What was the most widely used script in India in the third century?

Answer 1

In the first half it was Sanskrit due to Gupta rule. But south was afeected by Tamil rather than Sanskrit. Prakrit too had some traces in regions where now is U.P.

Answer 2

This was only Brahmi script used in Golden age of Gupta dynasty.
Brahmi was also used in 600 BC.
Ashokan stone writings are also in this script alongwith 'Kharoshthi'.
The Brahmi alphabet is the ancestor of most of the 40 or so modern Indian alphabets, and of a number of other alphabets, such as Khmer and Tibetan. It is thought to have been modelled on the Aramaic or Phoenician alphabets, and appeared in India sometime before 500 BC. Another theory is that Brahmi developed from the Indus or Harappa script, which was used in the Indus valley until about 2,000 BC.

The earliest known inscriptions in the Brahmi alphabet are those of King Asoka (c.270-232 BC), third monarch of the Mauryan dynasty.

Brahmi was used to write a variety of languages, including Sanskrit and Prakrit.
The structure of the Brahmi alphabet is similar to that of modern Indian alphabets: each letters represents a consonant with a inherent vowels /a/. Other vowels were indicated using a variety of diacritics and separate letters.
Letters are grouped according to the way they are pronounced.
Many letters have more than one form

Answer 3

The Brahmi script is one of the most important writing systems in the world by virtue of its time depth and influence. It represents the earliest post-Indus corpus of texts, and some of the earliest historical inscriptions found in India. Most importantly, it is the ancestor to hundreds of scripts found in South, Southeast, and East Asia.


Sanskrit literature is more than 5,000 years old

Pali and Prakrit were the spoken languages that evolved from Vedic and classical Sanskrit. Buddhists and Jains used these languages for their religious writings.

In the Hindu world, the only people usually allowed to read the sacred Sanskrit texts were the brahmins (priests). But the teachings of the Buddha, who lived in the 500's B.C., were meant to be open to all. So the early Buddhist scriptures were written in the Pali language. These sacred religious writings are called the Tripitaka (threefold basket), because they were written on palm leaves and stored in baskets.

Pali literature includes the colourful Jakata tales, stories of the past lives of the Buddha. Once Pali had been labelled as the language of Buddhism, it was regarded as sacred and, like Sanskrit, was preserved in its existing state. Pali is still important as a Buddhist language in Sri Lanka.

In the same way, some forms of Prakrit were used for writing the scriptures of Jainism. Because of their religious importance, early Buddhist and Jain manuscripts were carefully preserved in monasteries.

Other Prakrit literature includes moral tales and poetry. The best-known poet in Prakrit is Hala (A.D. 300's). Hala also compiled Gathasaptashati (700 verses), an anthology of ****** poetry.

Answer 4

i assume u mean 3rd Century AD - in either case Sanscrik was the major script - thats my understandng at least....

Answer 5

Prakrit and Pali.

Answer 6

it was sanskrit