''Lipi'' ( sa,
लिपि) means 'writing, letters, alphabet', and contextually refers to scripts, the art or manner of writing, or in modified form such as ''lipī'' () to painting, decorating or anointing a surface to express something.
The term ''lipi'' appears in multiple texts of
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
,
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
, and
Jainism
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current ...
, some of which have been dated to the 1st millennium BCE. Section 3.2.21 of
Pāṇini
, era = ;;6th–5th century BCE
, region = Indian philosophy
, main_interests = Grammar, linguistics
, notable_works = ' (Sanskrit#Classical Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit)
, influenced=
, notable_ideas=Descript ...
's ''
Aṣṭādhyāyī
The (Devanagari अष्टाध्यायी) is a grammar that describes a form of an early Indo-Aryan language: Sanskrit.
Authored by Sanskrit philologist and scholar Pāṇini and dated to around 500 BCE, it describes the language as cu ...
'', composed before the mid 4th century BCE, for example, mentions ''lipi'' in the context of writing.
[ However, Panini does not describe or name the Sanskrit script. The '']Arthashastra
The ''Arthashastra'' ( sa, अर्थशास्त्रम्, ) is an Ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, political science, economic policy and military strategy. Kautilya, also identified as Vishnugupta and Chanakya, is ...
'', in section 1.2–5, asserts that ''lipi'' was a part of the education system in ancient India.
According to Buddhist texts such as '' Lalitavistara Sūtra'', young Siddhartha – the future Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
– mastered philology and scripts at a school from Brahmin Lipikara and Deva Vidyasinha.[Lopon Nado (1982), ''The Development of Language in Bhutan'', The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Volume 5, Number 2, page 95, Quote: "Under different teachers, such as the Brahmin Lipikara and Deva Vidyasinha, he mastered Indian philology and scripts. According to Lalitavistara, there were as many as sixty-four scripts in India."][ These texts list the ''lipi'' that the Buddha of ancient India knew as a child, and the list contains sixty-four scripts, though Salomon states that "the historical value of this list is however limited by several factors".] A version of this list of sixty-four ancient Indian scripts is found in the Chinese translation of an Indian Buddhist text, and this translation has been dated to 308 CE.
The canonical texts of Jainism
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current ...
list eighteen ''lipi'', with many names of writing scripts that do not appear in the Buddhist list of sixty-four ''lipi''. The Jaina list of writing scripts in ancient India, states Buhler, is likely "far older" than the Buddhist list.[
]
Terminology
''Lipi'' means 'script, writing, alphabet' both in Sanskrit and Pali
Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...
. A ''lipika'' or ''lipikara'' means 'scribe' or 'one who writes', while ''lipijnana'' and ''lekhā'' means the 'science or art of writing'.[ Related terms such as ''lekhā'' (, related to ''rekhā'' 'line') and ''likh'' () are found in ]Vedic
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
and post-Vedic Sanskrit texts of Hinduism, as well as in regional languages such as the Pali texts of Buddhism.
A term ''lip'' () appears in verse 4.4.23 of the ''Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
The ''Brihadaranyaka Upanishad'' ( sa, बृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्, ) is one of the Principal Upanishads and one of the first Upanishadic scriptures of Hinduism. A key scripture to various schools of Hinduism, the ''Br ...
'', verse 5.10.10 ''Chandogya Upanishad
The ''Chandogya Upanishad'' (Sanskrit: , IAST: ''Chāndogyopaniṣad'') is a Sanskrit text embedded in the Chandogya Brahmana of the Sama Veda of Hinduism.Patrick Olivelle (2014), ''The Early Upanishads'', Oxford University Press; , pp. 166-16 ...
'', verse 2 in ''Isha Upanishad
The ''Isha Upanishad'' (Devanagari: ईशोपनिषद् IAST ') is one of the shortest Upanishads, embedded as the final chapter (''adhyāya'') of the Shukla Yajurveda. It is a ''Mukhya'' (primary, principal) Upanishad, and is known in ...
'' and verse 5.11 in ''Katha Upanishad
The ''Katha Upanishad'' (Sanskrit: कठोपनिषद् or कठ उपनिषद्) (') is one of the ''mukhya'' (primary) Upanishads, embedded in the last eight short sections of the ' school of the Krishna Yajurveda.Paul Deussen. ...
''.[ It means 'smear, stain'. These are the early Upanishads and a part of Vedic literature of Hinduism.]
