Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s8: 5.8 Direction of writing
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s8
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5.8 Direction of writing
c25.s8.1
The general direction of writing in Tamil-Brāhmī and Vaṭṭeḷuttu scripts is from left to right as in the case of Brāhmī and all other scripts derived from it. However, there are exceptional cases of writing from right to left with the characters turned upside down for a remarkable reason which our team discovered by conducting simple experiments *in situ* as described below.⁴
c25.s8.2
⁴ The idea occurred to me during my first visit to the Kilavalavu cave in 1963 when I was sitting under the brow of the cave and happened to look up at the inscription.
c25.s8.3
(a) Two inscriptions, one at Tirupparankunram (No. **53**) and the other at Muttuppatti (No. **56**) are engraved on the front side of raised stone beds. To an observer standing in front of the beds facing the inscriptions, they appear to be engraved from right to left with the letters turned upside down. However, the observer sitting on the beds and looking down would find the inscriptions running in the normal direction from left to right with the letters in proper orientation and would have no difficulty in reading them. It appears that the scribes engraved the inscriptions in this special manner on the instructions of the donors who wished to be remembered by the resident monks in their prayers.
c25.s8.4
(b) An inscription at Tirupparankunram (No. **54**) is engraved in two segments on the rock wall abutting the head-side of two stone beds. To an observer facing the inscriptions, the first segment is seen above the right bed and the second segment above the left bed. He would also notice that the first segment is engraved from right to left with the letters turned upside down, but the second is engraved normally from left to right and the letters in proper orientation. It is, however, clear that, as in the two inscriptions discussed in (a) above, the scribe intended to engrave both the segments of this inscription in such a way that the monks lying on the beds resting their heads on the stone pillows and looking up at the inscription would be able to read it normally. The scribe must have been, however, careless and not remembered to engrave the second segment from right to left and turn the letters upside down.
c25.s8.5
(c) Two more inscriptions, one at Kilavalavu (No. *10*) and the other at Kunnakkudi (No. *74*) are engraved on the brow of the caves. It appears that in these cases also the scribes intended to engrave the inscriptions from right to left with the letters turned upside down so that the monks in the cave looking up at the inscriptions could read them normally. However, the scribes bungled the jobs. At Kilavalavu, the inscription is engraved from right to left, but some of the letters are not turned upside down as required. At Kunnakkudi, the letters are all turned upside down, but the inscription is engraved from left to right!
c25.s8.6
As the experiments performed *in situ* reveal, the Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions described above are not real exceptions to the normal direction of writing, and there is no reason to believe that the Tamil-Brāhmī script was at any earlier stage written from right to left. Indeed, these exceptions themselves prove the rule, as in three out of the five instances in question, the scribes could not successfully reverse the direction of writing to which they were normally accustomed.¹
c25.s8.7
¹ In these exceptional cases, the illustrations in the present volume are printed from left to right for normal reading. One of the inscriptions (No. *10*) has some letters turned upside down even with respect to the normal orientation.
c25.s8.8
According to Bühler, the Brāhmī script was written in the earliest period "both from the right to the left and from the left to the right".² His theory, based on a reversed coin-legend from Eran, is nowadays not generally accepted especially as coin-legends are notoriously prone to reversal. The Minor Rock Edicts of Asoka at Erragudi,³ which have irregularly engraved lines running in both directions, are very crudely executed and cannot be relied upon to indicate a supposedly earlier trend of right to left writing of Brāhmī.
c25.s8.9
² G. Bühler 1896 (1959 reprint): p. 23.
c25.s8.10
³ D.C. Sircar 1979 (2000 reprint): p. 4 and Pl. II.
c25.s8.11
Sri Lanka has the largest number of Early Brāhmī cave inscriptions written from right to left and with correspondingly reversed (and rarely inverted) orientation of letters. Paranavitana⁴ and Karunaratne⁵ who have published these exceptional inscriptions express themselves in favour of an original right to left direction for Brāhmī. However, there is hardly any evidence from Indian inscriptions in support of this theory. One can only presume that the exceptional right to left direction was a local development peculiar to Sri Lanka in the post-Mauryan period.
c25.s8.12
⁴ S. Paranavitana 1970: p. xxii, n. 3.
c25.s8.13
⁵ S. Karunaratne 1984: pp. 7-8.