Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s16.t5.2

c21.s16.t5.2

The fundamental basis for dating Early Tamil-Brāhmī is its obviously close resemblance to Mauryan Brāhmī. The near-identity in the shapes of the common letters and medial vowel signs between the two leaves no reasonable doubt that Tamil-Brāhmī was formed from Brāhmī before the end of the Mauryan Age. A small but significant detail is the formation of the Tamil-Brāhmī *ḻ* from the rare Asokan *ḍ* not known to have been in use after his time.³