Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s5.t2.1

c5.s5.t2.1

The earliest Christian settlements in S. India were Persian, and a few inscriptions in Pahlavī still remain which belong to that period⁴). They were, however, supplanted by the so-called Syrians who are now in appearance exactly like all the other inhabitants of Malabar, and use Malayāḷam as their language; this they often write with Syriac[^1) (Karshuni) letters to which they have added from the Malayāḷam 'Ārya' character the letters deficient in the former. Syriac is merely used in the churches, though apparently it is pretty generally understood by the more intelligent members of the community. A few tombstones and similar relics in Travancore show that the Syriac-Malayāḷam alphabet is of recent introduction, and that the Syrians originally used only the Vaṭṭeḻuttu character. Buchanan[^2) mentions bells with inscriptions in Syriac and Malayāḷam, but I have not seen or heard of any[^3).