Originally posted by: _LalithaJanaki_
I am not concerned about the Sanskrit. It's the script used that bothers me. Yes Devanagari is the script used for Sanskrit in recent times but that has nothing to do with whatever script was used in Emperor Ram's era. Devanagari, earlier known as Nagari, evolved from the Gupta script along with Siddham and Sharada. All 3 of these scripts were used for Sanskrit around 7th/8th centuries C.E. but Nagari became more common over time. A number of other scripts have also been used for Sanskrit over the
centuries but Devanagari is the de facto script used since the 19th
century.
Now here's the issue: even these are not the earliest used scripts in the subcontinent. That honour belongs to ancient Brahmi which is ancestral to a vast number of scripts in South and South East Asia and even parts of Central Asia.
And it is known that the Brahmi script was used for Sanskrit, long before the evolution of Nagari, Sharada, Siddham, Grantha, etc. Confirmed dates for Brahmi back to the 3rd century B.C.E. and there is some evidence that it goes even further back. Sanskrit inscriptions in Brahmi dating back to the 6th century B.C.E. have been found in a few places.
One thing I must mention is that there was another script, Kharoshthi, which was mostly contemporary to early Brahmi. It was used by the Gandharas for both Gandhari and Sanskrit. Unfortunately it died out around 3rd century C.E. And it did not spread into the subcontinent proper.
The only "script" that can make a pre-Brahmi claim is the Indus script which has not been conclusively deciphered yet. It does go very far back though (up to and possibly beyond the 26th century B.C.E.). A lot of scholars even think it is proto-writing. Some have argued that is the predecessor to Brahmi while others say that they are not related. It remains a matter of debate.
As you can see, the earliest confirmed usage of Sanskrit in the subcontinent is ancient Brahmi. More or less everything else (Nagari, Sharada, etc) evolved from Brahmi. The rise of Nagari and the earliest evidence of Brahmi are separated by over a thousand years (at least 15 centuries actually). So, given how far back in time we usually place the events of the Ramayan, how could
Devanagari be used in Rama's times? Unless of course, we assume that
Emperor Asoka pre-dates Ram 😲
There
is
of course a lot of debate as to when exactly the events of the
Ramayan occured. The oral history is said to go back to at least the
8th century B.C.E. The actual events probably occurred much earlier,
probably many millenia earlier. Some use astronomical dating to place
it beyond the 7th millennium B.C.E. Whichever dating method we choose,
clearly the Ramayana is from a period before the development of
Devanagari. It is possible that the
script used in Ram's era predates even Brahmi and is perhaps lost. We can even argue that there might be a link with the Indus script. However, we cannot ask the Sagars to make up a script or have them use the Indus script whose decipherment is still a matter of debate.
I think, given our knowledge, we can make a safe assumption that an early form of Brahmi or a lost script ancestral to Brahmi was in use during Ram's time. Either that or the Rama era script died out before evolving into anything else. If in future we find evidence of a script, earlier than Brahmi, that belonged to a
different branch and was used in the subcontinent and eventually died out, then we
can refine our assumption. In any case, we can't really do anything with a lost script. At least not on a Sagar Arts show. To deal with that sort of stuff (or even to draw a link with the Indus script) you'd need to bring on a team of linguists, anthropologists, historians, epigraphers, philologists, paleographers, archaeologists, etc and I don't see that happening on these serials. Maybe some day HBO will make a show on ancient Indian epics and do something like that. 😆
For now I think it will suffice to assume the Rama script to be an ancestor or even earlier form of Brahmi. Given this assumption, using Brahmi is clearly much less of an anachronism than Devanagari which was born over a millennium later. And, unlike the Indus script, Brahmi has been deciphered. So I would prefer using the earliest known form of Brahmi if any Sanskrit text has to be shown in the epic. Kharoshthi can be used for any inscriptions used in Gandhara when Bharat conquers that region. Yeah I know we can't expect much from the Sagars but still, this is quite bothersome for me.
I think the best thing would have been to avoid showing the text to the audience. Use simple camera tricks (use over head view or some other angle) when showing Luv-Kush reading the inscription. Use the same for any texts in Gandhara (if they are even planning on anything like that). This way there would have been no scope for doubts. 😆
Edited by Kal El - 14 years ago
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