Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s19.t2.5

c25.s19.t2.5

The remarkable discoveries made by Nagaswamy and his colleagues of numerous herostones inscribed in Early Vaṭṭeḻuttu from Chengam Taluk² and the adjoining Dharmapuri District³ in the north-west of the Tamil country have revolutionised our understanding of the position of Vaṭṭeḻuttu *vis-a-vis* the Tamil script.⁴ They have confirmed what was only suspected earlier that Vaṭṭeḻuttu was current all over the Tamil country until it was displaced by the Tamil script patronised by the Pallavas and later by the Cōḻas.⁵ The pace of displacement was, however, quite slow. The herostones within the Pallava territories bearing the names and regnal years of successive Pallava rulers from Simhavarman III to Nandivarman II (mid-sixth to mid-eighth centuries A.D.) are exclusively in Vaṭṭeḻuttu. The statistics in Table 5.3 relating to the changeover in the scripts employed in the herostone inscriptions in the Tamil country are revealing.⁶