Early Tamil Epigraphy From the Earliest Times to the 6 th Century AD By Iravatham Mahadevan --- An Overview by S. Swami

1. Early Tamil Epigraphy From the Earliest Times to the 6th Century AD By Iravatham Mahadevan --- An Overview by S. Swaminathan

2. Early Tamil Epigraphy From the Earliest Times to the 6th Century AD By Iravatham Mahadevan --- Published by Cre-A, India & Harvard University, USA 2003

3. The book deals with development of two scripts of Tamil: Tamil-Brahmi and Early VaTTezhuttu covering a period from the 3rd century BC till the 6th century AD.

4. First, let me provide some background information regarding the scripts discussed in the book in order to follow ‘My Overview’

5. We would come across with five scripts in the book: Brahmi, Tamil Brahmi, VaTTezhuttu, Tamil and Grantha Short description of these scripts follows.

6. Brahmi Brahmi is an ancient script of India. The earliest writing in Brahmi is found in the edicts of Asoka dated to the 3rd century BC. Brahmi is a general term and there existed a number of regional variations, like Southern Brahmi, Sinhala-Brahmi etc.

7. Brahmi Mother script of Indian Languages Brahmi is the script from which all other native Indian scripts, except the Harappan, are derived.

8. Development of the letter N (ண) in all Indian languages starting from Brahmi, It may be noted how the characters change drastically over the centuries!

9. Development of latter k (க) in Devanagari, Tamil and other south Indian Scripts BC-AD

10. Development of vowels of Tamil from Early Tamil-Brahmi

11. Development of consonants of Tamil from Early Tamil-Brahmi

12. Brahmi Mother script of many Asian Languages Pallava Grantha, a derivative of Brahmi, a script developed to write Sanskrit in the Tamil country was the inspiration to most of the Asian scripts. This happened through the political and the cultural conquest by the Indian rulers starting from the Pallava-s

13. Development of letter k (க) for the languages of Java, Sumatra Borneo, Thai, Laos, Khmer, Combodia, Vietnam, etc from the Grantha script

14. Tamil-Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi is the name of the script in which the earliest inscriptions in Tamil are found. Let us see how Tamil-Brahmi looks like

15. Tamil-Brahmi inscription Kudumiyanmalai, 3rd century AD நா ழ û கொ ü ற ó த ö ப [ளி] ö The hermitage (is the gift) of koRRantai of nAzhaL

16. VaTTezhuttu VaTTezhuttu, a cursive style, was derived from Tamil-Brahmi, and was current all over the Tamil country from the 5th century AD.

17. VaTTezhuttu Tamil script that came into use from the 7th century displaced VaTTezhuttu. With the ascendancy of the Chozhas, and the displacement was total by 13th century. However the script lingered on till the 19th century in Kerala for writing Malayalam.

18. VaTTezhuttu The Pulankurichchi inscriptions (5th century) are the earliest. A number of hero-stones in the Dharmapuri district have been found inscribed in Early VaTTezhuttu. Let us see a specimen of VaTTEzhttu

19. Vattezhuttu inscription Thirunatharkunru, 6th century AD ஐ ம் ப த் தே ழ ன ai m pa t tE zha na ச ன ந் நோ ற் ற ca na n nO R Ra ச ந் தி ர ந ந் தி ஆ ca na ti ra na n ti A சி ரி க ரு நி சீ தி கை ci ri ka ru ni cI ti kai ஐம்பத்தேழு நாட்கள் உண்ணா §¿¡ýÒ நோற்ற சந்திரநந்தி ஆசிரிகரு தவம் செய்த இடம் The seat of penance of chantiramanti Acirikaru, who observed the fast (unto death) for fifty-seven days

20. Tamil Script The Pallava rulers created the Tamil script out of the Grantha script by the 7th century, adding necessary additional letters from VaTTezhuttu. This is the view of Mahadevan, and is not shared by some.

21. Tamil Script There are (according to Mahadevan) no inscriptions in the Tamil script before Mahendra Pallavan I (7th century AD).

22. Tamil Script There was a steep increase in inscriptions in Tamil from the 9th century onwards. The classical phase of Tamil script starts with the ascendancy of the Chozha-s from the middle of the 9th century. From the 11th century onwards this became the main script for Tamil throughout the Tamil country. Here is an example of Tamil script in the early stages

23. Tamil inscription Parantaka Chozha, 10th century AD ŠவŠதி‚ கோôபரகேசரி ப÷ம svatiShrI kOpparakEsari parma ÷Ì யாñÎ 34 இவாñÎ கான Rku yANdu 34 ivANDu kAna நாðÎ Óனியóதைì ÌளòÐ nATTu muniyantaik kuLattu ìÌ மóதிரி ஆîசý ã÷òதி அðÊ Kku manthiri Accan mUrti aTTi ன காÍ 2 இரñÎ காசா ஒÕ காசாø Na kAcu 2 iraNDu kAcA oru kAcAl In the 34th year of Parantaka Chozha, Achchan mUrti, a minister, has given 2 kasu-s for the renovation of the lake

24. Grantha Script Grantha, was derived from the Southern Brahmi script of Prakrit characters by the Pallava-s (6th century AD) to write Sanskrit in the Tamil country. Let us see how Grantha script then looked like.

