Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s9.3

c21.s9.3

Publishing his work in the late sixties of the last century, Mahalingam started with several distinct advantages. The language of the cave inscriptions had been proved to be Tamil, and the four special Tamil characters *ḻ*, *ḷ*, *ṟ* and *ṉ* had been identified. The presence of the Bhattiprolu convention and the Tamil *puḷḷi* in the cave inscriptions were known to him. The number of inscriptions had almost doubled providing more material for comparative study.