Devanagari Fonts

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Devanagari: or nagari, the type mostly but not solely used for printing Indian Sanskrit literature as well as works in the modern languages Bihari and Hindi.
Sanskrit. From 1200 BC or earlier, Classical Sanskrit was the language of kings, priests, and Hindu scripture, science, and philosophy. Its form was fixed by Panini’s grammar, the “Astadhyayi’ (4th or 3rd century BC), a systematic analysis in 4,000 aphoristic rules (Sutras) based on earlier works. Sanskrit was not a “dead’ language; it absorbed words from other sources and remained a language of culture.
At the time of Panini Sanskrit was written in a syllabary known as Ashokan Brahmi. The concurrent and simpler vernacular Prakrit (i.e. unrefined) was used in several regional forms, but by the 5th century AD Prakrit was superseded in Northern India by Sanskrit for coins, inscriptions, and literature. The nagari script, used from about the 7th century, derived from Brahmi via Gupta and Siddhamatrka scripts. It was and is written from left to right in a syllabary of 48 signs, 14 for initial vowel diphthongs and 34 for consonantal groups, all modified accord¬ing to position in a word.
What may be the first published translation of a Sanskrit text into a European language was a Dutch version of Bhartrihari’s “Satakas” appended to Abraham Roger’s “De opendeure … ”, Leyden, 1651. In the late-18th and 19th centuries European studies in the Sanskrit language by Charles Wilkins and William Jones in Calcutta, followed by the von Schlegels and Franz Bopp in Germany, led to the extensive publica¬tion of grammars and texts (in or with translation) in Europe and India.
Hindustani. The modern lingua franca of Northern India has two literary forms: Urdu, used chiefly by Muslims, written and printed in the Persian-Arabic script, and Hindi, written and printed in devanagari, with simpler current hands for daily use (Kailhi and Mahajani).
The East India Company required its officials in both England and Calcutta to learn Indian languages. This called for books to study them. In London T. Cadell issued George Hadley’s “Grammatical remarks on … the lndostan language commonly called Moors” (i.e. Urdu) in 1772, and John Fergusson’s “Dictionary of the Hindostan language” in 1773. At that time, and until the early 19th century, the official language in British India was Persian. Sanskrit had no place in public life.
In Calcutta Dr Charles Wilkins set up a press for the Company in 1778 for printing works in oriental languages. (See also Bengali printing and typography) The first Persian literary work printed anywhere in India was published here in 1781. This was F. Balfour’s edition of “Inshā-i-Harkaran” printed with type cut and cast by Wilkins. It was described by Balfour in the preface as “…a perfect imitation of the Taleek…” although later critics considered “neither the shapes of the letters nor the ligatures” were wholly satisfactory. Wilkins’s type and copies of it were used by others in Calcutta.
The development of Urdu and Hindi prose in the early 19th century owed much to J. H. B. Gilchrist and his British and Indian colleagues at Fort William College, Calcutta. His own works, from the presses of several British printers active in the city, included a dictionary 1786-90; a grammar, 1796; and a “Hindee story teller … in roman, persian and nagree characters”, 1802. His edition of Aesop appeared in 1803 as “Oriental fabulist… translated from English into Hindustani, Bongla and Sunkrit” (sic). He also encouraged local pundits to write, notably Sri Lalu Lai whose “Rajviti”, 1809, and “Prem Sagar”, 1810, both printed in devanagari, were examples.
Lithography was used in 1827 for “Anwari Sohili’, a paraphrase in Persian by Hussein Kashify of Pilpay’s Fables, Bombay Native Education Society; in 1830 at Cawnpore. In 1832 at Lucknow, and in 1837 at Delhi and Lahore. In 1840 the lithographic printing of Urdu newspapers began at Delhi and, being found less troublesome and costly than acquir¬ing and setting type in persian-arabic, was soon adopted elsewhere. Even today the local-language newspapers of India and Pakistan are first written out by hand and then printed by lithography.

