It was not too long ago that I ventured into the World of Calligraphy and when I told people I am a Calligrapher, they would ask what that meant, and to be honest, like most people, I thought it was a deliberate art of practicing good writing which is not completely wrong in any sense but what I did not realize was it came with such deep history and how it is not just writing beautifully but had a lot more to offer, especially about self-awareness. It is one of the easiest and the best ways of connecting with your inner self.
Zen master Shunmyo Masuno, in his beautiful book ‘Zen – The art of Simple Living’ says “Your true self can be seen in your handwriting- Turn your attention inwards.” (Grab a copy of this amazing book if you haven’t read it yet)
If we pause a bit and take a look back into the past, we probably can imagine an ancient one holding a quill and a parchment or a dried palm leaf (eastern countries), beautifully documenting scriptures to be passed on to the next generation. I know it feels surreal envisioning something like that in the 21st Century, where technology has taken over everything around us.
Calligraphy as a form of expression has its origin or roots coming from various parts of the world namely China, Japan, India, Tibet, and Europe. Although calligraphy has been around for almost 3000 years, the term calligraphy was coined only around the 15th Century when Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1440 signaled the beginning of the end of hand-made books. The introduction of the printing press may have made things way easier, but the old-world charm still captures our hearts.
Calligraphy means beautiful writing and comes from the Greek words Kallos, meaning “beauty,” and graphein, meaning “to write.” I’m sure Calligraphers worldwide would agree that it’s more than just beautiful writing. It may or may not be about leaving a legacy behind, but like any other art form, it is a way of expressing ourselves through our writing.
Today, as we celebrate World Calligraphy Day, we pay homage to all the masters and artists who not only kept this legacy alive over the centuries but have graciously passed it on to the next generation.
Be it the Shang Dynasty of China (206 BCE -220 CE) where brush calligraphy originated or the scripts that evolved from the Roman Empire, like the Imperial Capital, Rustic, and Uncial, which further gave birth to subsequent forms of writings like the Insular Capitals, Caroline Script, Gothic (Textura Quadatra, Texture Prescisus, Gothic capital, Lombardic, Bastard, Batarde, Fraktur) Italian Scripts (Rotunda, Humanist, Italic) and the other popular ones that emerged post-renaissance.
On the home front, we Indians have a beautiful legacy of writing ourselves. We were always known to greatly value our culture and education. The Vedic scriptures, dating to around 1500 BCE, were memorized verbatim for more than a thousand years, and we witness that even now during ceremonies.
Of all the scripts found during the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) the Brahmi Script that prevailed during the time of Emperor Ashoka from the Mauryan Dynasty (268-232 BCE) somehow became popular despite not having any evidence of any history to its inscriptions beforehand. Although there is no clear evidence of how it developed fully, some say, it was probably influenced by the Imperial Aramaic Script used by the Persians during the rule of Alexander the Great, who ruled the Indus Valley for two centuries, but the majority seems to think that a corpus of Vedic literature already existed so it was derived from there.
Brahmi and Devanagari were found together on a pillar. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Source: The Diplomat (The Story of India’s Many Scripts)
As the need for quicker and easier daily writing was seen, the script quickly evolved into a cursive style. Various other factors too made it change, e.g., the materials used to write, like in the South the scripts were more rounded as a result of writing on palm leaves, whereas in the North, cloth or the Birch tree bark allowed it to be more angular.
The Differentiation of Brahmi Letter Shapes. Source: Wikimedia Commons
In either case, as literacy grew, more and more people started communicating through written words and letters. Until the internet arrived, we used to write letters to our loved ones too. The sheer joy of reading a handwritten letter was enough to keep our hearts singing for a long time until we received the next one.
Being a calligrapher in this age and era is a different feeling altogether; the best part is anyone can do Calligraphy!! Now, it’s not just used to communicate across time and space or for counting or trading purposes, But, as emotional beings, we are guided and controlled by our feelings, and a printed note or an email would not spark joy and make our souls sour the way it does as we put ink to paper aiming to connect hearts.
