Mandar Parvat inscriptions of 7th century AD, showing Tirhuta script
The Lalitavistara, an ancient Buddhist text, mentions the Vaidehi script. A significant transformation occurred in the northeastern alphabet in the latter half of the 7th century AD. This evolution is first evident in the inscriptions of Adityasena. The eastern variant of this transformed script subsequently developed into the Maithili script, which gained prominence in regions like Assam, Bengal, and Nepal.[1]
The earliest recorded epigraphic evidence of the Maithili script dates back to the 7th century AD. It is found in the inscriptions of Adityasena on the Mandar Hill Stone, located in Bounsi, Banka district, Bihar. These inscriptions, now preserved in the Baidyanath Temple of Deoghar, provide a crucial glimpse into the early development of this script.[1]
Sahodara Inscription in Maithili script of 950 AD
It is one of the scripts of the broader Eastern South Asia. It had come to its current shape by the 10th century AD. The oldest form of Mithilakshar is also found in the Sahodara stone inscriptions of 950 AD. The script has been used throughout Mithila from Champaran to Deoghar.[7]
12th Century Stone inscription from Simroungarh showing early Tirhuta writing
A fragmentary inscription found in Simraungadh, the medieval capital of the Karnats of Mithila which dates back to the 12th century in Tirhuta script is also one of the oldest evidence of this script.[8]
Current status
The use of this script has been declining in the last 100 years, which is the primary reason for the Mithila culture's decline. Despite its constitutional status, the development of the Maithili language is hindered by the lack of a widely used script.[7]
Nowadays, the Maithili language is written almost exclusively in the Devanagari script, although Tirhuta is still sometimes used by religious Pundits and some culture – conscious families for writing ceremonial letters (pātā), documents & cultural affair, and efforts are underway to broaden the scope of its usage.[4][9]
In the early 20th century some Sanskrit works were printed in this script through lithographic process. Later on Pusk Bhandar, Laheriasarai managed to forge a set of types and published a few works in Tirhuta, but could not go ahead. In the middle of the last century, All India Maithili Conference came with a new set of types and used it in the prestigious publication of Brihat Maithili Shabdakosha.[10]
In June 2014, the Tirhuta script was added to the Unicode Standard from version 7.0. Although there is limited electronic font support, digitalisation efforts have started.[13]
Most of the consonant letters are effectively identical to Bengali–Assamese, with the exception of 7 of the 33 letters: ⟨jh, ṭ, ḍh, ṇ, l, ś, h⟩, marked in blue text color. The consonants, along with their IAST and IPA transcriptions, are provided below.
↑Masica, Colin (1993). The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge University Press. p.143. ISBN9780521299442. Proto-Bengali gave birth to the Maithili, Modern Bengali (settled in the seventeenth century: Assamese is a nineteenth-century variant), and Oriya scripts, as well as the Manipuri and Newari scripts for two Tibeto Burman languages.
