Development of Nagari Script

SR No.: 006800
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A K Singh
Publisher: Parimal Publication
Publication Year: 1991
Total Pages: 386
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 6 MB

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Development of Nāgarī Script
benefited their country-men by making use of their experience in those alien lands in their literary compositions. Rājasekhara himself was a Maharashtrian Brāhmana, stayed in the court of the Imperial Pratihāras, married a Chāhmāna lady Avantisundaria king Indra III. The Kashmiri, poet, Bilhana, travelled to South 'ndia and in the court of king Vikramāditya of Kalyāna, he composed his Vikramārkadeva Charitra." Jayānaka, the noted Kashmiri poet, made a journey to the court of Prithvirāja III. Dhanapāla, of U.P., spent a major part of his life at the court of Paramāra rulers and lastly settled at Satyapura in Rajasthan. Similarly, Sriharsha, who was probably a Bengali by birth, was patronised by Jayachandra, the Gahadavāla king of Kanauja. This point becomes more clear by the example of Pattadakal pillar inscription of the time of Chälukya Kirtivarmā II (A.D. 754) which was engraved in the southern as well as in proto-Nāgarī characters. The northern characters were surely due to the Brāhmanas from Northern
ia, for whom the pillar was set up.5 Sometimes, it is also noticed that the writer and engraver belonged to two distinct places and might have influenced the alphabet considerably.
Along with the writers and engravers the donee also had a role in the migration of the script. For example, most of the Rāshtrakūta grants written in proto-Nāgarī or Nāgarī were donated to the Brāhmanas who had come from the different parts of Northern India. It may be due to the fact that perhaps the receiver of the charters did not follow the matter written in southern scripts or the donor was under the influence of these learned scholars.
The establishment of larger kingdoms also encouraged a uniform system of writing within the dominions where divergent systems were prevalent. In consequence many diversities of the alphabet disappeared and with the skilled hand of the royal writer and engraver the script developed in unidirection. Sometimes writers were chosen from the newly conquered country by the king.
Raids and conquests from time to time have also shared in the migration of scripts. For example with the expansion of Harsha's power, in the early part of the 7th century, the script of the west reached the Middle