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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simpler vernacular Prakrit (i.e. unrefined) was used in several regional forms, but by the 5th century ad Prakrit was superseded in Northern India by Sanskrit for coins, inscriptions, and literature.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 accord­ing 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 publica­tion 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 acquir­ing 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.