Scripts
The Harappan signs, Brahmi and Kharosthi, and how they were deciphered.
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Harappan civilization🏺 Ancient
The Harappan script
Between 375 and 400 signs, written from right to left, on seals, copper tools, rims of jars and more — and still undeciphered.
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c. 272/268–231 BCE🏺 Ancient
Asoka's edicts: four languages
Most of Asoka's Prakrit inscriptions were in the Brahmi script; in the northwest some were in Kharosthi, and in Afghanistan Aramaic and Greek were used.
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1838🏭 Modern
Brahmi is read again
James Prinsep, an officer in the East India Company's mint, deciphered Asokan Brahmi in 1838, after decades of work by epigraphists.
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Nineteenth century🏭 Modern
Kharosthi read from coins
Indo-Greek coins carried kings' names in Greek and Kharosthi, so letters could be matched — as in names such as Apollodotus — and Kharosthi inscriptions were found to be in Prakrit.
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1930s🏭 Modern
Hindustani for the nation?
By the 1930s the Congress had accepted Hindustani — a blend of Hindi and Urdu — as the national language, and Gandhi wanted a language common people could understand.
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Constituent Assembly🏭 Modern
Hindi in the Devanagari script
The Constituent Assembly decided that Hindi in the Devanagari script would be the official language, with English continuing for the first fifteen years.
How we check: each entry is written from a passage in the NCERT chapter it links to, and our build fails unless key phrases from that passage are found in the chapter’s own text. Dates appear only where the chapter gives them.