"Real Devanagari -- non-phonetic characters -- meant formerly the outward symbols, so to say, the signs used in the inter-communication between gods and initiated mortals. Hence their great sacredness and the silence maintained throughout the Vedic and the Brahmanical periods about any object concerned with, or referring to, reading and writing. It was the language of the gods" (ibid. 423).
The Devanagari characters as first used among initiates and privileged men were symbolic and ideographic in form. But these outlines by use gradually lost their mere picture-form, or idea-suggesting power, and through constant use and rapid writing continuously lost more and more of the details of the picture, until they finally became merely conventional signs or letters of the alphabet. The word devanagari is synonymous with the Hermetic and Hieratic Neter-Khari (divine speech) of the Egyptians.

"Real Devanagari -- non-phonetic characters -- meant formerly the outward symbols, so to say, the signs used in the inter-communication between gods and initiated mortals. Hence their great sacredness and the silence maintained throughout the Vedic and the Brahmanical periods about any object concerned with, or referring to, reading and writing. It was the language of the gods" (ibid. 423).
The Devanagari characters as first used among initiates and privileged men were symbolic and ideographic in form. But these outlines by use gradually lost their mere picture-form, or idea-suggesting power, and through constant use and rapid writing continuously lost more and more of the details of the picture, until they finally became merely conventional signs or letters of the alphabet. The word devanagari is synonymous with the Hermetic and Hieratic Neter-Khari (divine speech) of the Egyptians.