Pottery from the 6th century BCE has been found in Anuradhapura with lithic Brahmi inscriptions written in Prakrit or Sinhala Prakrit. It developed in a complex manner, partly independently but also strongly influenced by South Indian scripts at various stages, manifestly influenced by the early Grantha script. The Sinhala script is a Brahmi derivate and was thought to have been imported from Northern India around the 3rd century BCE. The core set of letters forms the śuddha siṃhala alphabet (Pure Sinhala, ශුද්ධ සිංහල), which is a subset of the miśra siṃhala alphabet (Mixed Sinhala, මිශ්ර සිංහල). Sinhala letters are classified in two sets. The Sinhala script is an abugida written from left to right. It is also related to the Grantha script. The Sinhalese Akṣara Mālāva, one of the Brahmic scripts, is a descendant of the Ancient Indian Brahmi script. The Sinhala script ( Sinhala: සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව, romanized: Siṁhala Akṣara Mālāva), also known as Sinhalese script, is a writing system used by the Sinhalese people and most Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write the Sinhala language as well as the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit.
