Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c22.s3.t7: 3.3.7 Changeover from Prakrit to Sanskrit
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c22.s3.t7
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3.3.7 Changeover from Prakrit to Sanskrit
c22.s3.t7.1
Sanskrit supplanted Prakrit in South Indian inscriptions from about the beginning of the 5th century A.D.¹ This changeover is also reflected in the language of the cave inscriptions in the Tamil country. Thus the loanwords in the Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions (ca. 2nd century B.C.-4th century A.D.) are invariably from Prakrit, while those in the Early Vaṭṭeḻuttu inscriptions (ca. 5-6 century A.D.) are from Sanskrit or survival of borrowings from Prakrit in the earlier age. The transitional character of the Early Vaṭṭeḻuttu inscriptions is best illustrated by the personal names of two monks, *vaccaṇanti* (< Pkt.) and *cantiraṉanti* (< Skt.) appearing in the Jaina inscriptions of about the same period (ca. 6th century A.D.).²
c22.s3.t7.2
¹ The earliest stone inscription in Sanskrit from ancient Tamil country(Tamil Nadu and Kerala) is that of Vishṇuvarman, probably a Kadamba prince, at Edakal in Kerala, assigned on palaeographic evidence to ca. 5th century A.D. E. Hultzsch in F. Fawcett 1901 (Estampage No. 1). See I. Mahadevan 1999 for revised interpretation.
c22.s3.t7.3
² Nos. *115* and *116* in the Corpus.
c22.s3.t7.4
To illustrate, loanwords occurring in the Early Vaṭṭeḻuttu inscriptions in the Corpus (Table 3.4) appear to be borrowed directly from Sanskrit. The same situation obtains in later Tamil inscriptions and in Literary Tamil, with the earlier layer of borrowings from Prakrit and the later layers increasingly from Sanskrit.