Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.1

c10.1

FOR the successful interpretation of the S. Indian inscriptions, as well as for extended researches into Dravidian Comparative Philology, it is now indispensable that a history of Dravidian phonetics should be drawn up. The materials that exist for this purpose are more extensive than might be supposed, and go back to perhaps nearly two thousand years. The earliest certain traces are a few words recorded in the Açoka inscriptions, and, later, a few more by the Greek geographers of the early centuries A. D.; secondly, some Tamiḻ words mentioned by Kumārilasvāmin (700 A. D.), and others in the Mahāvaṃso and in the travels of Chinese pilgrims; thirdly, the earlier inscriptions recording the campaigns of the Cālukyas and Coḷas; fourthly, the native grammarians of about the tenth century A. D. for the most part. Much help will also be gained from the earlier metrical compositions[^1). The Cera inscriptions show that the Canarese language had the peculiarities which now characterise it, already, in the 5th century A. D.; and Tamiḻ inscriptions of a date a few centuries later prove the same of that language. It is, therefore, almost certain that the three great Dravidian languages had, already, separated and assumed their characteristic forms some two thousand years ago[^2).