The Nāgarī script is the ancestor of Devanāgarī, Nandināgarī and other variants, and was first used to write Prakrit and Sanskrit. The term is sometimes used as a synonym for Devanāgarī script. It came in vogue during the first millennium CE.

The Nāgarī script has roots in the ancient Brahmi script family. Some of the earliest epigraph evidence attesting to the developing Sanskrit Nāgarī script in ancient India is from the 1st to 4th century CE inscriptions discovered in Gujarat. The Nāgarī script was in regular use by 7th century CE, and had fully evolved into Devanāgarī and Nandināgarī scripts by about the end of first millennium of the common era.