The Gupta script (sometimes referred to as Gupta Brahmi script or Late Brahmi script)Sharma, Ram. '' 'Brahmi Script' ''. Delhi: BR Publishing Corp, 2002 was used 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 is associated with the

Gupta Empire The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gold ...

of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

, which was a period of material prosperity and great

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

and

scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

developments. The Gupta script was descended from Brāhmī and gave rise to the Nāgarī, Śāradā and Siddhaṃ scripts. These scripts in turn gave rise to many of the most important scripts of India, including

Devanāgarī 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 system), based on the ...

(the most common script used for writing

since the 19th century), the

Gurmukhī script 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 ...

for Punjabi, the Bengali-Assamese script and the

Tibetan script The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system (''abugida'') of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic langua ...

Origins and classification

The Gupta script was descended from the Ashokan Brāhmī script, and is a crucial link between Brahmi and most other

Brahmic scripts 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 Ind ...

, a family of alphasyllabaries or

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 ...

s. This means that while only consonantal phonemes have distinct symbols, vowels are marked by diacritics, with being the implied pronunciation when the diacritic is not present. In fact, the Gupta script works in exactly the same manner as its predecessor and successors, and only the shapes and forms of the graphemes and diacritics are different. Through the 4th century, letters began to take more cursive and symmetric forms, as a result of the desire to write more quickly and aesthetically. This also meant that the script became more differentiated throughout the Empire, with regional variations which have been broadly classified into three, four or five categories;Srivastava, Anupama. ''The Development of Imperial Gupta Brahmi Script''. New Delhi: Ramanand, 1998 however, a definitive classification is lacking, because even in a single inscription, there may be variation in how a particular symbol is written. In this sense, the term Gupta script should be taken to mean any form of writing derived from the Gupta period, even though there may be a lack of uniformity in the scripts.

Inscriptions

The surviving inscriptions of the Gupta script are mostly found on iron or stone pillars, and on gold coins from the Gupta Dynasty. One of the most important was the ''Prayagraj (Allahabad) Prasasti''. Composed by

Harishena Harishena () was the last known ruler of the Vatsagulma branch of the Vakataka dynasty The Vakataka dynasty () was an ancient Indian dynasty that originated from the Deccan in the mid-3rd century CE. Their state is believed to have extende ...

, the court poet and minister of

Samudragupta Samudragupta (Gupta script: ''Sa-mu-dra-gu-pta'', (c. 335–375 CE) was the second emperor of the Gupta Empire of ancient India, and is regarded among the greatest rulers of the dynasty. As a son of the Gupta emperor Chandragupta I and the ...

, it describes Samudragupta's reign, beginning from his accession to the throne as the second king of the Gupta Dynasty and including his conquest of other kings. It is inscribed on the Allahabad pillar of

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...

Alphabet

The Gupta alphabet is composed of 37 letters: 32 consonants with the inherent ending "a" and 5 independent vowels. In addition diacritics are attached to the consonants in order to change the sound of the final vowel (from the inherent "a" to other sounds such as i, u, e, o, au ...). Consonants can also be combined into compounds, also called

conjunct consonant Conjunct consonants are a type of letters, used for example in Brahmi or Brahmi derived modern scripts such as Balinese, Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, etc to write consonant clusters such as or . Although most of the time, letters are formed ...

s (for example sa+ya are combined vertically to give "sya").

Independent vowels

Consonants

In Unicode

The Unicode standard considers the Gupta script to be a stylistic variation of Brahmi, and thus Gupta texts are encoded using Brahmi Unicode characters.

Gupta numismatics

Kushan signet in Gupta Brahmi script 3rd century CE

The study of Gupta coins began with the discovery of a hoard of

gold coin A gold coin is a coin that is made mostly or entirely of gold. Most gold coins minted since 1800 are 90–92% gold (22karat), while most of today's gold bullion coins are pure gold, such as the Britannia, Canadian Maple Leaf, and American Buf ...

s in 1783. Many other such hoards have since been discovered, the most important being the

Bayana Bayana is a historical town and the headquarters of Bayana tehsil in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan in India. Hindaun City is nearest city of Bayana - 33 km. It was the site of famous Important Battle of Bayana in 1527 between the Rajp ...

(situated in Bharatpur district of

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...

) hoard, discovered in 1946, which contained more than 2000 gold coins issued by the Gupta Kings. Many of the Gupta Empire's coins bear inscriptions of legends or mark historic events. In fact, it was one of the first Indian Empires to do so, probably as a result of its unprecedented prosperity. Almost every Gupta king issued coins, beginning with its first king,

Chandragupta I Chandragupta I (Gupta script: ''Cha-ndra-gu-pta'', r. c. 319–335 or 319–350 CE) was a king of the Gupta Empire, who ruled in northern and central India. His title ''Maharajadhiraja'' ("great king of kings") suggests that he was the firs ...

. The scripts on the coin are also of a different nature compared to scripts on pillars, due to conservatism regarding the coins that were to be accepted as currency, which would have prevented regional variations in the script from manifesting on the coinage. Moreover, space was more limited especially on their silver coins, and thus many of the symbols are truncated or stunted. An example is the symbol for /ta/ and /na/, which were often simplified to vertical strokes.

Gallery

File:Allahabad stone pillar inscription of Samudragupta.jpg, The Allahabad pillar inscription of

, with its standardised Gupta characters. Image:brahmi.png, Brahmi and its descendent scripts. File:5th or 6th century Gopika cave inscription, Sanskrit, Shaktism, Anantavarman, Gupta script 2.jpg, The 5th- or 6th-century Gupta script

Gopika Cave Inscription __NOTOC__ The Gopika Cave Inscription, also called the Nagarjuni Hill Cave Inscription II of Anantavarman or formerly the Gya inscription (referring to the nearby city of Gaya), is a 5th- or 6th-century CE Sanskrit inscription in Late Brahmi found ...

in Sanskrit about goddess

Durga Durga ( sa, दुर्गा, ) is a major Hindu goddess, worshipped as a principal aspect of the mother goddess Mahadevi. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars. Durga's legend centres around c ...

File:Das Buch der Schrift (Faulmann) 141.jpg, Gupta script decipheration table File:A palm leaf Sanskrit manuscript in Brahmi script from Miran China.jpg, A palm leaf Sanskrit manuscript in early Gupta Brahmi script, discovered in Miran, northwest China. File:Sri Yashodharman.jpg, The name Gupta allahabad shrii

''Śrī Yaśodharmma'' ("Lord

Yashodharman Yashodharman (Gupta script: ''Ya-śo-dha-rmma'', ) (r. 515 – 545) was a ruler of Malwa, in central India, during the early part of the 6th century. He probably belonged to the Second Aulikara dynasty. He Aulikara Empire, conquered much of t ...

") in Gupta script in Line 4 of the

Mandsaur stone inscription of Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana The Mandsaur stone inscription of Yashodharman-Vishnuvardhana, is a Sanskrit inscription in the Gupta script dated to about 532 CE, on a slate stone measuring about 2 feet broad, 1.5 feet high and 2.5 inches thick found in the Malwa region of India ...

References

External links

*
The Gupta Alphabet

entry on the Gupta Script * Ye, Shao-Yong. (2009).
An eastern variety of the post-Gupta script: Akṣara List of the Manuscripts of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and Buddhapālita’s Commentary (ca. 550–650 CE)
'. Research Institute of Sanskrit Manuscripts & Buddhist Literature, Peking University. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gupta Script Brahmic scripts