Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s6.t4.6

c25.s6.t4.6

⁴ S. Paranavitana (1970:p. xvii) dates the earliest cave inscriptions in Sri Lanka from the last quarter of the 3rd century b.c. S. Karunaratne (1984:pp. 2-5) places the upper limit of the earliest dated inscriptions at the beginning of the 2nd century b.c. A.H. Dani (1963) has not, even in the revised Indian edition (1986), noticed these works. Dani's dating of the earliest cave inscriptions of Sri Lanka to 'about the beginning of the first century a.d.' (ibid. p. 219) is hardly justified; his dating does not explain wherefrom Sri Lanka could have obtained the Mauryan Brāhmī forms in the 1st century a.d. when they were no longer current.