Historical note on devanagari type
1. In India. In addition to making type for bengali and persian-arabic Wilkins cut a fount of devanagari. A notable use of it was for William Jones’s edition of Kalidasa’s “Ritusamhara” (The seasons), the first book ever printed in the Sanskrit language, Calcutta, 1792. In 1800 the nearby Serampore Press had Panchanan Karmakar’s nagari type, used in 1804 for Carey’s edition of the “Hitopadesa”. In 1806 Manohar Karmakar completed a superior fount of 1,000 character combinations, used in 1808 for Colebrooke’s edition of the Sanskrit dictionary Amara Sinha’s “Cosha, or dictionary of the Sungskrita language”, for a New Testament in Sanskrit, and in 1811 for a Sanskrit Pentateuch.
There was also an Indian owned press in Calcutta capable of good work, that of Babu Ram, who published Colebrooke’s Sanskrit dictionary of syno¬nyms “Hemacandra” in 1807.
2. In Europe. The earliest of several unsuccessful attempts to cut a fount of nagari was ordered by Maffeo Barberini (Pope Urban VIII, 1623-44) for the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, q.v. It lay neglected for a century until Constantino Ruggieri, printer to the Congregatio, attempted with the help of Cassiano Beligatti to correct and complete it. The result appeared in Antonio Giorgi’s “Alphabetum tibetanum”, Rome, 1759. Beligatti later reworked the type, and his primary alphabet was shown in “Alpha-betum brammhanicum … ”, edited by Amaduzzi, Rome, 1771. Although used to print translations of the Paternoster and Ave Maria the types were too simple for printing an original Sanskrit text.
The first Sanskrit grammar to be published any¬where was “Sidharubam seu grammatica Sanscrda-mica …”, by Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomeo, 1790, followed in 1791 by his “Alphabeta indica … ”, both printed by the Congregatio and showing the basic syllabary.
In London William Kirkpatrick of the East India Company commissioned the Jackson Foundry to cut a fount of devanagari for his projected Persian, Arabic, and English grammar and dictionary. The first part, issued in 1785, had no Sanskrit words, and the work was not completed. However, a Jackson specimen sheet of c. 1784 showed “Deo Nagri” characters.
In 1786 Dr Charles Wilkins was obliged by ill-health to return to England. He made the first direct rendering into English of a Sanskrit text: this was the 3rd century AD Vaishnava creed, the “Bhagavad-Gita”, London, 1785, and the Company paid for publication. He followed it with a translation of the “Hitopadesa”, Bath, 1787. At his house in Bath he worked on a fount of devanagari type. In the preface to his Sanskrit grammar, which he began printing in 1795, Wilkins writes that he “cut letters in steel, made matrices and moulds and cast from them a fount of type of the devanagari character all with my own hands”. Before the book was finished fire destroyed his workshop, though the punches were saved. Ten years later the Company persuaded him to resume work. His was the first fount of nagari type in Europe of which systematic use could be made. The Caslon foundry cast it in commercial quantities in English (14-point) size. It was used for Wilkins’s “Grammar of the Sanskrita language”, London, Bulmer, 1808; for Alexander Hamilton’s edition of the “Hitopadesa”, 1810; and also for Bopp’s “Nalus, Maha-Bharata episodium”, 1819. Although this type is now of only historical interest it was the sole fount available in Europe until 1821. Thus in Germany, as an alternative to buying it, Othmar Frank’s “Chresto-mathia Sanskrita …”, Munich, 1821/2, was one of several works printed by lithography. After setting the non-Indian portions of the text in roman type a pull was taken. The Sanskrit words called for were then entered by hand in spaces left on the printed sheet and the whole was transferred to stone.
In France, following the acquisition of the Pons collection of Sanskrit MSS in 1729, the Royal Library in Paris became Europe’s main centre of Sanskrit studies. It was here, in 1820, that August Wilhelm von Schlegel, professor of Sanskrit at the Bonn Academia Rhenana, commissioned a fount of nagari type. The result was Viberfs excellent 20-point size of 1821, first shown in a pamphlet “Specimen novae typographiae lndicae … litterarum figuras ad elegantissimorium codicum Bibliothecae Regiae Parisiensio exemplaria delineavit … Aug. Guil. Schlegel … Lutetiae Parisiorum ex officina Georgii Crapelet, MDCCCXXI”. Vibert cut the punches and J-B Lion Lettern cast the type. Schlegel gave Europe the first nagari type to remain in use until the present day, personally setting the type for his edition of the “Bhagavad-Gita”, Bonn, 1823. In 1825 Delafond of Paris cut a 16-point size.
At Bopp’s instigation the Akademie der Wissenschaft in Berlin acquired Schlegel’s matrices and equipment for its newly established oriental printing office in 1821. Here Bopp supervised the cutting of a smaller fount of nagari to be used for textual notes. They were used in Bopp’s edition of “Ardschuna’s Reise zu lndra’s Himmel …”, Berlin, 1824. In 1825 the Societe Asiatique in Paris bought the Schlegel and Bopp founts, using them in Antoine Chezy’s Sanskrit/French edition of the “Sakuntala”, Dondey-Dupre, 1830. By mid-century the founts were acquired by Brill of Leyden who issued a specimen “De Sanskrit Drukletters” in 1851. Thus Schlegel’s type spread through Europe. The Vibert and Dela¬fond punches are now in the Cabinet des Poinçons, q.v.
In the present century founts of nagari have been made for hotmetal composition and photosetting. Some years ago Adrian Frutiger, q.v., was invited by the Indian National Institute of Design to visit India. There he sought to establish the fundamental shapes of devanagari and recommend simplifications which would further the spread of literacy. As a result Frutiger, in collaboration with Mahendra Patel, designed a devanagari type for Monotype.

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