Lipi (script)#Jain texts

Lipi means 'script, writing, alphabet' both in Sanskrit and Pali.{{cite book|author1=T. W. Rhys Davids|author2=William Stede|title=The Pali-English Dictionary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHWHmHnMLtAC|year=1905|publisher=Asian Educational Services|isbn=978-81-206-1273-0|page=584}} A lipika or lipikara means 'scribe' or 'one who writes',{{cite book|author=Richard Salomon|title=Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYrG07qQDxkC|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-535666-3|page=65}} while lipijnana and lekhā means the 'science or art of writing'.{{cite book|author=Sheldon Pollock|title=The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0UCh7r2TjQIC |year=2006|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-93202-9|page=187}} Related terms such as lekhā ({{lang|sa|लेखा}}, related to rekhā 'line') and likh ({{lang|sa|लिख}}) are found in Vedic{{cite book|author1=T. W. Rhys Davids|author2=William Stede|title=The Pali-English Dictionary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHWHmHnMLtAC|year=1905|publisher=Asian Educational Services|isbn=978-81-206-1273-0|page=586}}Maurice Bloomfield (2014, 2nd edition: 1964), [https://archive.org/stream/vedicconcordance00bloouoft#page/832/mode/2up A Vedic Concordance], Harvard University Press, {{ISBN|978-8124606650}}, page 832, Bloomfield mentions several mentions of Lekha in Vedic texts, e.g. section 1.5.3 of the Taittiriya Samhita. and post-Vedic{{cite book|author1=Stella Kramrisch|author2=Raymond Burnier|title=The Hindu Temple|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NNcXrBlI9S0C&pg=PA11|year=1976|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-0223-0|pages=11 with footnote 22}} Sanskrit texts of Hinduism, as well as in regional languages such as the Pali texts of Buddhism.{{cite book|title=Sanskrit-English Dictionary|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.31959|author=Monier Monier-Williams|year=1899|publisher = Oxford University Press|pages=901}}{{cite book|author1=T. W. Rhys Davids|author2=William Stede|title=The Pali-English Dictionary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHWHmHnMLtAC|year=1905|publisher=Asian Educational Services|isbn=978-81-206-1273-0|pages=576, 583–584}}

A term lip ({{lang|sa|लिप्}}) appears in verse 4.4.23 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, verse 5.10.10 Chandogya Upanishad, verse 2 in Isha Upanishad and verse 5.11 in Katha Upanishad.GA Jacob (1963), [https://archive.org/stream/UpanishadVakyaKosha-AConcordanceOfThePrincipalUpanishadsAndBhagavad/UpanishadVakyaKoshaSktEng#page/n807/mode/2up Upanishad Vakya Kosha – A Concordance of the Principal Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita], Motilal Banarsidass, page 802 It means 'smear, stain'.Monier Monier Williams, [http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/0900/mw__0935.html Lip], Sanskrit-English Dictionary with Etymology, Oxford University Press, page 902 These are the early Upanishads and a part of Vedic literature of Hinduism.{{cite book|author=Patrick Olivelle|title=The Early Upanishads: Annotated Text and Translation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lsp18ZvstrcC|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-535242-9|pages=ix, 7–10, 126–127, 236–237, 398–399, 406–407}}

File:Ashoka Pillar at Feroze Shah Kotla, Delhi 05.JPG edicts evidence the use of lipi in ancient India. The 3rd-century BCE pillar inscription asks people of his and future generations to seek dharma, use persuasion in religion, stop all killing, and be compassionate to all life forms.{{cite journal|title=Interpretation of the most ancient of inscriptions on the pillar called lat of Feroz Shah, near Delhi, and of the Allahabad, Radhia and Mattiah pillar, or lat inscriptions which agree therewith|author=James Prinsep| year=1837| journal=Journal of the Asiatic Society|url= https://archive.org/stream/journalofasiatic62asia#page/600/mode/2up |volume=6|issue=2| pages=600–609}}]]

