Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s6: § 32. — The Tamil and Vaṭṭeḷuttu alphabets; Plate VIII
Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s6
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Contents
- c8.s6.t1 A. — The Tamil — 16 parts
- c8.s6.t2 B. — The Vaṭṭeḷuttu — 9 parts
§ 32. — The Tamil and Vaṭṭeḷuttu alphabets; Plate VIII
A. — The Tamil
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The Tamil, as well as its southern and western cursive variety, the Vaṭṭeḷuttu or "roundhand," differs from the Sanskrit alphabet by the absence not only of the ligatures, but also of the signs for the aspirates, for the *mediae* (expressed by the corresponding *tenues*), for the sibilants (among which the palatal one is expressed by *ca*), for the spirant *ha*, for the Anusvāra and for the Visarga, as well as by the development of new letters for final *n*, and for *ṟa*, *ḻa* and *ḷa*, which latter three characters do not resemble those for the corresponding sounds in the Kanarese-Telugu script. The great simplicity of the alphabet fully agrees with the theories of the Tamil grammarians, and is explained by the peculiar phonetics of the Tamil language. Like all the older Dravidian dialects, the Tamil possesses no aspirates and no spirant. Further, it has no *ja*, and only one sibilant, which, according to CALDWELL, lies between *śa*, *ṣa* and *ca*, and which, if doubled, becomes a distinct *cca*. **[71]** The use of separate signs for the *tenues* and *mediae* was unnecessary on account of their mutual convertibility. The Tamil uses in the beginning of words only *tenues*, and in the middle only double *tenues* or single *mediae*. Hence, all words and affixes beginning with gutturals, linguals, dentals and labials, have double forms.¹ A knowledge of these simple rules makes mistakes, regarding the real phonetic value of *ka*, *ṭa*, *ta* and *pa*, impossible. The use of ligatures probably has been discarded because the Tamil allows even in loan-words no other combinations of consonants but repetitions of the same sound, and because it seemed more convenient to use in these cases the Virāma.²
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¹ CALDWELL, Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, 21—27.
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² Differently BURNELL, ESIP. 44, 47 ff., who considers the Vaṭṭeḷuttu as independent of the Brāhmī, but likewise of Semitic origin, and declares the Tamil alphabet to be the result of a Brahmanical adaptation of the Grantha letters to the phonetical system of the Vaṭṭeḷuttu. This view has already been characterised "as hardly in accordance with the facts" by CALDWELL, op. cit., 9.
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The occurrence of signs for the Dravidian liquids, which, though the sounds correspond with those of the older Kanarese and Telugu, differ from the characters of the Kanarese-Telugu script, indicates that the Tamil alphabet is independent of the latter and has been derived from a different source. HULTZSCH's important discovery of the Kūram plates,¹ with a large section in the Tamil script and language of the 7th century, confirms this inference. The Tamil alphabet of these plates agrees only in part with their Grantha, and many of its letters offer characteristics of the northern alphabets.
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¹ SII. 1, 147; compare 2, plate 12; the characters of the Vallam Cave inscription, op. cit., 2, plate 10, fully agree,
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Specific Grantha forms occur in *U* (plate VIII, 5, XVI; compare plate VII, 4, XXIV); in *O* (plate VIII, 9, XVI; compare col. XV); in *ta* (plate VIII, 25—28, XVI; compare plate VII, 22, XXIV); in *na* (plate VIII, 29, XVI; compare plate VII, 26, XXIV); in *ya* (plate VIII, 35, XVI; compare plate VII, 32, XXIV); in medial *u* in *ku* (plate VIII, 14, XVI; compare 44, XIII); in medial *e* (in *te*, plate VIII, 28, XVI; compare *khe*, plate VII, 9, XXIV); and in the vertical Virāma, which mostly stands above the vowelless consonant but to the right of *n* and *r* (compare *n*, plate VIII, 15, XVI; *m*, 34; *ḷ*, 43; *ṉ*, 49). The Tamil *ai* (for instance, *nai*, plate VIII, 29, XVI) appears to be a peculiar derivative from the Grantha *ai*, the two Mātrās having been placed, not one above the other, but one behind the other.
