Lipi (script)
Lipi (Sanskrit: लिपि) means 'writing, letters, alphabet', and contextually refers to scripts, the art or manner of writing, or in modified form such as lipī (लिपी) to painting, decorating or anointing a surface to express something.[2][3]
The term lipi appears in multiple texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, some of which have been dated to the 1st millennium BCE. Section 3.2.21 of Pāṇini's Astadhyayi, composed before the mid 4th century BCE, for example, mentions lipi in the context of writing.[3][4][5] However, Panini does not describe or name the Sanskrit script. The Arthashastra, in section 1.2–5, asserts that lipi was a part of the education system in ancient India.[6]
According to Buddhist texts such as Lalitavistara Sūtra, young Siddhartha – the future Buddha – mastered philology and scripts at a school from Brahmin Lipikara and Deva Vidyasinha.[7][8] These texts list the lipi that the Buddha of ancient India knew as a child, and the list contains sixty-four scripts, though Salomon states that "the historical value of this list is however limited by several factors".[9] A version of this list of sixty-four ancient Indian scripts is found in the Chinese translation of an Indian Buddhist text, and this translation has been dated to 308 CE.[10]
The canonical texts of Jainism list eighteen lipi, with many names of writing scripts that do not appear in the Buddhist list of sixty-four lipi. The Jaina list of writing scripts in ancient India, states Buhler, is likely "far older" than the Buddhist list.[9]
Terminology[]
Lipi means 'script, writing, alphabet' both in Sanskrit and Pali.[11] A lipika or lipikara means 'scribe' or 'one who writes',[12] while lipijnana and lekhā means the 'science or art of writing'.[2][13] Related terms such as lekhā (लेखा, related to rekhā 'line') and likh (लिख) are found in Vedic[14][15] and post-Vedic[16] Sanskrit texts of Hinduism, as well as in regional languages such as the Pali texts of Buddhism.[17][18]
A term lip (लिप्) appears in verse 4.4.23 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, verse 5.10.10 Chandogya Upanishad, verse 2 in Isha Upanishad and verse 5.11 in Katha Upanishad.[19][20] It means 'smear, stain'.[21] These are the early Upanishads and a part of Vedic literature of Hinduism.[20]
According to section 4.119 of the Unadisutras as now received, lipi is derived from the Sanskrit root lip.[23] The Unadisutras themselves certainly existed before the time of Pāṇini,[24][25] instances of later interpolations have been raised by Max Müller, although Müller does not discuss whether the sutra related to lipi was interpolated.[24] Salomon in 1995 remarked "The external testimony from literary and other sources on the use of writing in pre-Ashokan India is vague and inconclusive. Alleged evidence of pre-Mauryan writing has in the past been found by various scholars in such sources as later Vedic literature, the Pali canon, the early Sanskrit grammatical treatises of Pāṇini's and his successors, and the works of European classical historians. But all of these references are subject in varying degrees to chronological or interpretive problems."[26]
The Edicts of Ashoka (circa 250 BCE) use the word lipī. According to some authors, the word lipi, which is spelled dipi in the two Kharosthi versions of the rock edicts,[note 1] comes from the Old Persian prototype dipi (