I am almost certain that we had a discussion on this list about this question, in the course of which it was mentioned that (1) "Dēvanāgarī" is a relatively late term, and (2) "Nāgarī" is certainly the earlier term, but the reason for applying that name to the script is not definitely known. It seems that the INDOLOGY archives can now only be searched back to 2021 (?). Anyway, I did not succeed in finding the discussion, but the etymology from Wikipedia is certainly wrong.

On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 10:04 PM Dan Lusthaus via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
From Wikipedia:

Devanāgarī is a compound of deva (देव) and nāgarī (नागरी). Deva means "heavenly", "divine", or "deity".[20] Nāgarī comes from नगरम् nagaram, a Sanskrit word meaning "town". Hence, devanāgarī can be translated as “from the abode of divinity"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari

Dan

On Mar 24, 2023, at 10:41 PM, alakendu das via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Reverred Scholars,
I was searching about  the etymology of the word'Devnagari".
Can anybody enlighten me on this .?
Regards
Alakendu Das. 


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