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Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s2.t4: C. Modern Grantha and Tuḷu-Malayāḷam

Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s2.t4

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C. Modern Grantha and Tuḷu-Malayāḷam

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The materials for the history of this section of the S. Indian alphabets are also excessively defective. These alphabets were up to quite recent times in very limited use, and except in Malabar, are still applied merely to write Sanskrit. The name ‘Grantha’ by which the E. coast variety has been known for some centuries[^2), indicates that it was merely used for ‘books’ or literary purposes. This being the case, it is hopeless to look for old specimens, as palm leaf MSS. perish rapidly in the Tamiḻ country where they are mostly written on leaves of the ‘Borassus flabelliformis,’ far inferior to the Talipat leaves in beauty and durability. The oldest MS. I have been able to discover is Tanjore 9,594 which must be of about 1600 A. D. Autographs of mediæval authors who must have used this character (*e. g.* Appayya Dīxita in the sixteenth century A. D.) appear to be no longer in existence.

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There are at present two distinct Grantha hands. The brahmanical or *square* hand (cfr. Pl. xiv.), and the *round* or Jain hand which has preserved the original features of the early Grantha far better than the other. The first is used chiefly in the Tanjore province; the last by the Jains still remaining near Arcot and Madras.

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By far the largest number of Grantha MSS. now existing are brahmanical, and the lesser or greater approach of the writing to the angular Tamiḻ forms, is a certain test of the age of a MS. Such a hand as that shown in Pl. xxxiii. became quite obsolete by 1700 A. D. The only modern MS. that I have seen at all like it, came from Palghat (Pālakkāḍu); but occasional Malayāḷam forms of letters show its origin[^3).

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The Tuḷu-Malayāḷam alphabet is a variety of the Grantha, and like it, was originally applied only to the writing of Sanskrit; it is, therefore, the Grantha of the West, or the original Coḷa-Grantha as modified in course of time in a country secluded from all but very little communication with the east coast of the peninsula[^4). The importation of this alphabet into the S. W. coast must obviously have occurred after the Grantha had

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[^1): 1) The first complete representation of the E. Grantha alphabet is in “A Sanskrit Primer” by Harkness and Visvambra Sastri, (*sic*) (4°, Madras, College Press, 1827); the letters are, however, badly formed. The type now in use at Madras is very little better in this respect. [^2): 2) See the reference to the Basava-purāṇa (1369 A. D.) on p. 31. [^3): 3) MSS. in all these hands, and of different ages occur among those I presented to the India Office Library in 1870. [^4): 4) The history of the west coast is very obscure. There were, it appears, in the earliest times as down to the present, a number of small kingdoms given as twenty-five by the Portuguese. In the 11th century the west coast was more than once invaded by the Coḷa king, and it is termed Malanāḍu in the Tanjore inscription, though it is not clear to what extent of country this name should be applied.

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assumed its characteristic forms, or about the eighth and ninth centuries A. D.¹ But it is remarkable that the Tuḷu-Malayāḷam character preserves older forms which were modified at later times in the Grantha. (cfr. the Grantha ‘mu’ of the 11th century with the modern Grantha [Grantha character] and the Malayāḷam [Malayalam character] etc.)

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¹ See the words (from the grant to the Persian Christians), given in pl. xiii.

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Up to about 1600 A. D. the Tuḷu² and Malayāḷam alphabets (as shown by Sanskrit MSS.) are identical, and hardly differ from the modern Tuḷu hand given in Pl. xiv. MSS. from Malabar proper are generally written in a very irregular sprawling hand³, those from the Tuḷu country are neater. This character was termed in Malabar Ārya-eḻuttu, and was only applied to write Sanskrit works up to the latter part of the seventeenth century when it commenced to supplant the old Vaṭṭeḻuttu hitherto used for writing Malayāḷam. In the Tuḷu country it cannot be said ever to have been used for writing the vernacular language—a Dravidian dialect destitute of a written literature.

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² I have been told by a Brahman of the Mādhva sect that the founder (Ānandatīrtha, † 1198 A. D.) wrote his works in this character on palm leaves, and that some are still preserved in a brass box and worshipped at Uḍupi. It is probable, but I have not been able to get any corroboration of this story. The MSS. (if still existing) must be reduced by time to the condition of tinder; for the oldest MS. that I have seen in S. India which was of the 15th century, could not be handled without damage to it.

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³ The types used in printing the first edition of the Malayāḷam Gospels (at Bombay in 1806) exactly represent it.

