Kharosthi
| Kharosthi |
|
|---|---|
| Type | |
| Languages | Gandhari Prakrit |
|
Time period
|
4th century BCE – 3rd century CE |
|
Parent systems
|
|
|
Sister systems
|
Brahmi script Nabataean alphabet Syriac alphabet Palmyrene alphabet Mandaic alphabet Pahlavi scripts Sogdian alphabet |
| Direction | Right-to-left |
| ISO 15924 | Khar, 305 |
|
Unicode alias
|
Kharoshthi |
| U+10A00–U+10A5F | |
The Kharosthi script, also spelled Kharoshthi or Kharoṣṭhī, is an ancient script used in ancient Gandhara (primarily modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan) to write the Gandhari Prakrit and Sanskrit. It was popular in Central Asia as well. An abugida, 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 Bactria, the Kushan Empire, Sogdia 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. Kharosthi is encoded in the Unicode range U+10A00–U+10A5F, from version 4.1.0.
Kharosthi 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 Kharosthi 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.
Kharosthi 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/. That is the same as the Semitic vowel order. Also, there is no differentiation between long and short vowels in Kharosthi. Both are marked using the same vowel markers.
The alphabet was used in Gandharan Buddhism as a mnemonic for remembering a series of verses on the nature of phenomena. In Tantric Buddhism, the list was incorporated into ritual practices and later became enshrined in mantras.
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Wikipedia