Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c8.s2.t6.4

v1.c8.s2.t6.4

Brahma and Kharosthi were two innovators of these two scripts of India. The concerned work has been translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. These two kinds of scripts, ie, Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts were regarded by Indian kingdoms as "heavenly scripts" (tian-shu). The Brahmi script is written from left to right whereas Kharosthi is written from right to left. Further, the seventh chapter titled *Appearing Books* found in the third volume of the *Lalitavistara Sutra* in the beginning mentions the names of 64 scripts and the second kind was Kharosthi script. This too has been translated by the Indian scholar monk, Dharmaraksa. Again, in Tang dynasty, chapter 10 titled the *Displaying* Tocharian, fragments of *Maitri Simit* (*Mile huijian ji*), found in Xinjiang, China in 1957