Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c28.s8.t9.14
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c28.s8.t9.14
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c28.s8.t9.14
The palaeography indicates clearly an earlier date than for the earliest known inscriptions of the medieval Pāṇṭiya dynasty: the Malaiyadi-k-kurichchi cave inscription of Māṟaṉ Cēntaṉ engraved in the Pallava-Tamil script in about the middle of the 7th cent. A.D. (*ARE* 358/1959-60; K.R. Srinivasan 1985: pp. 1-8); the Vaigai-bed Inscription of Cēntaṉ Māṟaṉ (K.G. Krishnan 1969-70, *EI.* XXXVIII: pp. 27-32; K.V. Raman 1977: pp. 61-65) and the Ēṉāti Inscription of the same king (*Āvaṇam* 7, 1996: pp. 13-14), both in a developed form of Vaṭṭeḻuttu assigned to the end of the 7th cent. A.D. The Pillaiyarpatti cave inscription is also anterior to the Vaṭṭeḻuttu inscriptions on herostones attributed to the Pallava kings Simhavishṇu and Mahēndravarman I (*Ceṅgam Naṭukaṟkaḷ*: pp. i-viii). The palaeographic evidence indicates that Pillaiyarpatti is the earliest known rock-cut cave temple in the Pāṇṭiya country, which must be assigned to a date not later than the middle of the 6th cent. A.D. See section 1.8.5.