One guy says that Sanskrit can’t be considered India’s treasure because it never had a script of its own! This is an astonishingly foolish statement because most of the Indian languages (except the Dravidian ones) are derived from Sanskrit and all Dravidian languages are indebted to Sanskrit and vice versa. That fanatics of such magnitude roam around littering the cyberspace is a sad commentary on Tamil scholarship.
Now let us first discuss the issue of scripts.
The Vedic Sanskrit has a hoary oral tradition and the Vedas until recently were largely transmitted orally. This itself is an amazing feat in human memory and dedication. That Vedic tradition was oral doesn’t mean that it didn’t have any grammar. Had it been the case its content would not have been understood at all. Only a complete idiot will say without batting an eyelid that oral language doesn’t require grammar. In fact, oral language broadly consists of phonology, grammar, morphology, vocabulary, discourse, and pragmatics. The acquisition of these skills often begins at a young age, before students begin focusing on print-based concepts such as sound-symbol correspondence and decoding. A child is able to comprehend the pattern of a language without learning to write it.
The advent of Panini in the 4th century BC signified the arrival of classic Sanskrit. Panini infact speaks about lipi. Thus Sanskrit in his time was also being inscribed.
Now What about the script?
Sanskrit was initially written in Kharoshthi (written from right to left) and later in Brahmi.
The earliest Sanskrit inscription emerges from the first century CE which matures later as evidenced by Junagath inscription. By the third century Sanskrit was the language of all inscriptions. There were different types of Brahmi – Ashoka Brahmi, Kushana Brahmi and Gupta Brahmi.
It was Gupta Brammi that later evolved into a script known as Siddhamatrika which later became Devanagari – the script in which Sanskrit is now being written. This is the script that was adopted by many Northern Indian languages which are all heavily indebted to or derived from Sanskrit.
We can also trace a similar development among the Dravidian languages and Tamil is one of them. The Tamil Brahmi dates back to 2nd century BCE. The present Tamil script evolved from the early medieval period sometime during the 7th century CE. Grantha script was used in our region for writing Sanskrit.
There are about 35 million manuscripts in India and around two thirds of them in Sanskrit, written in different scripts. Such is the sweep and the power of that language. The reason was simple. It was largely orally transmitted and whenever the opportunity arose it was transcribed in the script of the region – for example, Grantha if it was in South India or Devanagari if it was in North India or Sharada script if it was in Kashmir.
Thus only illiterates would claim that Sanskrit doesn’t have a script of its own. It had several scripts of its own. It is only that the present standardized version happens to be Devanagari.
Material consulted:
Upinder Singh – A history of ancient and Early Medieval India
Speaking of Sanskrit –Bibek Debroy
Critical role of oral language in reading – Elizabeth Brooke