According to section 4.119 of the Unadisutras as now received, lipi is derived from the Sanskrit root lip. The Unadisutras themselves certainly existed before the time of Pāṇini,{{cite book|author=Maurice Winternitz|authorlink=Moriz Winternitz|title=History of Indian Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ql0BmInD1c4C&pg=PA476|year=1963|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|isbn=978-81-208-0056-4|page=476}}, Quote: "Such a list [rules of Unadisutras] existed from before the time of Panini, since he twice refers to it". instances of later interpolations have been raised by Max Müller, although Müller does not discuss whether the sutra related to lipi was interpolated.{{cite book|author=Friedrich Max Müller|authorlink=Max Müller|title=A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature |url=https://archive.org/details/ahistoryancient00mlgoog |year=1859|publisher=Williams and Norgate|pages=[https://archive.org/details/ahistoryancient00mlgoog/page/n271 245]–249}};
{{cite book|author1=Braj B. Kachru|author2=Yamuna Kachru|author3=S. N. Sridhar|title=Language in South Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O2n4sFGDEMYC |year=2008|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-46550-2|pages=202–203}} Salomon in 1995 remarked "The external testimony from literary and other sources on the use of writing in pre-Ashokan India is vague and inconclusive. Alleged evidence of pre-Mauryan writing has in the past been found by various scholars in such sources as later Vedic literature, the Pali canon, the early Sanskrit grammatical treatises of Pāṇini's and his successors, and the works of European classical historians. But all of these references are subject in varying degrees to chronological or interpretive problems."{{Citation | last=Salomon | first=Richard | title=On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article. Journal of the American Oriental Society 115.2 (1995), 271–279|url=http://indology.info/papers/salomon/}}

The Edicts of Ashoka (circa 250 BCE) use the word lipī. According to some authors, the word lipi, which is spelled dipi in the two Kharosthi versions of the rock edicts,{{refn|group=note|For example, the first line of the first Edicts at Shahbazgarhi (or at Mansehra) reads: "(Ayam) Dhrama-dipi Devanapriyasa Raño likhapitu" ("This Dharma-Edicts was written by King Devanampriya".) {{cite book |title=Inscriptions of Asoka. New Edition by E. Hultzsch |date=1925 |page=51 |url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n191/mode/2up |language=Sanskrit}}}} comes from the Old Persian prototype dipi (𐎮𐎡𐎱𐎡), which also means 'inscription', which is used for example by Darius I in his Behistun inscription.{{refn|group=note|For example [https://www.livius.org/sources/content/behistun-persian-text/behistun-t-42/ Column IV, Line 89]}} E. Hultzsch, an epigraphist in the colonial British Empire, in his 1925 study on the Inscriptions of Asoka, considered the lip derivation untenable because of the two Kharosthi rock edict inscriptions from 3rd century BCE which use dipi instead of lipi. Hultzsch, as well as Sharma, state that this suggests a borrowing and diffusion of lipi from an Old Persian prototype dipi.{{cite book|last1=Hultzsch|first1=E.|title=Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum v. 1: Inscriptions of Asoka|year =1925| publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford |page=xlii| url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n44/mode/1up }}{{cite book |last1=Sharma |first1=R. S. |title=India's Ancient Past |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199087860 |page=163 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=giwpDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT163 |language=en}}"The word dipi appears in the Old Persian inscription of Darius I at Behistan (Column IV. 39) having the meaning inscription or "written document" in {{cite book |last1=Congress |first1=Indian History |title=Proceedings – Indian History Congress |date=2007 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GhVDAAAAYAAJ |language=en}}

Some Indian traditions credit Brahma with inventing lipi, the scripts for writing.Jao Tsung-i (1964), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41682442 CHINESE SOURCES ON BRĀHMĪ AND KHAROṢṬHĪ], Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 45, No. 1/4 (1964), pages 39–47 Scholars such as Lallanji Gopal claim some ancient lipi such as the Brahmi script as used in the Indian texts, may have originated in Jainism.Lallanji Gopal (1978), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41691740 DID BRĀHMĪ SCRIPT ORIGINATE WITH THE JAINS?], Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 58/59, pages 711–726

