Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c20.s1.1

c20.s1.1

Until the commencement of the 20th century the earliest known inscriptions in Tamil were those of the Pallavas in the Tamil script from the 7th century and those of the Pāṇṭiyas in the Vaṭṭeḻuttu script from the 8th century A.D.² The existence of two scripts for the language was a puzzle, though their ultimate descent from the Brāhmī script could be inferred by comparative studies.³ Even more puzzling was the complete absence of earlier written records in Tamil, even though the earliest literary works pictured a great civilisation going back at least two thousand years.⁴ These puzzles were resolved only when the cave inscriptions in Tamil in a script closely resembling that of the Asokan edicts were discovered in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu around the turn of the 20th century.