Thread by @hamsanandi

A #thread about some #myths of #languages and #scripts (of #India): 🧵(I wrote in Kannada earlier)
Every language including #Sanskrit comes in spoken form first & later in written form. Most languages are dated by the earliest time when a written record for them is found. 1/17

#Samskrta can be considered an exception, where we have record of the spoken word before we see its written form. This is because the #Vedas were preserved in a speech form for millennia before being written down. In case of other languages, this is not so. 2/17

For ex: First written record of #Kannada date to 2-3rd C CE. But this does not prove Kannada did'nt exist prior to 2nd CE. It is better to inferwriting was introduced/adapted to Kannada then. In fact we see how the script used to write Prakrit in as adapted to write Kannada 3/17

It is a similar situation with #Sanskrit. There was a time when there was no #script. Even after power of writing was understood & writing was in place for centuries, oral traditions continued. Until printing was available widely, dependency of oral renditions continued 4/17

A script existed for Sanskrit during the time of Panini (~8th C BCE), as could interpreted from his text #Ashtadhyayi. For some very interesting historical notes about this period, you can read the book “India as known to #Panini”, by Dr Vasudev Sharan Agrawala. 5/17

We don't see references to writing Ramayana & Mahabharata afaik. Since Vyasa & Valmiki predate Panini, we can assume writing was not common during their times.#Chanakya,#Arthashastra prescribes maintaining records/budget upto 100 years- which isn't possible without writing 6/17

So we can conclude Sanskrit was written very early in our history.#Prakrit were also be put to writing at the same time. The text of Arthashastra is however in Sanskrit . Earliest rock inscriptions are in Prakrit, but Prakrits are like different shades (dialects) of Sanskrit.7/17

We can say certainly Prakrit is found in earliest rock inscriptions followed by Sanskrit a couple of centuries later. We don't know what may be lost in perishable material.
Major scripts of India in use for various languages are derived from Brahmi script of 2000 years ago.8/17

Some people wrongly believe Sanskrit language was always (and only) written in Devanagari script. Probably because the find Devanagari script is a post 10th century script from the Wikipedia ;-), they also believe unfortunately there was no Sanskrit writing before that time!9/17

There are also fancy and baseless claims stating those knowing Sanskrit despised writing because they did not want their works to be known to others. Nothing can be far from the truth. Several different scripts have been used to write Sanskrit (&still are) over time & space10/17

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the earliest recorded Sanskrit writing is in a script called #Brahmi. Brahmi is a new name given to this 2000+ year old script in the 19th century. We don't know if this script had a name when it was used for writing 2000 years ago. 11/17

Neither has Panini given a name to the script used at his time nor we find any examples of writing from that time. Interestingly, he also calls the language just as ‘Bhasha’ and does not give the name #Samskrta/#Sanskrit that we refer it as.

12/17

After #Brahmi, Sanskrit texts are found written in dozens of scripts like Sharada, Vanga, Nagari, #NandiNagari, #Devanagari, Kalinga, #Siddham, Grantha, #Kannada/Telugu, Malayalam Tigalari, Tibetan etc (By no means it is a complete list). 13/17

All these scripts evolved from #Brahmi and changed from each other due to the material used for writing, or due to other regional variations and ended up as different scripts. But people from all around India (and outside too)needed to write Sanskrit for an important reason.14/17

There was a wealth of material in Sanskrit (literary, religion, scientific, medicine, mathematics, astronomy performing arts, you name it!) before most other languages of the region & neighborhood including those languages that were derived (directly or indirectly from it) 15/17

Readers from different parts of India(& outside) continued writing Sanskrit for millennia in scripts that they were familiar with.Check the number of manuscripts & their scripts used by the Bhandarkar Institute for their critical edition of #Mahabharata, it becomes apparent!16/17

So if someone tells you Sanskrit did not/does not have a script, you can ignore them or counter them with facts.
"अयुक्तमपि न ग्राह्यं साक्षादपि बृह्स्पतेः " should be a beacon for us.🙏17/17
#Truth #IndianLanguages #IndianScripts #Sanskrit #Devanagari #EndOfThread 🧵