List of Ancient Indian Scripts - GK Notes for SSC & Banking

India is known for its culture, heritage, and history. One of the treasures of India is its ancient scripts. There are a huge number of scripts in India, many of these scripts have not been deciphered yet. Most Indian languages are written in Brahmi-derived scripts, such as Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Odia etc. Read this article to know about a List of Ancient Indian Scripts.

Main Families of Indian Scripts

All Indian scripts are known to be derived from Brahmi. There are three main families of Indian scripts:

1. Devanagari - This script is the basis of the languages of northern India and western India: Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Panjabi, etc.

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2. Dravidian - This script is the basis of Telugu, Kannada.

3. Grantha - This script is a subsection of the Dravidian languages such as Tamil and Malayalam, although it is not as important as the other two.

Ancient Indian Scripts

Given below are five ancient Indian scripts that have proven to be very important in the history of India -

1. Indus Script

The Indus script is also known as the Harappan script. It uses a combination of symbols which were developed during the Indus Valley Civilization which started around 3500 and ended in 1900 BC. Although this script has not been deciphered yet, many have argued that this script is a predecessor to the Brahmi Script.

2. Brahmi Script

Brahmi is a modern name for one of the oldest scripts in the Indian as well as Central Asian writing system. Most Indian scripts, like Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam etc. originated from the Brahmi script. The best examples of the Brahmi script are in the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka.

3. Kharoshti Script

This script was used in ancient Gandhara to write the Gandhari Prakrit and Sanskrit. It is the contemporary and the sister script of Brahmi. It was mostly written right to left but some inscriptions show the left to right direction that became universal for the later South Asian scripts.

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4. Devanagari Script

The Devanagari script is the main script which is used at present in India to write many languages such as Hindi, Marathi and Nepali as well as Santhali, Konkani and many other Indian languages. It is one of the most used writing systems and is also used presently to write Sanskrit.

5. Vatteluttu Script

The Vatteluttu script is an ancient writing system derived from the Brahmi script which originated in the Southern India. It was developed from Tamil-Brahmi and is one of the 3 main alphabet systems developed by Tamil people to write the Proto-Tamil language, alongside the ancient Granthi or Pallava alphabet and the Tamil script.

There are numerous other ancient Indian scripts, that have played an important role in history and the development of the culture of our country. Some of these are given below -

 Gupta Script  Kalinga Script  Kadamba Script  Kannada Script  Telgu Script  Grantha Script  Tigalari Script  Malayalam Script  Tamil Script  Sinhala Script  Dhives Akuru

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 Sardara Script  Landa Script  Gurumukhi Script  Khojki Script  Khudabadi Script  Takri Script  Nagari Script  Nandinagari Script  Eastern Nagari Script  Odia Script  Modi Script  Gujarati Script  Santali Script  Sankhalipi  Urdu Script  Dehivehi Script

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