Some epigraphic records of Bengal were deciphered during the last half of the 19th century. In 1837, James Prinsep, a British scholar, was able to read the Asokan Brahmi successfully, which paved the way for deciphering other ancient Indian Proto-regional Brahmi. It is stated that once Firuzshah Tughlaq, the sultan of Delhi, collected a pillar inscription of Asoka and called upon the scholars around him to decipher it. But it is interesting to note that in course of time the Indians had forgotten to read and write the Brahmi alphabet. In this connection, it may be imagined that the Brahmi made a long way of evolution to come to this form of Asokan stage. We get the complete form of Brahmi in the Asokan rock edicts. But Brahmi script had widely been incised in the stone pillars and stone slabs of the great Mauryan King Ashoka. The most ancient written record of Brahmi was discovered on a vase at Piprahwa (487 BC), Tarai in Nepal. On the other hand, it is assumed that as the Brahmi was the alphabet of the Brahman, it has been named as Brahmi. The Indians used to believe that the Brahmi originated from the creator Brahma and hence, this hence the script has been named Brahmi. Actually, it was a significant contribution of the ancient Indian people who invented Brahmi scripts and their own numerals. But there is no definite proof about this assumption. Some scholars are of the view that it was borrowed from outside of India. But no one has been able to demonstrate how this evolution took place. The discovery of the Indus valley writing has led some scholars to guess that Brahmi was locally developed out of the Indus valley writing system.

The modern Bangla alphabet originated from the ancient Indian Brahmi script, which was the oldest and popular script of India. But the Kharoshthi alphabet has not made any contribution to the development of the Bangali alphabet. Besides these, a number of terracotta seals and fragment potsherds have been discovered from Chandraketugarh and Bedachapa in West Bengal, which bear also the Kharoshthi alphabet. A number of Kusana coins, which have been discovered from Bengal, bear the Kharosthi script. It spread over other parts of India during the Kusana period. But this script was mainly limited in the North-West frontier of India.

The ancient Indians took the Kharosthi alphabet from the Aramaic script. The Kharosthi was written from the right to the left, while the Brahmi left to the right. By virtue of the direction of writing, ancient Indian scripts are divided mainly into two parts, the Brahmi and the Kharoshthi.

Bangla alphabet letters