The Nāgarī script is the ancestor of Devanagari, Nandinagari and other variants, and was first used to write Prakrit and Sanskrit.

[8][11][12] Nagari is a vṛddhi derivation from नगर (nagara), which means city.

[citation needed] The 7th century Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo ordered that all foreign books be transcribed into the Tibetan language, and sent his ambassador Tonmi Sambota to India to acquire alphabetic and writing methods, who returned with a Sanskrit Nāgarī script from Kashmir corresponding to twenty-four (24) Tibetan sounds and innovating new symbols for six (6) local sounds.

[14] The museum in Mrauk-u (Mrohaung) in the Rakhine state of Myanmar held in 1972 two examples of Nāgarī script.

Archaeologist Aung Thaw describes these inscriptions, associated with the Chandra, or Candra, dynasty that first hailed from the ancient Indian city of Vesáli:[15] ... epigraphs in mixed Sanskrit and Pali in North-eastern Nāgarī script of the 6th century dedicated by [Queen] Niti Candra and [King] Vira Candra