Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s6: 2.6 Elements of Bhattiprolu orthography in cave inscriptions
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s6
- Language
- English
2.6 Elements of Bhattiprolu orthography in cave inscriptions
c21.s6.1
As we saw earlier, though Krishna Sastri and Subrahmanya Aiyer refer to the Bhattiprolu casket inscriptions and their unique orthographic conventions governing the depiction of medial vowels, neither of them really understood how these were related to the Tamil cave inscriptions. The next major advance in this direction is due to Subramanian who authored the first book in Tamil on palaeography in 1938 with an English translation by himself in 1957.² Subramanian did not read or interpret individual inscriptions and confined himself to a general discussion on the palaeography of the script illustrating it with the first published palaeographic chart based on the cave inscriptions discovered up to that time.³ Subramanian was the first to recognise and state clearly that the Bhattiprolu conventions of
c21.s6.2
² T.N. Subramanian 1938 (reprint 1996). His English translation (with revisions) is included in *SITI*. III. 2: 1499-1610. The citations are from the English translation unless otherwise stated.
c21.s6.3
³ T.N. Subramanian 1957: Pl. 1, p. 1512.
c21.s6.4
(a) treatment of the consonantal symbol as basic, that is, without the 'inherent' *-a* medial vowel; and
(b) the consequential use of the *-ā* medial stroke of Brāhmī to indicate the *-a* medial vowel,
c21.s6.5
are "found also in the Brāhmī inscriptions of Tamiḻ-nāḍu".⁴ Later discoveries of these orthographic conventions not only in cave inscriptions but also in pottery inscriptions and legends on coins, seals, etc., in the Early Tamil-Brāhmī script, have proved beyond doubt the correctness of the important observation made by Subramanian.
c21.s6.6
⁴ Ibid. pp. 1508-1509.
c21.s6.7
Subramanian also noted that the characteristic *-ā* medial sign of Bhattiprolu does not occur in the Tamil cave inscriptions.⁵ He was, however, uncomfortable, like Subrahmanya Aiyer before him, with the idea that the same sign could represent either *-a* or*-ā* medial vowels according to the context. This explains his search for yet another alternative solution and his claim that the medial **-ā** was sometimes represented by two horizontal strokes attached to the consonantal symbol.¹ The claim is not borne out by actual evidence *in situ*.²
c21.s6.8
⁵ Ibid. p. 1509.
c21.s6.9
¹ T.N. Subramanian 1957: p. 1509 and Pl. 1.
c21.s6.10
² Subramanian does not cite the source of his illustration. Apparently his drawing of *cā* with two horizontal strokes is based on the estampage of an inscription at Kongarpuliyankulam (No. *12* in the present Corpus). The letter is read as *ce*/*cē* by most authorities including T.V. Mahalingam (1967: pp. 224-231) or as *cō* by others.
c21.s6.11
Subramanian does not also appear to have comprehended the true import of the Bhattiprolu conventions as seen from his explanation that they were intended to avoid the confusion between the Brāhmī *anusvāra* and the Tamil *puḷḷi*.³ As we shall see presently, the *puḷḷi* was a later development in Tamil-Brāhmī in response to a problem which did not exist in the Bhattiprolu script.⁴
c21.s6.12
³ T.N. Subramanian 1957: p. 1508.
c21.s6.13
⁴ See sections 6.8 & 6.9.