Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.7

c5.7

At all events, the oldest inscriptions that have been found in Southern India are far from being as old as the Açoḱa edicts, and the paucity of them—for the only place where they occur is Amarāvatī—shows that Buddhism cannot have advanced to any considerable extent. The cave hermitages, peculiar to the Buddhists, appear to exist in many other parts of S. India, in the Deccan[^3) and even near Madras. In a hill about a mile to the east of Chingleput there is a cave now made into a Liṅga temple, but which was evidently intended for a Buddhist hermit's cell, and many of the curious caves and monolith temples at Seven Pagodas appear to have been originally made for the same purpose[^4). At Amarāvatī and at Seven Pagodas[^5) there are inscriptions of a few words each, which are written in a character precisely similar to that used in the cave inscriptions near Bombay. It is tolerably certain that these last belong to the first century before and the first and second centuries after the Christian era. There is not, however, a S. Indian inscription which can be accepted as genuine with a date before the 5th century of the Christian era, though one or two (without dates) exist which may be safely attributed to the fourth century A. D. The earliest inscriptions belong to