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Unmodified or only slightly modified northern forms appear in *A* and *Ā* (plate VIII, 1, 2, XVI), with the single vertical without a curve at the end (compare plate IV, 1, 2, I ff.), and with the loop on the left, which is found in recently discovered inscriptions from Swāt as well as in the Grantha; in *ka* (plate VIII, 11—14, XVI; compare plate IV, 7, I ff.); in *ca* (plate VIII, 16—18, XVI; compare plate III, 11, III); in *ṭa* (plate VIII, 20—22, XVI; compare plate IV, 17, VII, VIII); in *pa* (plate VIII, 30—33, XVI; compare plate IV, 27, I ff.); in *ra* (plate VIII, 36, XVI; compare plate IV, 33, I ff.); in *la* (plate VIII, 37, XVI; compare plate IV, 34, VII ff.); in the medial *u* of *pu*, *mu*, *yu*, *vu* (plate VIII, 32, 40, XVI; compare plate IV, 27, II), and of *ru* (plate VIII, 36, XVI; compare plate IV, 33, III); and in the medial *ū* of *ḷū* and *ḻū* (plate VIII, 44, 46, XVI; compare *pū*, plate IV, 27, IV).
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The *ṅ* (plate VIII, 15, XVI) is more strongly modified, as it has been formed out of the angular northern *ṅa* (plate IV, 11, I ff.) by the addition of a stroke rising upwards on the right; and the *ma* (plate VIII, 34, XVI) is probably a cursive derivative from the so-called Gupta *ma* (plate IV, 31, I ff.).
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The signs for the Dravidian liquids, too, may be considered as developments of northern signs. The upper portion of the *ḷa* (plate VIII, 43, 44, XVI) looks like a small cursive northern *la*, to which a long vertical, descending downwards, has been added on the right. The *ṟa* (plate VIII, 47, 48, XVI) may consist of a small slanting northern *ra* and a hook added to the top. And the *ḻa* (plate VIII, 45, 46, XVI) is perhaps derived from a northern *ḷa* (plate IV, 40, II), the end of the horizontal line being looped and connected with the little pendent stroke below; compare also the looped *ḷa* (read erroneously *ḍha*) in the Amarāvatī inscription, J.RAS. 1891, plate at p. 142.
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The origin of the remaining signs is doubtful. Some, such as *va* (plate VIII, 38—40, XVI) and medial *ā* (see *kā*, plate VIII, 12, XVI), occur both in northern and in southern scripts. Others are modifications of letters common to the north and the south. The final *ṉ* (plate VIII, 49, XVI) is evidently the result of a slight transformation of both the northern and the southern *ṇa* with two hooks [72] (plate III, 20, V, XX; plate IV, 21, VII f.; plate VII, 21, IV ff.); and from this comes the Tamil *ṇa* (plate VIII, 24, XVI) by the addition of another curve. The parent of the peculiar *E* (plate VIII, 8, XVI) may be either that of plate IV, 5, X ff., or that of plate VII, 5, XXIII. Similarly, the angular medial *u* in *tu* (plate VIII, 27, XVI) and in *ṟu* (plate VIII, 48, XVI) is due to a peculiar modification of the curve, rising upwards on the right, which is found in connection both with northern and with southern letters (see *śu*, plate IV, 36, III, XVII, and plate VII, 36, II, IV). Finally, the greatly cursive *I* (plate VIII, 3, XVI) appears to be the result of a peculiar combination of three curves, which replaced the ancient dots. But an *I* of this kind has hitherto not been traced.
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This analysis of the Tamil alphabet of the 7th century makes it probable that it is derived from a northern alphabet of the 4th or 5th century, which in the course of time was strongly influenced by the Grantha, used in the same districts for writing Sanskrit.
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The next oldest specimen of the Tamil script, which is found in the Kaśākuḍi plate¹ of about A. D. 740 (not represented in plate VIII), shows no essential change except in the adoption of the later Tamil *ma*.
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¹ SII. 2, plates 14, 15.
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But the inscriptions of the 10th, 11th and later centuries² (plate VIII, cols. XVII—XX) offer a new variety, which is more strongly modified through the influence of the Grantha. The *ṭa*, *pa* and *va* have now the peculiar Grantha forms. Besides, in the 11th century begins the development of the little strokes, hanging down on the left of the tops of *ka*, *ṅa*, *ca*, *ta* and *na*. In the 15th century (plate VIII, cols. XIX, XX) these pendants are fully formed, and *ka* shows a loop on the left. It is worthy of note that in the later Tamil inscriptions the use of the Virāma (Pulli) first becomes rarer and finally ceases,³ while in the quite modern writing the Virāma is again marked by a dot.
