Sankha Lipi

Shankhalipi (IAST: Śaṅkhalipi) or "shell-script" is a term used by scholars to describe ornate spiral Brahmi characters that resemble conch shells (or shankhas). They are found in inscriptions across various parts of India except the far south and date to between the 4th and 8th centuries CE. Both Shankhalipi and ornate Brahmi were stylised scripts used primarily for names and signatures.

Shell inscriptions are found across much of India, from Bihar in the east to western India, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Prominent sites with shell inscriptions include the Mundeshwari Temple in Bihar, the Udayagiri Caves in central India, Mansar in Maharashtra and some of the cave sites of western India. Shell inscriptions are also reported in Java.

Shell inscriptions were engraved on temple pillars, free-standing columns and rock surfaces, the latter generally at sites with prominent cave shrines. Rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh, Bengal and Karnataka have painted examples. The inscriptions consist of a small number of characters, generally no more than ten to twelve syllables. The shell script was never used for long records or discursive texts. This suggests that the shell inscriptions are names or auspicious symbols or a combination of the two. In a few instances, shell inscriptions are paired with Brāhmī letters, as in the example at Deogarh, Uttar Pradesh, illustrated here. Shell letters are normally the same size or slightly bigger than Brāhmī letters, but in some cases they are gigantic, several metres high, as at the Udayagiri Caves.

The first detailed study of shell inscriptions was undertaken by Richard Salomon. The script is assumed to be a Brāhmī derivative, but Salomon observed that if this is the case, shell script has diverged so far from the normal pattern as to be effectively a new script family. Salomon determined that there are a sufficient number of shell characters to represent the syllables of the Sanskrit language, and tentatively assigned sounds to some of characters. B. N. Mukherjee subsequently proposed a system of decipherment based on a few key inscriptions, but as Salomon has pointed out, his suggestions do not bear scrutiny, in part because Mukherjee based his readings on a record that he turned upside down. A further study of the script appeared in 1990 without, however, advancing its decipherment

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