Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s6.t1.4

c8.s6.t1.4

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.