Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c20.s2.t2.21

c20.s2.t2.21

The proverbial silver lining in the dark cloud appeared in the form of the discovery, as a result of our intensive search in February 1996, of two more Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions ⁶ on the north rock wall of the cave, which had earlier escaped the attention of Fawcett. All the four short Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions appear to be contemporary and may be assigned to ca. 3rd century a.d. on palaeographic grounds. The occurrence of the expression *kaṭummiputa cēra* in one of the newly discovered inscriptions¹ proves that these are records of the times of the Cēra dynasty of the Caṅkam Age. The Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions from the Edakal cave have now been read and are included as Nos. **79-82** in the present *Corpus*.²