;"Lipi" in the Edicts of Ashoka

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| image2 = Dhrama Dipi inscription in the Shahbazgarhi First Edict in the Kharosthi script.jpg

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| footer = Left: The word Lipī used by Ashoka to describe his "Edicts" (Brahmi script); Right: In Kharosthi, Edict No.1 of the Shahbazgarhi Major Rock Edict of Ashoka (circa 250 BCE) reads "Di" 15px rather than "Li" 15px.{{cite book |title=Inscriptions of Asoka. New Edition by E. Hultzsch |date=1925 |pages=56–57 |url=https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n197/mode/2up |language=Sanskrit}}

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According to Harry Falk, scripts and the idea of writing can be traced to the Indus Valley civilization in the 3rd millennium BCE, but the term lipi in 1st millennium BCE Indian literature may be a loan word from the Achaemenid region, as a variant of Sumerian dub, turned to dipi or dipī.{{cite book| author=Harry Falk |title= The Idea of Writing|chapter= Foreign Terms In Sanskrit Pertaining To Writing|year= 2009|pages= 207–218|isbn= 978-9047427926|publisher=Brill Academic| doi=10.1163/ej.9789004174467.i-396.66}} Sanskrit lipi, states Falk, likely arose from a combination of foreign influences and indigenous inventions. One evidence in favor of this view is that the form dipi was used in some of the Kharosthi-script edicts of Ashoka (3rd century BCE) in northwest India (in closest contact to Achaemenid culture) in parallel to lipi in other regions. As dipi was used in Old Persian Achaemenid inscriptions, Hultzsch suggested in 1925 that this proposal is "irresistible." In his theory about the origin of the Brahmi script, Falk states that the early mention by Paṇini could mean that he was aware of writing scripts in West Asia around 500 BCE, and the Paṇini's mention of lipikara may possibly refer to non-Indian writers such as Aramaic scribes.{{cite book|last1=Falk|first1=Harry|title= Schrift im alten Indien: ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen|date=1993|publisher=Gunter Narr Verlag|language=German|pages=258–9}}

;"Lipi" in Paṇini

Falk states that the single isolated mention of lipi by Paṇini, could mean that he was only aware of writing scripts from West Asia around 500 BCE. According to Paul Griffiths, there is "no hard evidence of the use of Brahmi or Kharosthi script" in India before the Ashoka stone inscription, but the climate of India is such as that writing on other materials would not have survived for over 2,500 years. So, states Griffith, "the absence of early witnesses certainly doesn't mean there were none", but there is no "clear textual evidence of the use of writing in the Vedic corpus".{{cite book |last1=Griffiths |first1=Paul J. |title=Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195352207 |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=acfHjj_q-pkC&pg=PA36 |language=en}}

;Opinions on origination

Kenneth Norman (a professor and the president of the Pali Text Society) suggests lipi in ancient India evolved over the long period of time like other cultures, that it is unlikely that a lipi was devised as a single complete writing system at one and the same time in the Maurya era. Norman suggests that it is even less likely that Brāhmī was invented during Ashoka's rule, starting from nothing, for the specific purpose of writing his inscriptions and understood all over South Asia.{{cite book|author=Oskar von Hinüber|title=Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in Indien|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xiYTAQAAMAAJ|year=1989|publisher=Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur|oclc= 22195130|pages=241–245|isbn=9783515056274}} Reviewing the recent archaeological discoveries relating to writing scripts in South Asia particularly Buddhism, Norman writes, "Support for this idea of pre-Ashoka development [of writing scripts] has been given very recently by the discovery of sherds at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, inscribed with small numbers of characters which seem to be Brahmi. These sherds have been dated, by both carbon 14 and thermo-luminescence dating, to pre-Ashokan times, perhaps as much as two centuries before Ashoka".{{cite book|author=Kenneth Roy Norman|title=Buddhist Forum Volume V: Philological Approach to Buddhism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qYyRAgAAQBAJ |year=2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-75154-8|pages=67, 56–57, 65–73}}

