Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s8.1

c21.s8.1

The *puḷḷi* (literally, 'dot') is a diacritic device in the Tamil script to mark the basic consonants and (formerly) the short *e* and *o* vowels.¹ The occurrence of the *puḷḷi* in the cave inscriptions was not suspected for a long time. Krishna Sastri did notice the 'dots' in the Anaimalai cave inscription, but considered them to be the *anusvāra* of the Brāhmī script.² Even Subrahmanya Aiyer failed to notice the occurrence of the *puḷḷi* in this inscription which he discovered. In general, he assumed that "as in most Tamil inscriptions and palm-leaf manuscripts, it (the *puḷḷi*) has to be supplied by the reader".³ This assumption shows that he did not grasp the essence of the Bhattiprolu convention that the consonant symbol does not possess the so-called inherent *-a* medial vowel as pointed out by Bühler much earlier.⁴