Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s3.30

c25.s3.30

Just as there have been attempts to prove the Brāhmī script to be an artificial creation not derived from any pre-existing source,⁴ there have also been similar attempts in respect of the Tamil script. In 1917, Manickam Naicker, an engineer by profession and learned Tamil scholar, published a monograph⁵ which attempted to prove with the help of detailed diagrams that the letters of the Tamil script and the mystic symbol *aum* (*ōm*) can be derived by cutting and pasting segments of the first letter *a*. The fact that he employs the modern forms of the Tamil letters and of the symbol for *ōm* does not seem to have bothered him.