Brahmi, Brāhmī

Brahmi is a writing system (abugida, using diacritical marks) appeared as exhaustive script in the 3rd century, possibly with Aramaic origins, and was used in the Ashoka inscriptions.

Brahmi is also the name of an ancient number system which developed in India as early as the second millenium BCE, and of an early Indian alphabet.

According to French sinologist Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie (1844-1894), noting the term "Brahmi" and "Kharosthi" in ancient Chinese encyclopedia, proposed that Brahmi refer to the left-to-right script of the Ashokan pillar inscriptions, and Kharosthi to the right-to-left script of some rock inscriptions in northwest India.

Brahmi was widespread in Southeast Asia, and Southern Brahmi script, from which appeared the Grantha alphabet (6th century) and the Vatteluttu alphabet (8th century), was at the origin of the Javanese script in Indonesia, the Khmer alphabet in Cambodia, and the Old Mon script in Burma.