Who deciphered the Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts?

James Prinsep, an officer in the mint of the East India Company and a member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, is credited with the monumental task of deciphering the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts in the 1830s [2]. In 1838, after years of painstaking investigation, he successfully decoded Ashokan Brahmi by comparing older specimens with modern scripts like Bengali and Devanagari [1]. For the Kharosthi script, Prinsep utilized bilingual coins issued by Indo-Greek kings, which featured names written in both Greek and Kharosthi. By identifying the language of these inscriptions as Prakrit, he enabled the reading of longer edicts. His discoveries revealed that many inscriptions referred to a king named 'Piyadassi' (meaning 'pleasant to behold'), whom he later identified as the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka [2]. This breakthrough laid the foundation for modern Indian epigraphy and the reconstruction of early Indian political history.

Sources

1. [2] THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY PART I, History CLASS XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 2: Kings, Farmers and Towns > 1. Prinsep and Piyadassi > p. 28
2. [1] THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY PART I, History CLASS XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 2: Kings, Farmers and Towns > 7.1 Deciphering Brahmi > p. 46