KHAROSHTI

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The Kharoshthi script is one of the important ancient Indian Scripts. It is an abugida and believed to be derived from the Aramaic script. Unlike other Indian Scripts, Kharoshthi did not descend from the Brahmi. It may have emerged around the mid of the 3rd century BCE or possibly during the 4th century BCE and used to write Gandhari, Prakrit, and Sanskrit languages. This cursive script written from right to left was used for commercial and artistic purposes like calligraphy.

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The use of Kharoshthi can be predominantly seen in Gandhara which is the modern-day Pakistan and north-eastern parts of Afghanistan. One can also see its use in texts along the Silk Road in Bactria, Kushan Empire, Sogdia, and in parts of China and Central Asia. The credit of deciphering the Kharoshthi script (1835) goes to an English scholar, orientalist and antiquary, James Prinsep who used bilingual Indo-Greek coins to decipher it.