Jack Goody similarly suggests that ancient India likely had a "very old culture of writing" along with its oral tradition of composing and transmitting knowledge, because the Vedic literature is too vast, consistent and complex to have been entirely created, memorized, accurately preserved and spread without a written system.{{cite book|author=Jack Goody|title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral|url=https://archive.org/details/interfacebetween00good|url-access=registration|year=1987|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-33794-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/interfacebetween00good/page/110 110]–124}}{{cite book|author=Jack Goody|title=Myth, Ritual and the Oral|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5BJ_PDhpy2QC |year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-49303-1|pages=42–47, 65–81}} Walter Ong and John Hartley concur with Goody and share the same concerns about the theory that there may not have been any writing scripts during the Vedic age, given the quantity and quality of the Vedic literature.{{cite book|author1=Walter J. Ong|author2=John Hartley|title=Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ys8gGDZQHQ4C |year=2012 |publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-53837-4| pages=64–69}}

Falk disagrees with Goody, and suggests that it is a Western presumption and inability to imagine remarkably early scientific achievements such as Panini's grammar (5th to 4th century BCE), and the creation, preservation and wide distribution of the large corpus of the Brahmanic Vedic literature and the Buddhist canonical literature, without any writing scripts.{{cite book|author1=Annette Wilke|author2=Oliver Moebus|title=Sound and Communication: An Aesthetic Cultural History of Sanskrit Hinduism|year=2011|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-024003-0|pages=182–183}} Johannes Bronkhorst (professor of Sanskrit and Indian studies) acknowledges that Falk is widely regarded as the definitive study on this subject, but disagrees and states, "Falk goes too far. It is fair to expect that we believe that Vedic memorisation — though without parallel in any other human society — has been able to preserve very long texts for many centuries without losing a syllable. (...) However, the oral composition of a work as complex as Pāṇini’s grammar is not only without parallel in other human cultures, it is without parallel in India itself. (...) It just will not do to state that our difficulty in conceiving any such thing is our problem".Johannes Bronkhorst (2002), Literacy and Rationality in Ancient India, Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques, 56(4), pages 803–804, 797–831.

Richard Salomon, in a 1995 review, states that the lack of securely datable specimens of writing from pre-3rd century BCE period, coupled with chronological and interpretive problems of more ancient Indian texts, has made dating lipi and who influenced whom a controversial problem.{{cite journal | last=Salomon | first=Richard | title=Review: On the Origin of the Early Indian Scripts | journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society | volume=115 | issue=2 | year=1995 | pages=271–279 | doi=10.2307/604670 | jstor=604670 }}

While historical evidence of scripts is found in the Indus Valley civilization relics, these remain undeciphered.{{cite book|author1=F. R. Allchin|author2=George Erdosy|title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5kI02_zW70C|year=1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-37695-2|pages=62–63}} There has been a lack of similar historical evidence from the 2nd and early 1st millennium BCE, until the time of Ashoka where the 3rd-century BCE pillar edicts evidence the Brahmi script.{{cite book|author=Sheldon Pollock|title=The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0UCh7r2TjQIC |year=2006|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-93202-9|page=10}} Late 20th-century archaeological studies combined with carbon dating techniques at Ujjain and other sites suggest that Brahmi script existed on the ancient Indian subcontinent as early as 450 BCE.{{cite book|author1=F. R. Allchin|author2=George Erdosy|title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q5kI02_zW70C|year=1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-37695-2|pages=135–136, 147–148, 174–182, 209–215}}

