Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s15.t1: 5.15.1 Previous studies
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s15.t1
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5.15.1 Previous studies
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The literature on the silver portrait coins of the Sātavāhanas is extensive; I shall refer only to select publications relating to the script and the language of the legends on the reverse of the coins. Sircar³ was the first to point out the occurrence of the "Dravidian language and alphabet of about the second century A.D." in the coin-legends. According to him, the legend on the reverse is in "the Dravidian script and the Dravidian Prakrit (resembling Tamil more than Telugu)". Tamil epigraphists who have analysed the palaeographic and linguistic features of the legends have concluded that the language is Tamil and the script akin to that found in the Tamil cave inscriptions (Nagaswamy,⁴
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³ D.C. Sircar 1963-64b: pp. 247-252.
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⁴ R. Nagaswamy 1968: pp. 200-202; 1985: pp. 105-114.
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Figure 5.9. Silver portrait coins of the Sātavāhanas with Prakrit and Tamil legends. Puḷumāvi (1 & 2) and Sātakarṇi (3 & 4).
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Panneerselvam,¹ Mahadevan² and Krishnan³). Sarma⁴ has argued that the language is Old Telugu and that the coin-legends are in Telugu verse. More recently, Ajay Mitra Shastri⁵ reviewed the situation and came to the conclusion that the language of the coin-legends on the reverse is "neither Tamil nor Telugu but Dravidian from which later both these languages separated". Mention should also be made of the recent paper by Somasundara Rao,⁶ a Telugu scholar, who "rules out the possibility of Telugu having been used in 2nd century A.D." According to him, the language is "Tamil or Dravidi Prakrit (Proto-Dravidian) language".
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¹ R. Panneerselvam 1969: pp. 281-288.
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² I. Mahadevan 1985b: pp. 121-128.
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³ K.G. Krishnan (ed.) 1989: No. 143.
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⁴ I. K. Sarma 1980: pp. 107-125.
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⁵ Ajay Mitra Shastri 1991: pp. 45-60.
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⁶ C. Somasundara Rao 1997: pp. 17-21. Ajay Mitra Shastri lamented in his paper (1991: p. 52, n. 48) that "generally speaking, Telugu-speaking scholars favour Telugu and Tamil scholars, Tamil". Somasundara Rao's paper proves that scholarship can transcend such partisan considerations.