lfUC |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Jack |last=Goody |title=Myth, Ritual and the Oral |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5BJ_PDhpy2QC |year=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-49303-1 |pages=42–47, 65–81 |access-date=2016-10-24 |archive-date=2016-12-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161224160352/https://books.google.com/books?id=5BJ_PDhpy2QC |url-status=live}}</ref>

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,{{Sfn|Annette Wilke|Oliver Moebus|2011|pages=182–183}} while [[Walter J. Ong|Walter Ong]] and John Hartley (2012) concur,<ref>{{cite book |first1=Walter J. |last1=Ong |first2=John |last2=Hartley |title=Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ys8gGDZQHQ4C |year=2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-53837-4 |pages=64–69 |access-date=2016-10-24 |archive-date=2016-12-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161224160827/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ys8gGDZQHQ4C |url-status=live}}</ref> 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).<ref name="bronkhorst2002lar">"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." {{cite journal|last1=Bronkhorst|first1=Johannes|title=Literacy and Rationality in Ancient India|journal=Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques|date=2002|volume=56|issue=4|pages=803–804, 797–831}}</ref>

===Origin of the name===

Several divergent accounts of the origin of the name "Brahmi" (ब्राह्मी) appear in history. 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 meaning literally "of Brahma" or "the female energy of the [[Brahman]]".<ref>{{cite book|first=Arthur Anthony|last=Macdonell|title=Sanskrit English Dictionary (Practical Hand Book)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PzQxel1GueUC|year=2004|publisher=Asian Educational Services|isbn=978-81-206-1779-7|page=200|access-date=2016-10-24|archive-date=2020-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727134741/https://books.google.com/books?id=PzQxel1GueUC|url-status=live}}</ref> In popular [[Hindu]] 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]], the god of Hindu scriptures [[Veda]] and creation".<ref name="mmwbrahmi">Monier Monier Willians (1899), [http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/0700/mw__0775.html ''Brahmi''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225004059/http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/0700/mw__0775.html |date=2021-02-25}}, Oxford University Press, page 742</ref> Later Chinese Buddhist account of the 6th century CE also supports 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 [[Brahmin]]s.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Levi |first=Silvain |title=The Kharostra Country and the Kharostri Writing |journal=The Indian Antiquary |date=1906 |volume=XXXV |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GRwoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA9 |access-date=2016-06-13 |archive-date=2016-12-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161230000557/https://books.google.com/books?id=GRwoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA9 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Monier Monier-Williams|title=Sanskrit-English Dictionary |year=1970|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass (Reprint of Oxford Clarendon)|isbn=978-5-458-25035-1|page=xxvi with footnotes}}</ref>

Alternatively, 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.<ref name="RS8">{{harvnb|Salomon|1998|pp=8–9}}</ref> Several sutras of [[Jainism]] such as the ''Vyakhya Pragyapti Sutra'', the ''Samvayanga Sutra'' and the ''Pragyapna Sutra'' of the [[Jain Agamas (Śvētāmbara)|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".<ref name="RS8" /> The Brahmi script is missing from the list of 18 scripts 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.<ref name="Nagrajji 2003">{{cite book |last=Nagrajji|first=Acharya Shri|title=Āgama Aura Tripiṭaka, Eka Anuśilana: Language and literature|date=2003|publisher=Concept Publishing |location=New Delhi|pages=223–24}}</ref> 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 (script)|lipi]]'' ([[Prakrit]] in the Brahmi script: [[wikt:𑀥𑀁𑀫𑀮𑀺𑀧𑀺|𑀥𑀁𑀫𑀮𑀺𑀧𑀺]], "Inscriptions of the [[Dharma]]") but this is not to describe the script of his own [[Edicts of Ashoka|Edicts]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Singh |first=Upinder |title=A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century |year=2008 |publisher=Pearson Education India |isbn=978-813171120-0 |page=351 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3lUIIYxWkEC&pg=PA351 |access-date=2021-03-19 |archive-date=2021-10-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211028113419/https://books.google.com/books?id=H3lUIIYxWkEC |url-status=live}}</ref>