Sri Lankan texts and inscriptions suggest that written script were in extensive use in ancient India, and had arrived in Sri Lanka by about 3rd century BCE.[http://repository.rjt.ac.lk/jspui/bitstream/7013/1094/1/The%20Origin.pdf The Origin of the Art of Writing in India and the Sri Lankan Experience]{{dead link|date=May 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Ariya Lagamuwa (2009), Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, page 2, Quote: "The drushtivada of Jains mentioned that Brahmi alphabet has 46 basic characters. Hiuen Tsiang states that the Brahmi alphabet remains intact over the generations and it has 47 characters. (...) According to their historical evidences, it is clear that the Indian alphabets including Brahmi have been widespread during the 3rd century BC". While scholars agree that developed writing scripts existed and were in use by the second half of the 1st millennium BCE, the chronology and the origins of lipi in ancient India remain a controversial, difficult and unresolved scholarly topic.{{cite journal|last1=Salomon|first1=Richard|last2=von Hinüber|first2=Oskar|last3=Falk|first3=Harry| title=On the Origin of the Early Indian Scripts |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society| volume=115|issue=2|year=1995|pages=271–279 |doi=10.2307/604670|jstor= 604670}}

The tenth chapter of the Lalitavistara, named Lipisala samdarshana parivarta, lists the following 64 scripts as what Siddhartha (the Gautam Buddha) learned as a child from his schools. This list is found in both Indian Buddhist texts and its ancient Chinese translations:{{cite book|author=Georg Bühler|title=On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet|url=https://archive.org/details/onoriginofindian00bhuoft|year=1898|publisher=K.J. Trübner|pages=[https://archive.org/details/onoriginofindian00bhuoft/page/6 6], 14–15, 23, 29}}, Quote: "(...) a passage of the Lalitavistara which describes the first visit of prince Siddhartha, the future Buddha, to the writing school..." (page 6); "In the account of prince Siddhartha's first visit to the writing school, extracted by Professor Terrien de la Couperie from the Chinese translation of the Lalitavistara of 308 AD the utterance of the master Visvamitra,...."{{Refn|group=note|The names of scripts in this list varies by manuscript and Buddhist text, states Richard Salomon.}}

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;Historicity

The historical value of this list of lipis is however limited, states Salomon, by several factors. Although the Buddhist text with this list is ancient because it was translated into Chinese in 308 CE, the date of its actual composition is unknown. According to Salomon, the canonical texts of Buddhism may not be authentic and have interpolations. For example, he suggests that "Huna-lipi" or the script of the Huns listed as 23rd lipi in this list suggests that this part and the present form of the Buddhist text may have been fabricated in the 4th century CE. Other than Brahmi and Kharosthi lipi mentioned in this list which can be positively identified with historic inscriptions, other writing scripts consist presumably of regional derivatives of Brahmi which cannot be specifically identified. Some names such as Naga-lipi and Yaksa-lipi appear fanciful, states Salomon, which raises suspicions about historicity of this section of the Buddhist canonical text. However, adds Salomon, a simpler but shorter list of 18 lipis exist in the canonical texts of Jainism, an ancient Indian religion that competed with Buddhism and Hinduism. Buhler states that the Jaina lipi list is "in all probability considerably older" than the Buddhist list of 64 writing scripts in ancient India. The Jaina list does not have names that Salomon considers fanciful.

The authenticity of Lalitavistara Sutra where this list appears and other canonical texts of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist traditions, as well as "a complete denial of the existence of a historical Buddha", has been among the long debated questions in Buddhism scholarship.Alexander Wynne (2005), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24007653 The Historical Authenticity of Early Buddhist Literature: A Critical Evaluation], Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens / Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 49, pages 35–70 Suspicions about the historicity of Lalitavistara, states EJ Thomas, are built upon presumptions which seek to reconstruct early history to fit certain theories and assumptions about what must have come first and what must have come later.EJ Thomas (1940), "The Lalitavistara and Sarvastivada", Indian Historical Quarterly, volume 16, number 2, pages 239–245

