Scripts used for Sanskrit

The primary script in use for संस्कृतभाषा in recent centuries is the नागरी (Nāgari) script (old name), also called as देवनागरी (Devanāgarī) script.

This script belongs to the Brāmhi (ब्राम्ही) script family. This family encompasses more scripts than any other script family in the world. It is named after the ब्राम्ही (Brāmhī) language. (Ambiguity; discussed below.)

The earliest accepted use of the देवनागरी (Devanāgarī) script is around 100 AD.

During this period, other scripts like the प्राकृत (Prākrit) script were also in use for other languages in use in that period. Hence, a few kingdoms also used such scripts for Sanskrut language (संस्कृतभाषा).

Not many tablets or edicts have been found using the Nāgari script for संस्कृत language before the second century CE; but other scripts like प्राकृत (Prākrit) have been used in that period for (संस्कृतभाषा) Sanskrit language.

Yet this can be explained by the fact that Devanāgarī script is not easy for chiselling on stone as compared to other contemporary scripts.

Hence it would be wrong to assume that the Devanāgarī script is only recently being used for संस्कृतभाषा. In fact, it may have been in use even as early as 500 BCE, during the reign of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (चन्द्रगुप्त मौर्य) of Magadha (मगध, in present day India), who defeated the Macedonian king Alexander; and was known as Sandrokottos by the Greeks.

In the southern regions, the use of Dravidian scripts is also found alongside नागरी (Nāgarī) script. The reason is the same as mentioned above for the other Northern scripts.

Also, since the Devanāgarī script was only used for Sanskrit (संस्कृतभाषा), its presence is far less, as compared to the local Dravidian scripts, in the southern regions.

Before the above mentioned scripts even evolved, Sanskrit (संस्कृतभाषा) was an old language. Those scripts can be traced to 1500 BCE. Yet, even if the theory dating the Sanskrit language to the latest is considered, there is still a gap of 2000 years.

Now there are various theories about the scripts used in this period, with suggestions about other scripts from other cultures influencing the later scripts, to derivations from completely different now forgotten scripts. But as no concrete proof can be provided for any of the theories, one can't conclude.

A fact scarcely known even among the Indians, is the reference in the Aryan scriptures about an ancient language that predated even the Sanskrit language (संस्कृतभाषा). It is the language Brāmhī (ब्राम्ही).

This language is not the same as the one which is called by this very name today. Today's Brāmhī was earlier known as the Stick Figure or Pin Man Language. No reference about it's name was ever found. It was an 1880s researcher Albert Etienne de Lacouperie, who associated it with the name Bramhi, which was the first of scripts mentioned in the scripture Lalitavistāra Sutra (ललितविस्तार सूत्र).

Hence, the Brāmhī script of today has nothing to do with the ancient Brāmhī language from which Sanskrit (संस्कृतभाषा) has descended.

Others say that the ancient Indus Script is the parent of the later scripts used for Sanskrit, like Devanāgarī and Prākrit. The timeline of this theory also matches with the foreign-influenced-scripts theory, and hence both these theories are debated by both sides. This has made these two the most well known of the theories.