Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c6.2

c6.2

The Office of the Director of Epigraphy (DE) at Mysore with its centralised storage of estampages of South Indian inscriptions copied by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is the Mecca for epigraphists. Throughout the period I was engaged in the study of Tamil cave inscriptions, I received unstinted support from successive Government Epigraphists and (later) Directors of Epigraphy, Mr. K.G. Krishnan, Dr. K.V. Ramesh and Dr. M.D. Sampath. I was allowed unlimited access to the original estampages, transcriptions and the valuable collection of books in the library. I was also supplied with most of the photographs of estampages included in this book. Dr. Sampath and his colleagues, Dr. S. Swaminathan and Mr. S. Rajavelu, accompanied me to some of the caves and helped with the reading of inscriptions at the sites.