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Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c20.s3: 1.3 A flood of discoveries (1906-18)

Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c20.s3

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1.3 A flood of discoveries (1906-18)

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The cave inscriptions at Mettuppatti,¹⁰ a village 40 km. north-west of Madurai, were first reported by Francis in 1906. In the same year, L.A. Cammiade, a Deputy Collector, discovered a cave inscription at Marukaltalai¹ near Tirunelveli and Subrahmanya Aiyer discovered another at Anaimalai² near Madurai. The cave inscriptions at Mangulam³ and Mettuppatti⁴ were rediscovered by Subrahmanya Aiyer in 1906 and Venkayya in 1908 respectively. Unlike at Edakal and Kilavalavu, the newly discovered cave inscriptions were immediately recognised as written in the Brāhmī script.⁵ The unexpected occurrence of Brāhmī inscriptions in the Tamil country aroused great interest and, as a result of vigorous search, no less than 39 inscriptions from 12 caves were found in quick succession from the southern Districts of Madurai, Ramanathapuram and Tirunelveli.⁶ The list of inscriptions copied each year was published in the *ARE*⁷ along with description of the caves and other interesting features associated with them.⁸ During this period, photographs of estampages of most of the cave inscriptions discovered up to 1918 were also published in the *ARE* from time to time.⁹ Among the inscriptions discovered during this extraordinarily productive period,¹⁰ the most significant ones are, besides the two Pāṇṭiya inscriptions from Mangulam mentioned earlier, those from Alagarmalai which record the gifts of merchants from Madurai and another from Sittannavasal providing interesting evidence for early contacts with the Jainas of Karnataka.

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¹⁰ W. Francis 1906: vol. I, pp. 294-295. See also Fig. 1.14 in this vol.

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¹ *ARE* 407 / 1906.

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² *ARE* 457 / 1906.

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³ *ARE* 460-465 / 1906.

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⁴ *ARE* 45 (a)-(e) / 1908.

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⁶ Marukaltalai, Anaimalai and Mangulam (1906); Varichiyur, Mettuppatti, Tirupparankunram and Alagarmalai (1908); Kunnakkudi (1909); Kongarpuliyankulam and Muttuppatti (1910); Karungalakkudi (1911) and Sittannavasal-A (1914). Additional inscriptions were also discovered at Alagarmalai in 1910 and Mettuppatti in 1917-18.

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⁷ See *ARE* for the respective years for details of the location of the inscriptions.

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⁸ V. Venkayya in *ARE* 1906-07: paragraphs 1-5; 1907-08: paragraphs 1-7. H . Krishna Sastri in *ARE* 1908-09: paragraphs 1-9; 1909-10: paragraphs 1-5; 1911-12: paragraphs 1 & 2; 1914-15: paragraphs 1 & 2; 1917-18: paragraphs 8 & 10.

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⁹ *ARE* 1911-12, 1914-15 and 1917-18.

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¹⁰ Varichiyur was discovered by L. Vibert, Additional District Magistrate, Madurai, and Karungalakkudi by the Collector of Madurai ( whose name is not recorded in the *ARE*). Sittannavasal was discovered by Radhakrishna Aiyar of the Pudukkottai Educational Service. The other inscriptions found during this period (after 1908) were discovered by officers working under the Government Epigraphist.

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Figure 1.5. Alagarmalai: general view of the hill.

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Figure 1.6. Alagarmalai: cave with Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions.

1.3.1 Alagarmalai: endowment by merchants from Madurai

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The cave at Alagarmalai, about 20 km. north-east of Madurai, is located at a considerable height on the hill range and can be reached only after a stiff climb (Fig. 1.⁵).¹¹ The cave is spacious and has a number of stone beds carved on the rocky floor and a deep pool in one corner. The ceiling of the cave is quite high and it is very difficult to read or copy the inscriptions engraved at an inaccessible height on the brow of the cave. The inscriptions were copied only in 1910, two years after they were discovered, when a high wooden scaffolding was erected with the help of the village headman.¹ After a long interval, the Alagarmalai inscriptions were copied again by the ASI in 1963-64 when two more inscriptions were noticed on the brow of the cave.²

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⁵ *ARE* 1906-07: paragraph 1; 1907-08: paragraph 1.

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¹¹ For an account of the discovery of the Alagarmalai cave and its features, see H. Krishna Sastri, *ARE* 1908-09: paragraphs 5-7; 1909-10: paragraph 5. The inscriptions are numbered *ARE* 334 / 1908 and 70-79 / 1910.

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¹ "Estampages of these [inscriptions] were secured from a high scaffolding erected there under the order of the Collector of Madura by the energetic village munsif of Kidarippatti who spared no pains in securing the necessary materials from insignificant hamlets and sending them up a very steep and inaccessible height of rock". H. Krishna Sastri in *ARE 1909-10*: paragraph 5.

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² *ARE 244 & 245 / 1963-64*. Both had been copied earlier also in 1910, but not included in the Annual Report.

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Figure 1.7. Sittannavasal-A: general view of the cave.

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Figure 1.8. Sittannavasal-A: stone bed with inscribed edges.

