Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s3.4

c5.s3.4

remains of the early Tamil literature which are in fact Jain, but he would have hardly said what he does if the grammars and the Kuṟal then existed. The earliest apparent or probable mention of writing in S. India is the passage in the Periplus of the Red Sea which describes Cape Comorin. Among other facts the author mentions that "it is related (ἱστορεῖται) that a goddess bathed there". Considering that this log-book was composed in the third century, and that, therefore, the Greek is very late, it is quite possible that this word ἱστορεῖται may mean that the legend was written, and the earlier editors and translators of the text took it in this sense¹), but the passage is by no means beyond doubt in this respect²). The earliest Tamil Grammar by Agattiyan (Agastya) clearly refers to writing, if we may trust a quotation (preserved by a commentary on the Nannūl) which compares the relation between a letter and the sound it stands for, with the relation of an idol to the deity it represents. The age of this is unknown.