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The word Gurmukhi is commonly translated as "from the Mouth of the Guru". Meanwhile, in Western Punjab a form of the Urdu script, known as Shahmukhi is still in use. Later in the 20th century, the script was given the authority as the official script of the Eastern Punjabi language. In the following epochs, Gurmukhi became the prime script applied for literary writings of the Sikhs.
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The usage of Gurmukhi letters in Guru Granth Sahib meant that the script developed its own orthographical rules. Compared to the Lande, Sikh Gurus favoured the use of Proto-Gurmukhi, because of the difficulties involved in pronouncing words without vowel signs. The Lande alphabets were used for household and trade purposes. In Punjab, there were atleast ten different scripts classified as Lande, Mahajani being the most popular. Landa means alphabet "without tail", applying that the script did not have vowel symbols. Meanwhile, the mercantile scripts of Punjab known as the Lande were normally not used for literary purposes. After 1948, when Himachal Pradesh was established as an administrative unit, the local Takri variants were replaced by Devanagari. The local Takri variants got the status of official scripts in some of the Punjab Hill States, and were used for both administrative and literary purposes until the 19th century. Also Takri was a script that developed through the Devasesha stage of the Sharada script, and is found mainly in the Hill States, such as Chamba, where it is called Chambyali and in Jammu, where it is known as Dogri. Other contemporary scripts used in the Punjab were Takri and the Lande alphabets. Gurus adopted the Proto-Gurmukhi script to write the Guru Granth Sahib, the religious scriptures of the Sikhs. Indian epigraphists call this stage Devasesha, while Bedi prefers the name Pritham Gurmukhi or Proto-Gurmukhi. The regional Sharada script evolves from this stage till the 14th century, when it starts to appear in the form of Gurmukhi.
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His argument is that from the 10th century, regional differences started to appear between the Sharada script used in Punjab, the Hill States (partly Himachal Pradesh) and Kashmir. Tarlochan Singh Bedi (1999) writes that the Gurmukhi script developed in the 10-14th centuries from the Devasesha stage of the Sharada script.
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Pritam Singh (1992) has also traced the origins of Gurmukhi to the Siddha Matrika. According to Al-Biruni, Ardhanagari was a mixture of Nagari, used in Ujjain and Malwa, and Siddha Matrika or the Siddham script, a variant of the Sharada script used in Kashmir. Because of its connection with the Bhattis, the Ardhanagari script was also called Bhatachhari. For some time, Bhatinda remained the capital of the kingdom of Bhatti Rajputs of the Pal clan, who ruled North India before the Muslims occupied the country. Al-Biruni writes that the Ardhanagari script was used in Bhatinda, including Sindh and western parts of the Punjab in the 10th century. Singh (1950), while quoting Abu Raihan Al-Biruni's Ta'rikh al-Hind (1030 AD), says that the script evolved from Ardhanagari. There are two major theories on how the Proto-Gurmukhi script emerged in the 15th century. Apparently, the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak Dev also used the Gurmukhi script for his writings. Newton ( Panjabi Grammar, 1898) writes that at least 21 Gurmukhi characters are found in ancient manuscripts: 6 from 10th century, 12 from 3rd century BC and 3 from 5th century BC. However, it would be correct to say that the script was standardised, rather than invented, by the Sikh Gurus. The traditional accounts, such as the references found in the Janamsakhi literature, say that the Gurmukhi script was invented by the second Sikh Guru, Guru Angad Dev. The Proto-Gurmukhi letters evolved through the Gupta script, from 4th to 8th century, followed by the Sharada script, from 8th century onwards, and finally adapted their archaic form in the Devasesha stage of the Later Sharada script, dated between the 10th and 14th centuries. Like most of the North Indian writing systems, the Gurmukhi script is a descendant of the Brahmi script.