File:Angika.svg

The Magadhalipi mentioned in the Lalitavistara is discussed in the 7th-century Tibetan texts, in two forms: dBu-can (script with matra or the framing horizontal line drawn above each letter of the alphabet), and dBu-med (script without matra). The former is derived from the more ancient Lantsha script, while the latter derived from the Vartula script.{{cite book|author= Alaka Chattopadhyaya|title=Atisa and Tibet: Life and Works of Dipamkara Srijnana in Relation to the History and Religion of Tibet with Tibetan Sources|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H8Ssa5r7MZkC |year=1999|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=978-81-208-0928-4 |pages=200–201, 451–452}} According to Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Vartula means "rounded shape" and likely refers to the rounded letters of alphabet that were invented for various ancient Indian scripts. Scherrer-Schaub adds that the list of sixty-four scripts in the Buddhist text likely contains scripts that are fictional, with Devalipi and Nagalipi as examples.{{cite book|author=Cristina Scherrer-Schaub|title=Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the IATS, 2003. Volume 14: Old Tibetan Studies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=roF95JoXZNUC |year=2012|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-15517-6|pages=221–222 with footnote 18}}

A smaller list of eighteen ancient Indian lipi is found in the Prakrit texts of Jainism (spelled as lipi sometimes{{cite book|author=Muni Nagraj|title=Āgama Aura Tripiṭaka, Eka Anuśilana: Language and literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dXVOXRrYQiQC |year=1986|publisher=Concept|isbn=978-81-7022-731-1|pages=223 with footnote 1}}), such as the Pannavana Sutra (2nd century BCE) and the Samavayanga Sutra (3rd century BCE). This list shares some names found in the Buddhist lists of ancient Indian scripts, but includes new names. The Jaina script list includes Brahmi at number 1, Kharosthi at number 4, but includes Javanaliya and others not found in the Buddhist lists. Scholars such as Buhler state that the Jaina list of ancient Indian scripts is likely older than the Buddhist list, but still belonging to the second half of the 1st millennium BCE wherein Javanaliya probably is the same as one of the many Sanskrit scripts called Yavanani, which was derived from the Greek (Yavana) alphabet. The Jaina canonical texts list the following writing scripts in ancient India:{{cite book|author=Richard Salomon|title=Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYrG07qQDxkC|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-535666-3|page=9 with footnote 9}}

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Given the similarity in the name, Devanagari may have roots in Devalipi, but Walter Maurer states that there is no verifiable evidence to prove that this is so.{{cite journal| author=Walter H Maurer| title=On the Name Devanāgarī| journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society| volume=96|issue=1 |year=1976|jstor= 599893| pages=101–104| doi=10.2307/599893}} According to Richard Salomon, the Brahmi script evolved to become both the north Indian scripts such as Devanagari, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali, as well as the south Indian scripts such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.{{cite book|author=Richard Salomon|title=Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYrG07qQDxkC|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-535666-3|pages=33, 31–39}}

{{columnslist|colwidth=20em|

• Related topics
• Brahmi script
• Indus script
• Kharosthi script
• Kohi script
• Tamil script
• Other similar topics
• Early Indian epigraphy
• Edicts of Ashoka
• History of India
• Indian copper plate inscriptions
• South Indian Inscriptions

}}

{{reflist|group=note}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• [http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-AN/an142820.pdf Lipi in ancient India] {{in lang|zh}}, 佉留文字與四十二字門, 正觀雜誌 (1999)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160924134751/http://resources.84000.co/browser/released/UT22084/046/UT22084-046-001.pdf The Lalitavistara] (The play in full), translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee, pages 91–92
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160919073113/http://ir.nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp/jspui/bitstream/2237/24139/1/SAMBHASA-26-4.pdf Candravyakarana – Deciphering an arrowhead Indian script], Albrecht Hanisch (2009), Nagoya University
• [https://www.jstor.org/stable/44155474 The Vartula or Vaivarta Lipi], Sita R Roy (1967)

Category:Brahmic scripts

Category:Hindu literature

Category:Buddhist literature

Category:Jain literature