Kharosthi

an Indo-Bactrian writing system, which developed from the Aramaic alphabet. Kharosthi is a syllabic writing system and is read from right to left (in later inscriptions, from left to right). Kharosthi was influenced by the Old Indian Brahmi writing system. The oldest inscription in the Kharosthi alphabet (a translation of the edict of Asoka), dating from circa 251 B.C., was found in 1836 in Shahbazgarhi, on the border of India and Afghanistan. Other inscriptions have been discovered in Loulan (Sinkiang), eastern Afghanistan, and northern Punjab; the latest of these date from the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.