The Gupta script (sometimes referred to as Gupta Brahmi Script or Late Brahmi Script{{Sanskrit: गुप्त /गुप्त ब्रह्मी लिपी }}) was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of India which was a period of material prosperity and great religious and scientific developments. The Gupta script was descended from Brahmi and gave rise to the Nāgarī, Sharada and Siddham scripts. These scripts in turn gave rise to many of the most important scripts of India, including Devanagari (the most common script used for writing Sanskrit since the 19th century), the Gurmukhi script for Punjabi Language, the Assamese script, the Bengali script, and the Tibetan script.

Origins and Classification

The Gupta Script was descended from the Ashokan Brahmi script, and is a crucial link between Brahmi and most other scripts in the Brahmic family of Scripts, a family of alphasyllabaries or abugidas. This means that while only consonantal phonemes have distinct symbols, vowels are marked by diacritics, with /a/ being the implied pronunciation when the diacritic is not present. In fact, the Gupta script works in exactly the same manner as its predecessor and successors, and only the shapes and forms of the graphemes and diacritics are different.