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The importance of the Alagarmalai inscriptions was not recognised for a long time after the discovery as the estampages of the weather-worn inscriptions are mostly illegible,³ and their photographs published in the *ARE*⁴ are too small in size to show much detail. The attempts by Krishna Sastri⁵ and Subrahmanya Aiyer⁶ to edit the inscriptions from estampages were not successful.

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³ The Alagarmalai estampages copied in 1963-64 by the ASI are included in the present Corpus (Nos. *36-48*).

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⁴ *ARE 1911-12*: Pl. facing p. 50; *ARE 1917-18*: Pl. facing p. 6.

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⁵ H. Krishna Sastri 1919: pp. 344-346. However, he could offer no interpretation of the texts.

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The Alagarmalai inscriptions were copied again by two successive teams led by me, once in 1965 and again in 1992, from specially built steel scaffolding, each time securing better copies than what were available before. The earlier readings were published in 1966⁷ and the further improved readings are included in this volume.⁸

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The Alagarmalai cave (Fig. 1.⁶) has 13 Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions, the largest number from a single site. One of the inscriptions is engraved on a stone bed on the floor and the others on the brow of the cave. The inscriptions may be assigned to ca. 1st century B.C. on palaeographic evidence. They record the endowment made by a group of merchants and other donors, all from Maḍurai. The merchants are identified as traders in salt, sugar, iron implements and textiles. One of the donors is a goldsmith. Among the others are an accountant (described as the 'chief of scribes'), a Jaina nun and probably a Pāṇṭiya prince. The Alagarmalai inscriptions provide important evidence for the support extended to the Jaina monasteries by the merchant communities in this period.

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⁶ K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyer 1924: p. 299. He confined himself to the reading of a few disjointed expressions.

1.3.2 Sittannavasal: abode of a Jaina nun from Karnataka

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One of the better-known early cave inscriptions in Tamil Nadu is at Sittannavasal in Pudukkottai District. A large natural cave locally known as Ēḻaṭippaṭṭam (Fig. 1.⁷) is situated near the summit along the eastern face of the hill.⁹ Inside the cave is a large and smoothly polished stone bed. A Tamil-Brāhmī inscription is deeply engraved along two adjacent edges of the bed (Fig. 1.⁸). As the stone bed is inside the cave and the characters of the inscription have been carefully smoothened, this is the best preserved of the Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions discovered so far.¹⁰

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⁷ *Corpus of the Tamil-Brāhmī Inscriptions 1966* (1968): Nos. 30-44. See also Fig. 2.1.

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⁸ Nos. *36* to *48*. See also Figs. 8.20-8.22 (tracings) and Pls. 16B-20 (estampages).

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⁹ For a description of the upper cave of Sittannavasal and its features, see H. Krishna Sastri in *ARE 1914-15*: paragraphs 1 & 2.

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¹⁰ *ARE 388 A / 1914*. See the excellent reproduction of the estampage in *ARE 1914-15*: Pl. I.

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There are 16 more stone beds in this cave, some of them bearing later inscriptions in the Tamil characters of ca. 8th century A.D. These beds are not so well-made and some of them are damaged. A study *in situ* has shown that the centrally located and exceptionally well-made stone bed with the Tamil-Brāhmī inscription was fashioned much earlier and remained the only one in the cave for centuries until the other stone beds with inscriptions in the Tamil script were added in the early medieval period.

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The well-preserved and easily accessible Tamil-Brāhmī cave inscription at Sittannavasal has received attention from many scholars. Krishna Sastri made two attempts to read the inscription; ¹ but neither was successful as he could not suggest any plausible interpretation of his own readings. Subrahmanya Aiyer's reading produced the first broadly correct interpretation of the inscription, even though he misread some of the letters occurring in proper names.²

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¹ *ARE 1914-15*: paragraph 2. H. Krishna Sastri 1919: pp. 344-346.

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² K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyer 1924: pp. 296-299.

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As some of the expressions like *erumināṭu* in the inscription appeared to indicate contacts with Karnataka, I felt that it should be re-examined by an interdisciplinary team with expertise in Tamil and Kannada epigraphy. At my invitation, M.D. Sampath, Chief Epigraphist, ASI, joined our team which visited Sittannavasal in December 1991.³ After a very careful study of the inscription and review of earlier readings, the expert team arrived at the following translation:

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³ The other members of the team, besides myself, were N. Srinivasan, TNSA, Madagadi Thangavelu, civil engineer, (who made the tracing) and A. Seetharaman from Thanjavur.

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(To) Kavuṭi born at Kumuḻūr in Erumināṭu.
The seat was made by the Iḷayar of Teṉku Ciṟupocil.⁴

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⁴ See No. **49** and the Commentary on it. See also Fig. 8.23 (tracing) and Pl. 21 (estampage).

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The most remarkable fact emerging from the re-examination of this inscription is that the stone bed was specially made and gifted to a Jaina nun named Kavuṭi (Ka. *gavuḍi*). She is described as being born at Kumuḻūr in Erumināṭu (*erumaināṭu*, the Mysore region of Karnataka). The inscription is the earliest epigraphic evidence for contacts between the Jaina communities in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

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