Editing Brahmi script (section)

====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>