Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c20.s3.t1: 1.3.1 Alagarmalai: endowment by merchants from Madurai
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c20.s3.t1
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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.