Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c26.s10.4

c26.s10.4

In my earlier studies of the cave inscriptions, I had suggested that TB-I and TB-II notations are successive stages in the orthographic evolution of the Tamil-Brāhmī script.⁵ However, further structural studies and stratigraphy of inscribed pottery from excavations of ancient Tamil sites indicate that it is better to consider TB-I and TB-II as parallel and independent developments from the Mauryan Brāhmī script. The essential evidence is as follows.