Editing Brahmi script (section)

====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).