Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s4.t2.9

c21.s4.t2.9

***r*: Krishna Sastri noticed the occurrence of two unusual letters in the cave inscription at Anaimalai,⁵ "the formation of which is not found elsewhere". He attempted to read them as *ḍu* and *ḍai*, but admitted that the readings were not certain and wondered whether they might be "conjunct consonants".⁶ Subrahmanya Aiyer was able to identify the letter correctly as *r*.⁷ He inferred from the shape of the letter resembling "a badly shaped *ṭu*" that it must be allied in sound with *ṭ*. He drew attention to the addition of medial signs to the letter, which showed that it must be a simple consonant and not a 'conjunct consonant' as suggested by Krishna Sastri. He pointed out that the only letter allied to *ṭ* for which a new character had to be added to the Asokan Brāhmī was the Dravidian *r*. He located the clinching evidence in the cluster *-nr-* occurring in the word *kunra-* 'hill' in the Anaimalai inscription itself, which conclusively established the value of the letter in question as *r*.⁸ Subsequent discoveries of the letter in stone and pottery inscriptions have fully confirmed the correctness of the identification.