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Scripts |
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Sanskrit is so old that for the first millennia or so it was never written down in any script (as far as we know). When it started to be written down several scripts were used (e.g Kharoṣṭhī and Bhrāmī). These scripts developed over time until we get the modern ones (e.g. Devanāgarī and related scripts). In the south of India their local scripts have been used (e.g. Grantha, Tamil and Sinhala). In classical times Tibetan and Chinese scholars also used their own writing systems to write Sanskrit. When the Europeans started writing Sanskrit they both used these traditional scripts as well as Latin scripts with suitable diacritics (a.k.a. transliteration). I use Latin transliteration as described in the grammars of Gonda or Mayrhofer (see also the page describing Devanāgarī).
Printed texts almost exclusively use either Devanāgarī or transliterated Latin.
On the web there are good resources for the different scripts used for writing Sanskrit. E.g. take a look at AncientScripts.com for different scripts and an overview:
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Copyright © 2005 Lennart Warnemyr |