Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s12.t1.56

c25.s12.t1.56

In 1942, Nilakanta Sastri⁷ published a Prakrit inscription of the Ikshvāku dynasty found earlier at Gurzala near Nagarjunakonda. The record is in the Southern Brāhmī script of the 3rd century A.D. and gives the name of the ruler as *siri-ruḷu-purisa-dāta*-as read by Nilakanta Sastri. (Later, Krishnan⁸ corrected the reading *-ruḷu-* as *-ruḻa-* <Pkt. *ruḍa* < Skt. *rudra*.) Interestingly, when Nilakanta Sastri published this inscription, the occurrence of a similar circular form of *ḻ* in the Tamil cave inscriptions had not been recognised; he identified the letter *ḻ* by comparing it with a somewhat similar form found in a later Western Chalukya record of the 7th century A.D.⁹