Editing Sanskrit (section)

====Brahmi script====
{{main|Brahmi script}}
[[File:Hathibada Brahmi Inscription at Nagari, Hinduism Sanskrit India.jpg|thumb|260px|upright=1.28|One of the oldest Hindu Sanskrit{{efn|Salomon states that the inscription has a few scribal errors, but is essentially standard Sanskrit.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=86–87}}}} inscriptions, the broken pieces of this early-1st-century BCE [[Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions|Hathibada Brahmi Inscription]] were discovered in Rajasthan. It is a dedication to deities [[Vāsudeva]]-[[Samkarshana]] ([[Krishna]]-[[Balarama]]) and mentions a stone temple.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=86–87}}<ref>{{cite book|author=Charles Higham|title=Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H1c1UIEVH9gC|year=2014|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-0996-1|page=294|access-date=7 August 2018|archive-date=15 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115081256/https://books.google.com/books?id=H1c1UIEVH9gC|url-status=live}}</ref>]]
The Brahmi script for writing Sanskrit is a "modified consonant-syllabic" script. The graphic syllable is its basic unit, and this consists of a consonant with or without diacritic modifications.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=14–16}} Since the vowel is an integral part of the consonants, and given the efficiently compacted, fused consonant cluster morphology for Sanskrit words and grammar, the Brahmi and its derivative writing systems deploy ligatures, diacritics and relative positioning of the vowel to inform the reader how the vowel is related to the consonant and how it is expected to be pronounced for clarity.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=14–16}}{{sfn|Daniels|1996|pp=376–380}}{{efn|Salomon illustrates this for the consonant ''ka'' which is written as "[[File:Brahmi k.svg|15px]]" in the Brahmi script and "क" in the Devanagari script, the vowel is marked together with the consonant before as in "कि", after "का", above "के" or below "कृ".{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=14–16}}}} This feature of Brahmi and its modern Indic script derivatives makes it difficult to classify it under the main script types used for the writing systems for most of the world's languages, namely logographic, syllabic and alphabetic.{{sfn|Salomon|1998|pp=14–16}}