The Sharada Script

Named after "Sharada Desh", the ancient name of Kashmir, the Sharada script developed from Brahmi, the mother of all Indian scripts, around the 9th century. Employed for writing Sanskrit, and Kashmiri, in ancient and medieval Kashmir, it is related to the Devanagari script and is built along the same lines with the letters sa and ha coming at the end of the alphabet. Aurel Stein has called it "the elder sister of Devanagari".

Even after Persian was made the court language of Kashmir, Sharada continued to be used for quite some time even by Muslims. Serval 15th and 16th century tombs in Kashmir have epitaphs written in both the Perso-Arabic and Sharada scripts. Medieval saint Sheikh Makhdoom Hamza's will preserved in the Srinagar Museum is written in Persian as well as Sharada. The will was written in 1577.

Sharada alaphabet soon spread to the neighbouring Himalayan regions where it was widely used. Gurumukhi, the script in which Punjabi is written, evolved from Sharada. However, the use of Sharada script is now limited to a very few members of the priestly class of the Kashmiri Pandits for writing horoscopes.

Revival of the Sharada script as a priorty item on the N.S.K.R.I agenda.

Related Articles