Who deciphered the Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts?
- A.Piyadassi
- B.Colin Mackenzie
- C.Alexander Cunningham
- D.James Prinsep
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is D, James Prinsep. Prinsep, an official of the East India Company's mint and secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, deciphered the Brahmi script in 1837 and also made the key breakthrough in reading Kharoshthi.
Working from short donor inscriptions at Sanchi and from bilingual Indo-Greek coins, which carried a king's name in Greek on one side and in Kharoshthi on the other, Prinsep matched letters and sounds. Reading Brahmi let him read the edicts of Ashoka, in which the king calls himself Devanampiya Piyadasi, and this opened up the history of the Mauryan empire. Brahmi is the parent of most Indian scripts, while Kharoshthi was written from right to left in the north-west.
A is wrong: Piyadassi, meaning "of pleasing appearance", is a title of Ashoka himself, whose inscriptions were the ones deciphered. B is wrong: Colin Mackenzie, India's first Surveyor General, collected manuscripts and inscriptions but did not decipher these scripts. C is wrong: Alexander Cunningham was the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, founded in 1861.
Exam tip: James Prinsep, 1837, Brahmi; Ashoka = Devanampiya Piyadasi; ASI 1861 = Cunningham.
Practice Questions
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