Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s13.10

c21.s13.10

This is a critical study of 46 inscriptions selected from the *Corpus 1966*.⁸ The tracings which illustrate these inscriptions in the *Corpus* have been reproduced in his paper. While closely following the readings and interpretations in the *Corpus*, Panneerselvam has also suggested a few modifications. Among the improvements made by him and incorporated by me in the present *Corpus* are the revised segmentation of the longer Mangulam inscriptions¹ and the Sittannavasal inscription² leading to better understanding. Panneerselvam has also included in his paper a detailed linguistic study of the inscriptions. A comparison of Panneerselvam's inscriptional glossary and linguistic analysis with those by Kamil Zvelebil (1964) provides a measure of the progress achieved in understanding the language of the cave inscriptions.