The Śāradā, Sarada or Sharada script is an

abugida An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel n ...

writing system of the

Brahmic family The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...

of scripts. The script was widespread between the 8th and 12th centuries in the northwestern parts of Indian Subcontinent (in Kashmir and neighbouring areas), for writing

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

. Originally more widespread, its use became later restricted to Kashmir, and it is now rarely used except by the

Kashmiri Pandit The Kashmiri Pandits (also known as Kashmiri Brahmins) are a group of Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community of India. They belong to the Pancha Gauda Brahmin group from the Kashmir Valley, a mountainous region l ...

community for religious purposes. Gardesh Ganesha dedicated by Khingila, Kabul, 7-8th century CE

It is a native script of Kashmir and is named after the goddess Śāradā or

Saraswati Saraswati ( sa, सरस्वती, ) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is one of the Tridevi, along with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati. The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a g ...

, the goddess of learning and the main deity of the

Sharada Peeth Sharada Peeth is a ruined Hindu temple and ancient centre of learning located in the Neelum Valley of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Between the 6th and 12th centuries CE, it was among the most prominent temple universities in the Indian ...

temple.

History

The Bakhshali manuscript uses an early stage of the Sharada script. The Sharada script was used in Afghanistan as well as in the Himachal region in India. In Afghanistan, the Kabul Ganesh has a 6th to 8th century Proto-Sharada inscription mentioning the,

Turk Shahis The Turk Shahis or Kabul Shahis were a dynasty of Western Turk, or mixed Turko- Hephthalite, origin, that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa to Gandhara in the 7th to 9th centuries AD. They may have been of Khalaj ethnicity."The new rulers of Kabu ...

, king

Khingala Khingala, also transliterated Khinkhil, Khinjil or Khinjal, ( Sharada script: ''khiṃ-gā-la'', ruled circa 775-785 CE) was a ruler of the Turk Shahis. He is only known in name from the accounts of the Muslim historian Ya'qubi and from an epigra ...

Oddiyana (also: ''Uḍḍiyāna'', ''Uḍḍāyāna'' or ''Udyāna'', Sanskrit: ओड्डियान, उड्डियान, उड्डायान, उद्यान; , , mn, Үржин ''urkhin''), was a small region in early medieval India, ...

. At the historic Markula Devi Temple, the goddess Mahishamardini has a Sharada inscription of 1569 CE. From the 10th century onwards, regional differences started to appear between the Sharada script used in Punjab, the Hill States (partly

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

) and Kashmir. Sharada proper was eventually restricted to very limited ceremonial use in Kashmir, as it grew increasingly unsuitable for writing the

Kashmiri language Kashmiri () or Koshur (, /kəːʃur/) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by around 7 million Kashmiris of the Kashmir region, primarily in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. In 2020, the Parliament of India passed a bill to ma ...

. With the last known inscription dating to 1204 C.E., the early 13th century marks a milestone in the development of Sharada. The regional variety in Punjab continued to evolve from this stage through the 14th century; during this period it starts to appear in forms closely resembling

Gurmukhī Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonly r ...

and other

Landa scripts Landa may refer to: * Landa (surname) *Landa, real estate investing company * Landa, Álava, a village in Basque Country, Spain * Landa, North Dakota, United States * Laṇḍā, a class of scripts in Northern India See also * Landa de Matamoros, ...

. By the 15th century, Sharada had evolved so considerably that

epigraphist Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

s denote the script at this point by a special name, ''Devāśeṣa''.

Letters

Vowels

Consonants

Numerals

Sharada script uses its own signs for the positional decimal numeral system.

Image gallery

File:Sharada-Vowels.jpg, Sharada vowels File:Sharada-Consonants.jpg, Sharada consonant signs File:Die Sprachenhalle 1.jpg, Sanskrit (above; devanagari script) and Kashmiri language (below; sharada script) File:Sarada_Script_of_Kashmir.jpg, Old manuscript using Sharada script

Unicode

Śāradā script was added to the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...

Standard in January, 2012 with the release of version 6.1. The Unicode block for Śāradā script, called Sharada, is U+11180–U+111DF:

References

External links

Aksharamukha: Sharada script
*Saerji. (2009).
Śāradā script: Akṣara List of the Manuscript of Abhidharmadīpa (ca. the 11th Century)
'. Research Institute of Sanskrit Manuscripts & Buddhist Literature, Peking University.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarada Script Brahmic scripts Sarada scripts History of Kashmir Writing systems introduced in the 8th century