Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s15.1

c25.s15.1

Though it has been known for a long time that the silver portrait coins of the Andhra Sātavāhana rulers exhibit bilingual legends in two scripts, it is only recently that it has been established that the legends on the reverse of these coins are in Tamil, written in the Tamil-Brāhmī script. In view of the importance of these coin-legends for the study of Tamil-Brāhmī and the chronology of its evolution, I shall present here the essential arguments concentrating on more recent developments.