Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c26.s9.5

c26.s9.5

We can see at once that this is the last stage (TB-III) in the evolutionary development of the medial vowel notations in the Tamil-Brāhmī script. TB-I notation, with its denial of the principle of inherent *-a*, treating the unmarked consonant as basic, and providing a marker for the medial vowel *-a*, is unknown to *Tolkāppiyam* and precedes it chronologically. *Tolkāppiyam* not only describes the *puḷḷi* as the 'natural' (*iyaṟkai*) adjunct of the basic consonant and the short vowels *e* and *o*, but also uses the expression *puḷḷi* to denote the basic consonant itself by transfer of meaning.² It is thus clear that this grammatical work must have been composed after the *puḷḷi* was invented and had become an integral part of Tamil writing. Judging from the available evidence of the earliest occurrences of the *puḷḷi* from about the end of the 1st century A.D.,³ *Tolkāppiyam* was composed most probably not earlier than the Late Tamil-Brāhmī Period (ca. 2nd-4th centuries A.D.).