Early South Indian Palaeography c3.5

c3.5

Casual studies of these inscriptions were made later by T. N. Subramanyan in his *Paṇḍai Tamiḻ Eḻuttukkaḷ* (1931) and *South Indian Temple Inscriptions-Volume III*, pt. II (1957), K. K. Pillay in *Tamil Culture* (1956), and Kamil Zvelabil in the *Archiv Orientalni* (1964). But no systematic attempt has been made so far to study all the Brāhmī inscriptions in the Tamil country from the point of view of their authors, language, grammar, palaeography and contents. The script of these inscriptions which differs from the Aśokan Brāhmī in some respects to serve the needs of the language in which the records were written formed the basis for the development of later South Indian scripts.