any of a group of Indian alphabetic writing systems (sometimes modified to represent syllables instead of single sounds) derived from a northern Indian alphabet of the 4th–6th century AD. The ruling Gupta state at that time gave the script its name. It was developed out of Br¨¡hm¨© and was spread with the Gupta empire over large areas of conquered territory, with the result that the Gupta alphabet was the ancestor (for the most part via Devan¨¡gar¨©) of most later Indian scripts. The original Gupta alphabet had 37 letters, including 5 vowels, and was written from left to right. Four main subtypes of Gupta script developed from the original alphabet: eastern, western, southern, and Central Asian. The Central Asian Gupta can be further divided into Central Asian Slanting Gupta and its Agnean and Kuchean variants and Central Asian Cursive Gupta, or Khotanese. A western branch of eastern Gupta gave rise to the Siddhamatrka script (c. AD 500), which, in turn, evolved into the Devan¨¡gar¨© alphabet (c. AD 700), the most widespread of the modern Indian scripts. |