Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c20.s5.1

c20.s5.1

There was a revival of interest in the cave inscriptions in the sixties of the last century when the Government Epigraphist undertook fresh copying of the inscriptions discovered earlier.⁴ The exercise resulted in the discovery of eight additional cave inscriptions from five sites already known.⁵ Further, six new sites with a total of nine cave inscriptions,⁶ and two more inscriptions, one each from the earlier sites ⁷ of Kunnakkudi and Vikkiramangalam, were also discovered during this period by scholars outside the ASI.¹ Four of the inscriptions were illustrated with estampages in the *ARE* of the respective years.² While only very few inscriptions were discovered during this period (1961-80), much progress was made in reading and interpreting the inscriptions.³