About Indoskript 3.0

Indoskript 3.0 is a free online database of Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts, aiming to cover the full historical development of these two Indic scripts. It provides searchable documentation of characters from inscriptions and manuscripts, allowing researchers and students to explore, compare, and analyze scripts across time and space, and offering new perspectives on the history and evolution of South Asian writing.

Project History

Indoskript was originally developed as a desktop application for the systematic documentation and analysis of Indic scripts. The project was initiated by Harry Falk (Free University of Berlin) and Walter Slaje (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg) and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2000 to 2005. The scientific team consisted of Katja Hofmann (kh), Jürgen Neuss (jn), and Harry Falk (hf) from Berlin, and Katrin Einicke (ke) from Halle. Andrew Glass (ag) contributed substantially from the British Museum collection to the Kharosthi part of the database. Oliver Hellwig was responsible for the technical implementation.

With financial support from the Ernst Waldschmidt Foundation, the data and core functionalities were migrated into Indoskript 2.0, a web-based interface providing platform-independent access while preserving the original scholarly framework. Legacy annotations in German were retained and are intended to be gradually translated into English.

The present version, Indoskript 3.0, builds on these foundations and is developed within the framework of the The Proto-Śāradā Project (2024–2027), led by Kathrin Holz (University of Würzburg) and Ingo Strauch (University of Lausanne) and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Oliver Hellwig was again responsible for the technical realization.

Terms of Use

All images created by the Indoskript team and all metadata, annotations, and textual content are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). You are free to share these materials for non-commercial purposes, provided that proper attribution is given to Indoskript. No modifications or derivative works are permitted without explicit permission.

Images sourced from external collections may be subject to specific rights. Their use is limited to non-commercial academic purposes, and the original source must always be cited.

Contact us

The project is overseen by Kathrin Holz (University of Würzburg). For any questions or feedback, please contact kathrin.holz@uni-wuerzburg.de. We also welcome offers of additional materials for inclusion.