Decipherment of scripts

The essentials

Most Ashokan inscriptions were written in the Brahmi script, used to write Prakrit; inscriptions in the northwest were in Kharosthi. Brahmi is the ancestor of most modern Indian scripts. By the eighteenth century the reading of these scripts had been forgotten.

European scholars, with help from Indian pandits, worked backwards from later Bengali and Devanagari letters to earlier forms. James Prinsep, an officer in the mint of the East India Company, deciphered Brahmi and Kharosthi in the 1830s. Reading Kharosthi was helped by Indo-Greek coins carrying the names of kings in both Greek and Kharosthi; scholars matched the known Greek letters with the Kharosthi ones.

Key points

• Prinsep found that most inscriptions referred to a king called Devanampiya Piyadasi, "beloved of the gods" and "pleasant to behold".
• Some inscriptions mentioned the name Asoka, and texts like the Buddhist chronicles helped identify Piyadasi with Ashoka.
• Decipherment opened a new direction in the study of early Indian political history.
• Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions; inscriptions are permanent records carved on stone, metal or pottery.

Exam tips

• Remember: Brahmi — read left to right; Kharosthi — read right to left (it is used in the northwest).
• Link Kharosthi decipherment with bilingual Indo-Greek coins.

Common mistakes

• Thinking Ashoka's own name appeared on most inscriptions; most use the title Piyadasi.
• Confusing Prinsep (decipherment, 1830s) with Cunningham or Marshall.