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INDIAN BRANCH
345 caves at Nasik, Junnar, Karli, Kanheri, Kuda, and so forth, shows the three varieties mentioned above under (b), (c), and (d). Al were employed more or less promiscuously in the second century A.D. The oldest dated inscriptions of the Kshaharata dynasty are dated from the years 41 to 45 (A.D. 119 to 123) of the Saka dynasty, the principal era of southern India, beginning in A.D. 78. These inscriptions are in a clumsy script, which seems to be a direct development of the early Andhra character mentioned under (4). Other inscriptions, such as those from Nasik of the Satavahana kings, who overthrew the Kshaharata dynasty soon after 123 A.D., are written in a very neat script, in a ductus resembling, according to Buehler, the northern script of Sodasa (first century B.C. or A.D. see p. 343).
The inscriptions of Amaravati are very important: Amaravati or Amravati, on the south bank of the Kistna river, in the Guntur district of the Madras presidency, was one of the chief centres of the Buddhist kingdom of Vengi, where the most important Buddhist remains of southern India were discovered. The inscriptions of Amaravati stupa show that the western Deccan and Konkan scripts were also used on the eastern coast of South India.
Further Development of Indian Scripts During the next century, three main branches of Indian scripts are distinguishable: the northern, the southern, and the further-Indian branch: a few other types were of mixed or uncertain origin; see the following sections.
NORTH INDIAN SCRIPTS (FOURTH CENTURY A.D.-FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
The mediæval and modern Indian characters arose from the early scripts, particularly from the prototypes mentioned under (7) and their cursive varieties. Dr. Buehler points out that the ancient MSS. and various peculiarities of the letters such as the formation of wedges at the ends of the verticals clearly prove that they were always written with a pen or a brush and ink. Granting the probability of these writing materials, I should not insist on the word "always." In the course of time, the letters were equalized in height and breadth as far as possible.
Buehler distinguished seven main types in the development of the North Indian scripts during the millennium from the middle of the fourth century A.D.
North Indian Monumental Type known as Gupta (Fig. 153, col. 4) This character was employed in the fourth-sixth centuries A.D.
Little is known about the origin of the Gupta family, and it is not even certain whether Gupta was a title or a name. At the beginning of the fourth century
