Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c23.s27.t1: 4.24.1 Early literacy in Tamil society

Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c23.s27.t1

Language
English

4.24.1 Early literacy in Tamil society

c23.s27.t1.1

The earliest Tamil inscriptions in the Tamil-Brāhmī script may be dated from about the end of 3rd century or early 2nd century b.c. on palaeographic grounds and stratigraphic evidence of inscribed pottery. The earliest inscriptions in Kannada and Telugu occur more than half a millennium later. The earliest Kannada inscription at Halmidi (Hassan District, Karnataka) is assigned to the middle of the 5th century a.d.² The earliest Telugu inscription of the Renati Cōḻas at Kalamalla in Cuddapah District of Andhra Pradesh belongs to the end of 6th century a.d.³

c23.s27.t1.2

² *ARE* B. 412/1954.

c23.s27.t1.3

³ *ARE* 380/1904.

c23.s27.t1.4

The earliest extant Tamil literature, the Caṅkam works, are dated, even according to conservative estimates, from around the commencement of the Christian era. The earliest extant literary works in Kannada and Telugu were composed almost a millennium later. The earliest known literary work in Kannada is the *Kavirājamārga*, written early in the 9th century a.d. and the earliest known literary work in Telugu is the famous *Mahābhārata* of Nannaya composed in the middle of the 11th century a.d. It is also probable that *Kavijanāśraya*, a work in Telugu on prosody, composed by Malliya Rechana, is about a century earlier.⁴ There were earlier literary works in Kannada and Telugu, as known from references in earlier inscriptions and later literature. But none of them are extant.

c23.s27.t1.5

⁴ Salva Krishnamurthy 1994: pp. 163-165.

c23.s27.t1.6

The earliest inscriptions in the Tamil country written in the Tamil-Brāhmī script are almost exclusively in the Tamil language. The Tamil-Brāhmī cave inscriptions are all in Tamil though with some Prakrit loanwords. There are no Prakrit stone inscriptions in the Tamil country. Coin-legends of the early period are also in Tamil (with the solitary exception of a Pāṇṭiya copper coin carrying bilingual legends both in Tamil and Prakrit).¹

c23.s27.t1.7

¹ See No. 1, Table 1.6.

c23.s27.t1.8

Seal-texts are also in Tamil (with the exception of a seal impression on clay in Prakrit found at Arikamedu² and a few gold rings with Prakrit legends from Karur.³) Inscribed pottery found at various ancient Tamil sites is mostly in Tamil, with a few exceptions in Prakrit confined to cities or ports like Kanchipuram and Arikamedu.⁴ In contrast, during the same period, all early inscriptions from Upper South India on stone, copper plates, coins, seals and pottery are exclusively in Prakrit and not in Kannada or Telugu which were the spoken languages of this region.⁵

c23.s27.t1.9

² P.Z. Pattabiramin 1946: Pl. VII-C.

c23.s27.t1.10

³ E.g., see Nos. 10 & 11, Table 1.8.

c23.s27.t1.11

⁴ Special mention may also be made of a few sherds inscribed in the Sinhala-Brāhmī script found at Arikamedu and other Tamil sites. I. Mahadevan 1996c: pp. 55-68.

c23.s27.t1.12

⁵ However, the silver portrait coins of the Sātavāhanas have Prakrit legends written in Southern Brāhmī on the obverse and Tamil legends written in Tamil-Brāhmī on the reverse. See section 5.15 and Figs. 5.9 & 5.10.

Linked texts (3)