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The application of the Ārya-eḻuttu to the vernacular Malayāḷam was the work of a low-caste man who goes under the name of Tuñjatta Eḻuttacchan, a native of Tṛkkaṇḍiyūr in the present district of Malabar. He lived in the seventeenth century, but his real name is forgotten; Tuñjatta being his ‘house’ or family-name, and Eḻuttacchan (=schoolmaster) indicating his caste. It is probable that there was a scanty vernacular literature before his time⁴, but it is entirely owing to him that the Malayāḷam literature is of the extent it is. He translated the Sanskrit Bhāgavata, and several similar mythologico-religious poems, leaving, however, a large infusion of Sanskrit, and writing his composition in the Ārya character. His translations are often erroneous, and beyond adopting the Vaṭṭeḻuttu signs for ṟ, ḻ and ḷ, (റ, ഴ and ള) he did nothing whatever to systematize the orthography which till lately was most defective⁵, or to supply signs for letters (*e. g.* ṵ) which are wanting in most of the other Dravidian languages. The Sanskrit literature was, after this, no longer a secret, and there was perhaps no part of S. India where it was more studied by people of many castes during the eighteenth century.

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⁴ Dr. Gundert considers the Malayāḷam Rāmāyaṇa to belong to a period of perhaps some centuries before the arrival of the Portuguese.

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⁵ The distinction between ĕ and ē, and ŏ and ō was first made within the last thirty years by Dr. Gundert. In a new fount of types used by the Carmelites at Kunamāvu (Cochin territory) an attempt is made to separate the secondary forms of u and ū.

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Tuńjatta Eḻuttacchan's paraphrases were copied, it is said, by his daughter. I have seen the ᴍs. of the Bhāgavata¹ which is written in a round hand sloping to the left (or backwards), and thus precisely agrees with the current hand used in Malabar proper, and which was imitated in the types cut to print Spring's Grammar in 1836. The modern types vary considerably. The Travancore hand is more angular².

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¹ This is preserved at Puḷakkale, a village in the Cittūr Tālūk of the Cochin territory, and not far to the south of Palghat (Pālakkāḍu). The MS. was much broken and injured by damp when I saw it in 1865. The author's stool, clogs and staff are preserved in the same place; it thus looks as if Tuńjatta Eḻuttacchan was a sanyāsi of some order.

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² There are some MSS. in this hand, among those I presented to the India Office Library in 1870; including one of the Mādhavīya Dhātuvṛitti. The types used to print books at Trevandrum follow this model. The first printed specimen of the Ārya-eḻuttu that I have seen is in the preface of vol. i. of Rheede's "Hortus Malabaricus". But Malayāḷam was printed already in 1577 when J. Gonçalves, a Spanish lay-brother of the Jesuits, cut type with which a Catechism was printed at Vaypicota near Cranganore. (Sousa, "Oriente Conquistado", ii., p. 110). The complete alphabet was printed by the Propaganda at Rome in 1772, 8º. "Alphabetum Grandonico-Malabaricum."

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The Sanskrit ᴍss. in this character (inscriptions there are none to my knowledge) present a peculiarity which deserves notice—the substitution of l and ḷ for a final t or ṭ, when these letters *unchanged* precede other consonants, or are final. Thus for tatkāla we find തൽക്കാല (talkāla), and for tasmāt തസ്മാൽ (tasmāl). This practice is totally wrong according to all authorities, and probably arises out of the tendency of the people of Malabar to slur over all surd consonants³.

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³ P. Paulinus a St. Bartholemeo followed this practice in his "Vyacaranam". (Sanskrit Grammar), and was in consequence ridiculed, but most unjustly, by Leyden and the Calcutta Sanskrit scholars of the last century.

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Apart from this singular practice, the Sanskrit ᴍss. from Malabar are among the best that can be had in India. Up to quite recent times the study of Sanskrit literature, and especially of the mathematical and astrological treatises, appears to have been followed in Malabar with more living interest than anywhere else in the South.

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It is hardly necessary to remark that the Ārya-eḻuttu or modern Malayāḷam alphabet is necessarily affected by the old Tamiḻ orthography as far as it is applied to the writing of Dravidian words. So in a Malayāḷam sentence ത, except if initial, should be pronounced δ in a Malayāḷam word, but t in one that is Sanskrit; ക should also be pronounced γ and g in the same circumstances. This, however, is but little observed, and Sanskrit words are commonly Dravidianized.

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The Tamiḻ and Canarese grammars give rules for Dravidianizing Sanskrit words⁴, but the subject deserves more attention than has yet been paid to it. These influences unquestionably affect the orthography of Sanskrit ᴍss. written in S. India.

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⁴ Nannūl, iii. sūtras 19-21. "Çabdamaṇidarpaṇa" pp. 46, ffg. cfr. also the introduction to the excellent Tamiḻ-French Dictionary, published at Pondichery (in 2 Vols. 8vo.) "par deux Missionnaires Apostoliques".

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