25. Grantha inscription Mahendra Pallava, 7th century AD ²¾¾3É¢‰¼Áò3ÕÁÁ§Ä¡ EtadanishTamadrumamalO †Á…¤¾4õ Å¢º¢òú¢ò§¾¿ Hamasudham vicitracittEna ¿¢÷Á¡À¢¾óÕ§À½ô3˧Á nirmApitanRpRNabrahmE ‰ÅÃÅ¢‰ÏÄì„¢¾¡Â¾¿õ ShvaravishNulakshitAyatanam The (cave) temple dedicated to Brahma, Siva and Vishnu was excavated by Vichitrachitta (Mahendra Pallava) without using brick, timber, metal and mortar.

26. Discovery of inscriptions in the Tamil country has been eventful

27. Discovery Till the end of the 19th century only two scripts were known: VaTTezhuttuof the Pandiya-s belonging to 8th century and Tamilof the Pallava-s dated the 7th century It was wondered why there should be two scripts for one language. But their descent from Brahmi was inferred.

28. Discovery The complete absence of written record of a great literary civilization of 2000 years vintage was a puzzle.

29. Discovery This was solved when cave inscriptions, resembling closely the script of Asokan edicts, were found in Tamilnadu around the end of the 19th century.

30. Discovery The earliest finding of cave inscription is of Mangulam by Robert Sewell in 1882. This is not only oldest finding, it is oldest lithic record in Tamilnadu and it is also of great historical significance. And a host of discoveries followed.

31. Discovery Until middle of the last century cave inscriptions were the only source of early Tamil writing. Then it was presumed that Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions were caused to be inscribed by Jaina and Buddhist monks who were not conversant with Tamil, and that these inscriptions did not represent language of the day.

32. Discovery With the finding of inscribed pottery in Arikkamedu during 1941-44 and later from many other sites the view has changed.

33. Discovery The pottery inscriptions made it possible to date inscriptions more accurately. It looks that inscribing on pottery was given up after the 3rd century AD.

34. Deciphering, the Tamil-Brahmi script

35. DecipheringDifficulties Deciphering cave inscriptions posed a number of problems: Most of the inscriptions were in inaccessible locations Inscriptions were not bold and clear Language was mistaken for Prakrit Clues to a correct understanding of the script were not found.

36. DecipheringMilestones 1906: Venkayya identified the script to be Brahmi. But he thought that the language was Pali. He read a line in Mettuppatti as anatai ariya, attempted to seek Vedic roots for the words. 1914: Krishna Sastri attempted to read the bold Sittannavasal inscription.

37. DecipheringMilestones • 1919: Krishna Sastri first noted • purely southern charactaristics, like • the occurrences of letter L [ள] • which was identified earlier in Simhala-Brahmi. • He also identified the presence of • three unusual characters, • later identified as zh [ழ], R [ற] and n [ன]. • He was the first to feel that some of the consonants • must bebasic (ெமö).

38. DecipheringMilestones 1924: KV Subramania Iyer pointed out the powerful misguiding factor that what was written in Brahmi must be in Prakrit.

39. DecipheringMilestones • 1924: KV Subramania Iyerfound: • - Soft consonants (ग ज ड द ब)were absent • - sa (ஸ, स)was occasionally used; • but Sh (º, श) and sh (ஷ, ष) were absent. • - All vowels except • ai , au, Ri (ऋ), Lr (ऌ), M (अं) and H (अः) • were used • - Conjunct consonants (ÜðெடØòÐ) • were absent completely

40. DecipheringMilestones 1924: KV Subramania Iyer ruled out Indo-European language and proved it is Tamil. He demonstrated convincingly presence of Tamil grammatical elements likepAkan (À¡¸ý), vaNikan (Ž¢¸ý), etc

41. DecipheringMilestones 1924: KV Subramania Iyer could not still read correctly because of his incorrect orthography (spelling), his overestimation of the Prakrit elements, etc

42. DecipheringMilestones 1938-9: Narayana Rao tried to put the clock back. He felt that the language was Prakrit, and actually read the inscriptions fully!

43. DecipheringMilestones 1961: KG Krishnan identified pulli (ÒûÇி), a device introduced ‘later’ to mark the basic consonants (ெமö ±ØòÐ) and the short e (±)and o (´) vowels. Later pulli was also identified in the 2nd century AD silver coin of Satakarni.

44. DecipheringMilestones 1964: Kamil Zwelebil published the first formal study of cave inscriptions. 1967: TV Mahalingam published the first book-length study of cave inscriptions.

45. DecipheringMahadevan’s attempts 1961: Mahadevan took up study of inscriptions 1962-66: First round of visits to the caves 1966: Corpus of 74 Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and 2 Early VaTTezhuttu inscriptions from 21 sites published 1987: Mahadevan proposed a tentative model 1991-96: Second field expedition 2003: Publication of ‘Early Tamil Epigraphy’

46. DecipheringMahadevan’s attempts Mahadevan made field visits to the sites and prepared tracings direct from stones and made use of computer enhancement of photos. He made chronological classification.

47. Let us have a look at some important inscriptions

48. Mangulam inscription Mangulam inscription was discovered by Robert Sewell in 1882, and was rediscovered by KV Subramania Iyer in 1906

49. Mangulam inscription This Tamil-Brahmi inscription is important, because this is the earliest inscription to be found and in this inscription Nedunchezhiyan, a Sangam king, is mentioned.

50. Mangulam inscription