According to section 4.119 of the ''Unadisutras'' as now received, ''lipi'' is derived from the Sanskrit root ''lip''. The ''Unadisutras'' themselves certainly existed before the time of Pāṇini
, era = ;;6th–5th century BCE
, region = Indian philosophy
, main_interests = Grammar, linguistics
, notable_works = ' (Sanskrit#Classical Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit)
, influenced=
, notable_ideas=Descript ...
,[ instances of later interpolations have been raised by ]Max Müller
Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian ...
, although Müller does not discuss whether the sutra related to ''lipi'' was interpolated.[;]
Salomon in 1995 remarked "The external testimony from literary and other sources on the use of writing in pre-Ashokan India is vague and inconclusive. Alleged evidence of pre-Mauryan
The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...
writing has in the past been found by various scholars in such sources as later Vedic literature, the Pali canon, the early Sanskrit grammatical treatises of Pāṇini's and his successors, and the works of European classical historians. But all of these references are subject in varying degrees to chronological or interpretive problems."
The Edicts of Ashoka
The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire who reigned from 268 BCE to 232 BCE. Ashoka used the exp ...
(circa 250 BCE) use the word ''lipī''. According to some authors, the word ''lipi'', which is spelled ''dipi'' in the two Kharosthi versions of the rock edicts, comes from the Old Persian
Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...
prototype ''dipi'' ( 𐎮𐎡𐎱𐎡), which also means 'inscription', which is used for example by Darius I
Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...
in his Behistun inscription. E. Hultzsch
Eugen Julius Theodor Hultzsch (29 March 1857 – 16 January 1927) was a German indologist and epigraphist who is known for his work in deciphering the inscriptions of Ashoka.
Early life and education
Born in Dresden on 29 March 1857, Hultzsch st ...
, an epigraphist in the colonial British Empire, in his 1925 study on the Inscriptions of Asoka, considered the ''lip'' derivation untenable because of the two Kharosthi rock edict inscriptions from 3rd century BCE which use ''dipi'' instead of ''lipi''. Hultzsch, as well as Sharma, state that this suggests a borrowing and diffusion of ''lipi'' from an Old Persian
Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...
prototype ''dipi''.
Chronology
Some Indian traditions credit Brahma
Brahma ( sa, ब्रह्मा, Brahmā) is a Hindu god, referred to as "the Creator" within the Trimurti, the trinity of supreme divinity that includes Vishnu, and Shiva.Jan Gonda (1969)The Hindu Trinity Anthropos, Bd 63/64, H 1/2, pp. 21 ...
with inventing ''lipi'', the scripts for writing.[Jao Tsung-i (1964)]
CHINESE SOURCES ON BRĀHMĪ AND KHAROṢṬHĪ
Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 45, No. 1/4 (1964), pages 39–47 Scholars such as Lallanji Gopal claim some ancient ''lipi'' such as the Brahmi script as used in the Indian texts, may have originated in Jainism
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current ...
.
;"Lipi" in the Edicts of Ashoka
According to Harry Falk, scripts and the idea of writing can be traced to the Indus Valley civilization in the 3rd millennium BCE, but the term ''lipi'' in 1st millennium BCE Indian literature may be a loan word from the Achaemenid
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
region, as a variant of Sumerian ''dub'', turned to ''dipi'' or ''dipī''. Sanskrit ''lipi'', states Falk, likely arose from a combination of foreign influences and indigenous inventions. One evidence in favor of this view is that the form ''dipi'' was used in some of the Kharosthi-script edicts of Ashoka
The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire who reigned from 268 BCE to 232 BCE. Ashoka used the exp ...
(3rd century BCE) in northwest India (in closest contact to Achaemenid culture) in parallel to ''lipi'' in other regions. As ''dipi'' was used in Old Persian
Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...
Achaemenid inscriptions, Hultzsch suggested in 1925 that this proposal is "irresistible."[ In his theory about the origin of the ]Brahmi script
Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' o ...
, Falk states that the early mention by Paṇini could mean that he was aware of writing scripts in West Asia around 500 BCE, and the Paṇini's mention of ''lipikara'' may possibly refer to non-Indian writers such as Aramaic scribes.
