Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s8.11

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.