History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c14.s5.47

c14.s5.47

49A. In the same way the script name Nāgarī is to be explained. I think, the origin of this name lies in the Nāga dynasty under whom originated the headed type of writing, evidence of the existence of which we get from the time of Pṛthivīsheṇa I in the inscriptions of Nachnā and Ganj.² In the Vākāṭaka inscriptions the letters are bound with a box-like heading which was reduced to a line in the Nāgarī script beginning from about 800 A.D. The name Nāgarī seems to have been applied to what is called the box-headed script of the fourth and early fifth centuries. It is significant that the box-headed writing is found exactly where the Nāga government was most prominent, viz. in Bundelkhand and the Central Provinces. In the Central Provinces before the Nāga period, we have a Kushan inscription found at Bherāghāṭ which is in the ordinary Brāhmī script. The peculiar box-headed writing, therefore, came into existence after the Kushans and before the Vākāṭakas. We can confidently date it in the Nāga period.