Kharosthi

Name
Type	Abugida
Languages	Gandhari Prakrit Tocharian Kuchean
Fam1	Proto-Sinaitic alphabet
Fam2	Phoenician alphabet
Fam3	Aramaic alphabet
Sisters	Brāhmī Nabataean Syriac Palmyrenean Mandaic Pahlavi Sogdian
Time	4th century BCE - 3rd century CE
Iso15924	Khar
Unicode	U+10A00—U+10A5F

The script, is an ancient abugida (or "alphasyllabary") used by the Gandhara culture, nestled in the historic northwest South Asia to write the Gāndhārī and Sanskrit languages. It was in use from the middle of the 3rd century BCE until it died out in its homeland around the 3rd century CE. It was also in use in Kushan, Sogdiana (see Issyk kurgan) and along the Silk Road where there is some evidence it may have survived until the 7th century in the remote way stations of Khotan and Niya. is encoded in the Unicode range U+10A00—U+10A5F, from version 4.1.0.

Form

is mostly written right to left (type A), but some inscriptions (type B) already show the left to right direction that was to become universal for the later South Asian scripts.

Each syllable includes the short a sound by default, with other vowels being indicated by diacritic marks. Recent epigraphical evidence highlighted by Professor Richard Salomon of the University of Washington has shown that the order of letters in the script follows what has become known as the Arapacana Alphabet. As preserved in Sanskrit documents the alphabet runs:

Some variations in both the number and order of syllables occur in extant texts.

includes only one standalone vowel sign which is used for initial vowels in words. Other initial vowels use the a character modified by diacritics. Using epigraphic evidence Salomon has established that the vowel order is a e i o u, rather than the usual vowel order for Indic scripts a i u e o. This is the same as the Semitic vowel order. Also, there is no differentiation between long and short vowels in kharoshti. Both are marked using the same vowel markers

The alphabet was used by Buddhists as a mnemonic for remembering a series of verses relating to the nature of phenomena. In Tantric Buddhism this list was incorporated into ritual practices, and later became enshrined in mantras.

Alphabet

Note that the table beside reads right-to-left, just like the abugida itself and the displayed numbers.

The numerals are encoded by Unicode at codepoints U+10A40 to U+10A47:

Tocharian languages

language. Kucha, 5th-8th century. Tokyo National Museum.]] In the early 20th century inscriptions and documents in two new related (but mutually unintelligible) languages were discovered at various sites in the Tarim Basin written in Karosthi script. It was soon found that they belonged to the Indo-European family of languages. Our only records of the now-extinct "Tokharian A" (from the region of Turfan and Karashahr), and "Tokharian B" (mainly from the region of Kucha, but also found elsewhere), are of relatively late date – 6th to 8th century CE, when written records appear; but it is likely they arrived in the region much earlier. They are now extinct, and scholars are still trying to piece together a fuller picture of these languages, their origins, history and connections, etc.

Kharosthi alphabet in Unicode

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:x-small; text-align:center;" |- style="vertical-align:top;" | 10A00 | 10A01 | 10A02 | colspan="1" style="background:#aaa;" | | 10A03 | 10A05 | 10A06 | colspan="5" style="background:#aaa;" | | 10A0C | 10A0D | 10A0E | 10A0F |- style="vertical-align:top;" | 10A10 | 10A11 | 10A12 | 10A13 | colspan="1" style="background:#aaa;" | | 10A15 | 10A16 | 10A17 | colspan="1" style="background:#aaa;" | | 10A19 | 10A1A | 10A1B | 10A1C | 10A1D | 10A1E | 10A1F |- style="vertical-align:top;" | 10A20 | 10A21 | 10A22 | 10A23 | 10A24 | 10A25 | 10A26 | 10A27 | 10A28 | 10A29 | 10A2A | 10A2B | 10A2C | 10A2D | 10A2E | 10A2F |- style="vertical-align:top;" | 10A30 | 10A31 | 10A32 | 10A33 | colspan="4" style="background:#aaa;" | | 10A38 | 10A39 | 10A3A | colspan="4" style="background:#aaa;" | | 10A3F |- style="vertical-align:top;" | 10A40 | 10A41 | 10A42 | 10A43 | 10A44 | 10A45 | 10A46 | 10A47 | colspan="8" style="background:#aaa;" | |- style="vertical-align:top;" | 10A50 | 10A51 | 10A52 | 10A53 | 10A54 | 10A55 | 10A56 | 10A57 | 10A58 | colspan="7" style="background:#aaa;" | |}

References

Dani, Ahmad Hassan. Kharoshthi Primer, Lahore Museum Publication Series - 16, Lahore, 1979

Falk, Harry. Schrift im alten Indien: Ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen, Gunter Narr Verlag, 1993 (in German)

Fussman's, Gérard. Les premiers systèmes d'écriture en Inde, in Annuaire du Collège de France 1988-1989 (in French)

Hinüber, Oscar von. Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990 (in German)

Nasim Khan, M. Kharoshthi Manuscripts from Gandhara (2nd ed.): 2009. First published in 2008.

Norman, Kenneth R. The Development of Writing in India and its Effect upon the Pâli Canon, in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens (36), 1993

Salomon, Richard. New evidence for a Ganghari origin of the arapacana syllabary. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Apr-Jun 1990, Vol.110 (2), p. 255-273.

Salomon, Richard. An additional note on arapacana. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 1993, Vol.113 (2), p. 275-6.

Salomon, Richard. syllables used as location markers in Gāndhāran stūpa architecture. Pierfrancesco Callieri, ed., . (Serie Orientale Rome 100; Rome: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, 2006), pp. 181–224.

External links

List of all known (Gandhārī) inscriptions. information on the alphabet by Omniglot A Preliminary Study of Manuscript Paleography by Andrew Glass, University of Washington (2000)

On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article by Richard Salomon, University of Washington (via archive.org)

Proposal to encode in Unicode (includes good background info)

Category:History of Afghanistan Category:History of Pakistan Category:Abugida writing systems

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