Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t6.64

c7.s2.t6.64

Whatever may have been the precise origin of the Southeast Asian form of Brāhmī, it rapidly developed local characteristics of its own, which may be broadly characterized as a tendency toward curved and wavy lines (somewhat like those of the Telugu-Kannada script), calligraphic elaboration in the form of extended curves and curls, and a precise and artistic ductus.¹²⁰ Over the centuries this script gradually developed into local varieties, used both for Sanskrit and for the indigenous languages, and these in turn eventually evolved, through various processes of differentiation and phonetic adaptation, into the later and modern scripts used for Thai, Lao, Cambodian, and Burmese.¹²¹