Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c5: Introduction
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c5
- Language
- English
Introduction
c5.1
Early Tamil Epigraphy is a study of Tamil inscriptions from the earliest times to the end of the sixth century A.D. The study is based mainly on the cave inscriptions of Tamil Nadu in Tamil-Brāhmī and Early Vaṭṭeḻuttu scripts. The inscriptions were studied by me *in situ* during two extended periods of field work from 1962 to 1966 and again from 1991 to 1996. The more recently discovered and still not fully published pottery inscriptions and objects like coins, seals and rings inscribed in Tamil-Brāhmī have also been utilised to present a more complete picture of Early Tamil epigraphy.
c5.2
As the Brāhmī script has been studied extensively in several standard publications, the present work has concentrated on the less familiar aspects of the Tamil-Brāhmī script. The origin of Brāhmī itself is not considered in this study; but the origin of Tamil-Brāhmī from Brāhmī is studied in detail. The gradual evolution of Tamil-Brāhmī into Early Vaṭṭeḻuttu is traced with the help of palaeographic charts based on the Corpus of Early Tamil Inscriptions included in this volume. The Tamil script which begins to appear from the commencement of the seventh century A.D. and from which the modern Tamil script has evolved, is outside the chronological limit of the study.
c5.3
The book is in three parts: Early Tamil Inscriptions, Studies in Early Tamil Epigraphy and the Corpus of Early Tamil Inscriptions. Part One is designed as a general introduction to matters dealt with in the book. It has four chapters describing the discovery and decipherment of cave inscriptions, their language and contents. Part Two consists of specialised studies on the palaeography, orthography and grammar of the inscriptions, each treated in a separate chapter. Part Three which forms the core of the book comprises the Corpus of Early Tamil Inscriptions in Tamil-Brāhmī and Early Vaṭṭeḻuttu scripts from ca. second century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. The inscriptions have been edited directly from the stone. The texts are presented in transliteration with translation and notes. The inscriptions are illustrated with tracings made directly from the stone, estampages and a few direct photographs.
c5.4
The Corpus is accompanied by Commentary which supplements the brief notes with additional information on the language and contents of the inscriptions. Literary and inscriptional parallels are cited in the Commentary to illustrate the inscriptional usage of words in the Corpus. A set of word lists is included comprising inscriptional glossary and indexes to personal and place names, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan etyma and grammatical morphemes occurring in the inscriptions. Two maps are provided showing the distribution of sites with Early Tamil inscriptions and sites which have yielded pottery inscriptions.
c5.5
The most significant result of the present study is that the cave inscriptions of Tamil Nadu which have generally been regarded as obscure, can now be read. They turn out to be in simple and intelligible Tamil with only a small proportion of loanwords from Prakrit, and are not too different in language and contents from the later inscriptions in Vaṭṭeḻuttu and Tamil scripts. What had stood in the way of a more complete understanding of the inscriptions earlier was the lack of reliable texts and unfamiliarity with the orthographic rules governing the inscriptions.
c5.6
The discovery and decipherment of historical Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions attributed to the Early Cēra and Pāṇṭiya dynasties and to Atiyamāṉ of Takaṭūr prove the general contemporaneity of the cave inscriptions to what is known as the Caṅkam Age in Tamil Nadu. We need no longer rely exclusively on the cave inscriptions for this conclusion which has been amply confirmed by the more recent discoveries of Early Cēra and Pāṇṭiya coins with the names of the kings inscribed in the Tamil-Brāhmī script.
c5.7
The decipherment of the cave inscriptions has produced new evidence proving conclusively the association of Jainism with the caves. There are no vestiges of Buddhist or Ājīvika occupation of the caves. The hitherto unsuspected influence of Old Kannada on the language of the cave inscriptions from the earliest period has shown that Jainism reached the Tamil country through Karnataka at a very early date not later than ca. third century B.C.
c5.8
The widespread occurrence of pottery inscriptions in Tamil-Brāhmī has added a new dimension to the study of Early Tamil epigraphy. They are important not merely for firming up the chronology of Tamil-Brāhmī through archaeological evidence, but also for demonstrating that Tamil-Brāhmī had taken deep roots all over the Tamil countryside well before the turn of the Christian Era creating a literate society which would before