Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c23.s27.t4.11

c23.s27.t4.11

As mentioned earlier, knowledge of writing was brought to the Tamil country, as to the rest of South India, in the wake of the spread of Jainism and Buddhism to these regions. As protestant movements against Vedic Brahmanical Hinduism, these faiths kept away from Sanskrit in the initial phase and conducted their missionary activities in North India in the local Prakrit dialects. The monks followed the same tradition in the Tamil country, learning the local language and, in the process, adapting the Brāhmī script to its needs. They had no vested interest in maintaining the oral traditions nor any bias against writing down their scriptures in the local language. As a result of this attitude, the Jaina scholars (and to a lesser extent, the Buddhist scholars) made rich contribution to the development of Tamil literature during the Caṅkam Age and for centuries thereafter. A similar development did not take place in Upper South India in the early period presumably because Prakrit was already the language of administration and public discourse in the region. The monks who were familiar with Prakrit had perhaps no opportunity or incentive to change over to the local languages in this region.