Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c5.3

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.