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² Compare the facsimiles, of 10th and 11th centuries, at EI. 3, 284; SII. 2, plates 2—4; of the 15th century, at SII. 2, plate 5; uncertain, at SII. 2, plate 8; IA. 6, 142; alphabet, B.ESIP. plates 18, 19.
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³ Compare Veṅkayya, EI. 3, 278 ff.
B. — The Vaṭṭeḷuttu
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Among the Vaṭṭeḷuttu inscriptions, the Śāsanas of Bhāskara-Ravivarman in favour of the Jews (pl. VIII, cols. XXI, XXII) and of the Syrians of Kocin,⁴ as well as the Tirunelli copper-plates of the same king,⁵ have been published with facsimiles. Trusting to rather weak arguments, Burnell ascribes the first-named two documents to the 8th century.⁶ But the Grantha letters occurring in the Śāsana of the Jews belong to the third and latest variety of that alphabet, and the Nāgarī *śā* or *śī* (probably for *śrīḥ*) at the end of the document, to which Hultzsch has called attention,⁷ resembles the northern forms of the 10th and 11th centuries (compare plate V, 39, 47, VIII; 48, X).
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⁴ Madras Journ. Lit. Soc. 13, 2, 1; IA. 3, 333; B.ESIP. pl. 32 *a*; EI. 3, 72; alphabet, IA. 1, 229; B.ESIP. pl. 17.
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⁵ IA. 20, 292.
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⁶ IA. 1, 229; B.ESIP. 49; disputed by Hultzsch, IA. 20, 289.
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⁷ EI. 3, 67.
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From a paleographical point of view, the Vaṭṭeḷuttu may be described as a cursive script, which bears the same relation to the Tamil as the modern northern alphabets of the clerks and merchants to their originals, *e. g.*, the Moḍī of the Marāṭhās to the Bālbodh and the Ṭākarī of the Dogrās to the Śāradā.⁸ With the exception of the *Ī*, probably borrowed from the Grantha, all its letters are made with a single stroke from the left to the right, and are mostly inclined towards the left. Several among them, such as the *ña* (plate VIII, 15, XXI) with the curve and hook on the left, the *va* with the open top and the hook on the left (plate VIII, 38, XXI, XXII; compare cols. XVII—XX) and the round *ra* (plate VIII, 45, 46, XXI, XXII; compare 47, XVII—XX), show the characteristics of the second variety of the Tamil of the 11th and later centuries. And with the usage of the later Tamil inscriptions agrees the constant omission of the Virāma. Some other characters, such as the round *ṭa* (plate VIII, 20—23, XXI, XXII; compare col. XVI), the *ma* with the curve on the right (plate VIII, 34, XXI, XXII; compare col. XVI), and the *ya* with the loop on the left (plate VIII, 35, XXI, XXII; compare col. XVI), seem to go back to the forms of the earlier Tamil. And three, the rounded *U* (plate VIII, 5, XXI), the pointed *E* (plate VIII, 8, XXI) and the *ṇa* with a single notch (plate VIII, 26, XXI, XXII), possibly show characteristics dating from a still earlier period.
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⁸ Compare above, § 25, note 8.
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Perhaps it may be assumed that the "round-hand" arose already before the 7th century, but was modified in the course of time by the further development of the Tamil and the Grantha scripts. Owing to the small [73] number of the accessible inscriptions, this conjecture is however by no means certain.
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The transformation of the Vaṭṭeluttu *ka* (plate VIII, 11—14, XXI, XXII), which seems to be derived from a looped form, is analogous to that of the figure 4 in the decimal system of numeral notation (compare plate IX, B, 4, V—VII, and IX). The curious *ta* (plate VIII, 25—28, XXI, XXII) has been developed by the change of the loop of the Tamil letter (compare cols. XVII, XVIII) into a notch and the prolongation of the tail up to the head. The still more extraordinary *na* (plate VIII, 29, XXI) may be explained as a cursive derivative of the later Tamil *na* with the stroke hanging down from the top.