;"Lipi" in Paṇini
Falk states that the single isolated mention of ''lipi'' by Paṇini, could mean that he was only aware of writing scripts from West Asia around 500 BCE.[ According to Paul Griffiths, there is "no hard evidence of the use of Brahmi or Kharosthi script" in India before the Ashoka stone inscription, but the climate of India is such as that writing on other materials would not have survived for over 2,500 years. So, states Griffith, "the absence of early witnesses certainly doesn't mean there were none", but there is no "clear textual evidence of the use of writing in the Vedic corpus".
;Opinions on origination
Kenneth Norman (a professor and the president of the ]Pali Text Society
The Pali Text Society is a text publication society founded in 1881 by Thomas William Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pāli texts".
Pāli is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism are preserved. The ...
) suggests ''lipi'' in ancient India evolved over the long period of time like other cultures, that it is unlikely that a ''lipi'' was devised as a single complete writing system at one and the same time in the Maurya era. Norman suggests that it is even less likely that Brāhmī was invented during Ashoka's rule, starting from nothing, for the specific purpose of writing his inscriptions and understood all over South Asia. Reviewing the recent archaeological discoveries relating to writing scripts in South Asia particularly Buddhism, Norman writes, "Support for this idea of pre-Ashoka development f writing scripts
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
Hist ...
has been given very recently by the discovery of sherds at Anuradhapura
Anuradhapura ( si, අනුරාධපුරය, translit=Anurādhapuraya; ta, அனுராதபுரம், translit=Aṉurātapuram) is a major city located in north central plain of Sri Lanka. It is the capital city of North Central ...
in Sri Lanka, inscribed with small numbers of characters which seem to be Brahmi. These sherds have been dated, by both carbon 14
Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and col ...
and thermo-luminescence dating, to pre-Ashokan times, perhaps as much as much as two centuries before Ashoka".
Jack Goody similarly suggests 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. Walter Ong and John Hartley concur with Goody and share the same concerns about the theory that there may not have been any writing scripts during the Vedic age, given the quantity and quality of the Vedic literature.
Falk disagrees with Goody, and suggests that it is a Western presumption and inability to imagine remarkably early scientific achievements such as Panini's grammar (5th to 4th century BCE), and the creation, preservation and wide distribution of the large corpus of the Brahmanic Vedic literature and the Buddhist canonical literature, without any writing scripts. Johannes Bronkhorst (professor of Sanskrit and Indian studies) acknowledges that Falk is widely regarded as the definitive study on this subject, but disagrees and states, "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".
Richard Salomon, in a 1995 review, states that the lack of securely datable specimens of writing from pre-3rd century BCE period, coupled with chronological and interpretive problems of more ancient Indian texts, has made dating ''lipi'' and who influenced whom a controversial problem.
Ancient Indian scripts
While historical evidence of scripts is found in the Indus Valley civilization relics, these remain undeciphered. There has been a lack of similar historical evidence from the 2nd and early 1st millennium BCE, until the time of Ashoka where the 3rd-century BCE pillar edicts evidence the Brahmi script. Late 20th-century archaeological studies combined with carbon dating techniques at Ujjain
Ujjain (, Hindustani pronunciation: d͡ːʒɛːn is a city in Ujjain district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the fifth-largest city in Madhya Pradesh by population and is the administrative centre of Ujjain district and Ujjain ...
and other sites suggest that Brahmi script existed on the ancient Indian subcontinent as early as 450 BCE.
Sri Lankan texts and inscriptions suggest that written script were in extensive use in ancient India, and had arrived in Sri Lanka by about 3rd century BCE. While scholars agree that developed writing scripts existed and were in use by the second half of the 1st millennium BCE, the chronology and the origins of ''lipi'' in ancient India remain a controversial, difficult and unresolved scholarly topic.
Indian and Chinese Buddhist texts
The tenth chapter of the ''Lalitavistara'', named ''Lipisala samdarshana parivarta'', lists the following 64 scripts as what Siddhartha (the Gautam Buddha) learnt as a child from his guru
Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverentia ...
s in Vedic schools, a list that is found in both Indian Buddhist texts and its ancient Chinese translations:[, Quote: "(...) a passage of the ''Lalitavistara'' which describes the first visit of prince Siddhartha, the future Buddha, to the writing school..." (page 6); "In the account of prince Siddhartha's first visit to the writing school, extracted by Professor Terrien de la Couperie from the Chinese translation of the Lalitavistara of 308 AD, there occurs besides the mention of the sixty-four alphabets, known also from the printed Sanskrit text, the utterance of the master Visvamitra,...."]
