Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t1: 2.2.1 Geographical and chronological range

c7.s2.t1.1

Unlike Kharoṣṭhī, which was always geographically limited and died out at a relatively early period (see 2.3.1 and 2.3.2), the Brāhmī script (see table 2.1) appeared in the third century b.c. as a fully developed pan-Indian national script (sometimes used as a second script even within the proper territory of Kharoṣṭhī in the northwest) and continued to play this role throughout history, becoming the parent of all of the modern Indic scripts both within India and beyond. Thus, with the exceptions of the Indus script in the protohistoric period, of Kharoṣṭhī in the northwest in the ancient period, and of the Perso-Arabic and European scripts in the medieval and modern periods, respectively, the history of writing in India is virtually synonymous with the history of the Brāhmī script and its derivatives.