Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t6.17

c7.s2.t6.17

A second southern Indian variety of Brāhmī attributable to this period¹⁰³ is the script used in a series of brief dedicatory cave inscriptions from Tamil Nadu in an early form of the Tamil language. This alphabet has two notable peculiarities, which in some respects resemble those of the Bhaṭṭiprōḷu script. First, it has four entirely new characters, interpreted as *ṉa*, *ṟa*, *ṛa*, and *ḷa*, which were evidently created in order to represent Dravidian phonemes not represented in standard (northern) Brāhmī. (It does not, however, share with Bhaṭṭiprōḷu the peculiar forms of the consonants *gha*, *ja*, etc.) Second, its system of vowel notation differs from that of standard Brāhmī and resembles that of Bhaṭṭiprōḷu. According to the authoritative interpretation of this system by Mahadevan,¹⁰⁴ in what appears to be the earlier form of this script a consonant written without a vowel diacritic is to be understood as representing the vowelless consonant itself, while the consonant written with the diacritic sign which denotes long *ā* in standard Brāhmī is to be read with either the vowel *a* or *ā*, depending on the context.¹⁰⁵ In other words, the script in question has essentially abandoned the “inherent vowel” principle.