Mundi script

{{Short description|Merchant script}}

Mundi was a merchant script used by Marwari and Gujarati businessmen and bookkeepers for recording accounts and correspondences.{{Cite book |last1=Kaushik |first1=Kshama V. |title=India Means Business: How the elephant earned its stripes |last2=Dutta |first2=Kaushik |date=Jan 23, 2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199088515 |chapter=Bahi-Khata and Parta System |quote=The language used for writing depends on the business; since most of the Indian business was in the hands of Marwaris and Gujaratis in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mundi was the language of choice for bookkeeping. The other accounting language was found among Punjabi businessmen which was called langdi Hindi.}}{{Cite book |last=Garg |first=Vipin K. |title=Trade Practices and Traditions: Origin and Development in India |publisher=Allied |year=1984 |isbn=9780836414349 |pages=v, 107–109}} The script is believed to have been developed by Marwari accountants in Rajasthan. Its name is derived from the Rajasthani word munda, which means "bare-headedness", given to it due to the fact that the script lacks a bar at the top of the alphabet to conjoin letters, which differs it from Devanagari script. The genealogical records at Haridwar were written in a local script called Landi-Mundi.{{Cite news |last=Chakrabarty |first=Sreeparna |date=6 April 2023 |title=Ancestry records of pilgrim centres to shed light on India's past |url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/now-ancestry-records-to-be-used-in-the-telling-of-history/article66680686.ece |access-date=11 June 2025 |work=The Hindu |quote=While individual scholars have accessed these records for research before, now the ICHR will systemise the process. For example, the Haridwar records are written in a locally script called 'Landi-Mundi', and they will develop a mechanism for translating this.}} It was one of the two main scripts used by merchants in northwest India, the other being Langdi employed in the Punjab region. According to Vipin K. Garg, the merchants of India used special scripts and each region had its own particular name for their script, such as Mundi, Modi, Mudiya, Mahajani, and Sarafi. The Mundi script spread to other parts of India by the 17th or 18th century, with it having influence on merchant records written in Karnataka in Kannada script, particularly the form and style of writing. Its use continued until the early 20th century.