;Historicity
The historical value of this list of ''lipis'' is however limited, states Salomon, by several factors.[ Although the Buddhist text with this list is ancient because it was translated into Chinese in 308 CE, the date of its actual composition is unknown. According to Salomon, the canonical texts of Buddhism may not be authentic and have interpolations. For example, he suggests that "Huna-lipi" or the script of the ]Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
listed as 23rd ''lipi'' in this list suggests that this part and the present form of the Buddhist text may have been fabricated in the 4th century CE.[ Other than Brahmi and Kharosthi ''lipi'' mentioned in this list which can be positively identified with historic inscriptions, other writing scripts consist presumably of regional derivatives of Brahmi which cannot be specifically identified. Some names such as ''Naga-lipi'' and ''Yaksa-lipi'' appear fanciful, states Salomon, which raises suspicions about historicity of this section of the Buddhist canonical text.][ However, adds Salomon, a simpler but shorter list of 18 ''lipis'' exist in the canonical texts of Jainism, an ancient Indian religion that competed with Buddhism and Hinduism. Buhler states that the Jaina ''lipi'' list is "in all probability considerably older" than the Buddhist list of 64 writing scripts in ancient India. The Jaina list does not have names that Salomon considers fanciful.][
The authenticity of ''Lalitavistara Sutra'' where this list appears and other canonical texts of ]Theravada
''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...
and Mahayana
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing bra ...
Buddhist traditions, as well as "a complete denial of the existence of a historical Buddha", has been among the long debated questions in Buddhism scholarship.[ Suspicions about the historicity of ''Lalitavistara'', states EJ Thomas, are built upon presumptions which seek to reconstruct early history to fit certain theories and assumptions about what must have come first and what must have come later.][EJ Thomas (1940), "The Lalitavistara and Sarvastivada", Indian Historical Quarterly, volume 16, number 2, pages 239–245]
Tibetan texts
The Magadhalipi mentioned in the ''Lalitavistara'' is discussed in the 7th-century Tibetan texts, in two forms: ''dBu-can'' (script with ''matra'' or the framing horizontal line drawn above each letter of the alphabet), and ''dBu-med'' (script without ''matra''). The former is derived from the more ancient Lantsha script, while the latter derived from the Vartula script. According to Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Vartula means "rounded shape" and likely refers to the rounded letters of alphabet that were invented for various ancient Indian scripts. Scherrer-Schaub adds that the list of sixty-four scripts in the Buddhist text likely contains scripts that are fictional, with Devalipi and Nagalipi as examples.
Jain texts
A smaller list of eighteen ancient Indian ''lipi '' is found in the Prakrit texts of Jainism (spelled as ''lipi'' sometimes), such as the ''Pannavana Sutra'' (2nd century BCE) and the ''Samavayanga Sutra'' (3rd century BCE).[ This list shares some names found in the Buddhist lists of ancient Indian scripts, but includes new names. The Jaina script list includes Brahmi at number 1, Kharosthi at number 4, but includes Javanaliya and others not found in the Buddhist lists.][ Scholars such as Buhler state that the Jaina list of ancient Indian scripts is likely older than the Buddhist list, but still belonging to the second half of the 1st millennium BCE wherein Javanaliya probably is the same as one of the many Sanskrit scripts called ''Yavanani'', which was derived from the Greek ('']Yavana
The word Yona in Pali and the Prakrits, and the analogue Yavana in Sanskrit and Yavanar in Tamil, were words used in Ancient India to designate Greek speakers. "Yona" and "Yavana" are transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" ( grc, ...
'') alphabet.[ The Jaina canonical texts list the following writing scripts in ancient India:
]
Devalipi and Devanagari
Given the similarity in the name, Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...
may have roots in Devalipi, but Walter Maurer states that there is no verifiable evidence to prove that this is so. According to Richard Salomon, the Brahmi script evolved to become both the north Indian scripts such as Devanagari, Punjabi, Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...
and Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
, as well as the south Indian scripts such as Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
, Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
, Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
and Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
.
See also
Notes
References
External links
''Lipi'' in ancient India
{{in lang, zh, 佉留文字與四十二字門, 正觀雜誌 (1999)
The ''Lalitavistara''
(The play in full), translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee, pages 91–92
''Candravyakarana'' – Deciphering an arrowhead Indian script
Albrecht Hanisch (2009), Nagoya University
The Vartula or Vaivarta Lipi
Sita R Roy (1967)
Brahmic scripts
Hindu literature
Buddhist literature
Jain literature