Balbodh

Typically for the colonial situation, the decision to fix scripts for Gujarati and Marathi was the result of an official decree in 1826. No doubt, reasons of official convenience and economy had been the paramount consideration. The order declared that, from then on, balbodh or the dev[a]nagari would be the standard script used for Marathi print. This was to be mainly implemented through conferring official recognition upon the ability to read and write balbodh; by making these skills a basic pre-qualification for trainee schoolteachers recruited for the government schools being established in the Marathi-speaking areas of the Presidency. From then on, the Native Education Society decided to ‘adopt balbodh for all their printed books; and also in the written or current hand for letter writing and general business, respectively used in Maharashtra ... ’. However, it was impossible to resolve the matter so swiftly and the 1833 edition of Bodhvachane used both balbodh and modi types face-to-face for each page; also, education records show that both balbodh and modi scripts continued to be taught in the schools […]

2002, “4. Colonial Power, Print and the Re-Making of the Literate Sphere: Western India Under Colonialism”, in Veena Naregal, editor, Language, Politics, Elites and the Public Sphere Western India Under Colonialism, Anthem Press, →ISBN, page 167

The script used to write Marathi is known as Balbodh, which is similar to Devanagari, but has an extra letter to accommodate Marathi sounds. In the past, besides Balbodh, Marathi was also written in the Modi script. From around the thirteenth century till the middle of the twentieth century, while Balbodh was used for literature, Modi was the preferred script for administration and business documents.

2024, “Marathi: Bridging the North-South Divide”, in Karthik Venkatesh, editor, 10 Indian Languages and How They Came to Be, Penguin Random House India Private Limited, →ISBN, page 95