Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s16.t5.8

c21.s16.t5.8

Early Tamil-Brāhmī and Early Sinhala-Brāhmī also resemble each other very closely indicating their descent from Mauryan Brāhmī at about the same time. As Early Sinhala-Brāhmī has been dated with the help of a few royal inscriptions from about the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 2nd century B.C., Early Tamil-Brāhmī can also be placed in the same period. The earliest common structural feature is the absence of conjunct consonants in both the scripts. The two scripts also share the special forms of *ī* (read as *i*), *m* and *ḷ*, all of which get replaced in Late Sinhala-Brāhmī by the corresponding Southern Brāhmī forms. Recent discoveries of the occurrence of the special Tamil-Brāhmī letters of *ḻ*, *ṟ* and *ṉ* (in addition to *ḷ* known earlier) in Early Sinhala-Brāhmī inscriptions provide confirmation that Early Tamil-Brāhmī and Early Sinhala-Brāhmī are coeval.¹