The Bhattiprolu script is a variant of the

Brahmi script Brahmi (; ; ISO 15919, 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 ...

which has been found in old inscriptions at Bhattiprolu, a small village in

Guntur district Guntur district is one of the twenty six districts in the Coastal Andhra region of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The administrative seat of the district is located at Guntur, the largest city of the district in terms of area and with a ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to t ...

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the States and union territories of India, Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and T ...

. It is located in the fertile Krishna river delta and the estuary region where the river meets the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

. The inscriptions date to between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE, putting them among the earliest evidence of Brahmi writing in South India. Bhattiprolu differs from

Ashokan Brahmi 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 ...

in two significant ways. First, the letters ''gh, j, m, l, s'' are "radically different": ''m'' is upside-down compared to Brahmi, while ''gh'' appears to derive from ''g'' rather than from Semitic ''heth''. Secondly, the inherent vowel has been discarded: A consonant written without diacritics represents the consonant alone. This is unique to Bhattiprolu and

Tamil Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamizhi or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in the early form of Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscription ...

among the early Indian scripts.

Discovery

Excavations that started in the year 1870 by Boswell, Sir Walter Elliot, Robert Sewell, Alexander Rea, Buhler and continued in 1969 by R. Subrahmanyam revealed a complex of Buddhist

stupa A stupa ( sa, स्तूप, lit=heap, ) is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics (such as '' śarīra'' – typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns) that is used as a place of meditation. In Buddhism, circumam ...

s (an area of 1700 square yards, drum diameter of 148 feet, dome diameter of 132 feet, height of 40 feet and a circumambulatory path of 8 feet). Bricks of 45 x 30 x 8 cm dimensions were used for the construction. Alexander Rea discovered three inscribed stone relic caskets containing crystal caskets, relics of Buddha and jewels in 1892. The most significant discovery is the crystal relic casket of '' sārira-dhātu'' of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a 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 born in ...

from the central mass of the stupas. The Mahachaitya (great stupa) remains of a large pillared hall, a large group of ruined votive stupas with several images of Buddha, a stone receptacle containing copper vessel, which in turn, contained two more, a silver casket and within it, a gold casket enclosing beads of bone and crystal were found.

The script

The script was written on the urn containing Buddha's relics. Linguists surmise that the

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 ...

Brahmi 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 ...

evolved in the 3rd century BCE and travelled soon after to Bhattiprolu. Twenty three symbols were identified in Bhattiprolu script. The symbols for 'ga' and 'sa' are similar to Mauryan Brahmi. There are a total of nine inscriptions, all dated to the 2nd century BCE or possibly earlier (a tenth inscription is in a script much closer to standard Brahmi), written in

Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...

. The Bhattiprolu inscription also shows systemic but not paleographic similarity to Tamil Brahmi. According to Richard Salomon, the Bhattiprolu script was originally invented to write a Dravidian language but was reapplied to inscribe in an Indo-Aryan Prakrit. Hence both the Bhattiprolu and Tamil Brahmi share common modifications to represent Dravidian languages. Bhattiprolu script is also considered the

Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient ...

of Tamil Brahmi decipherment.

Derived scripts

Historians surmise that this script gave rise to the

Kadamba script The Kadamba script is the first writing system devised specifically for writing Kannada and Telugu. It is a descendant of the Brahmi script. The Kadamba script is also known as ''Pre-Old-Kannada script''. The Kadamba script is one of the oldes ...

, which later became Kannada-telugu script, and split off into

Kannada script The Kannada script ( IAST: ''Kannaḍa lipi''; obsolete: Kanarese or Canarese script in English) is an abugida of the Brahmic family, used to write Kannada, one of the Dravidian languages of South India especially in the state of Karnataka. ...

and

Telugu script Telugu script ( te, తెలుగు లిపి, Telugu lipi), an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write the Telugu language, a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as well ...

.The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems by Florian Coulmas, p. 228; Salomon (1998), p. 40.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bhattiprolu Script Brahmic scripts Linguistic history of India

Discovery

The script

Derived scripts

See also

Notes

References