Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t6.18

c7.s2.t6.18

¹⁰³ The dates of the Old Tamil inscriptions are uncertain and controversial. Iravatham Mahadevan, in "Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions of the Sangam Age" (in R. E. Asher, ed., *Proceedings of the Second International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies* [Madras: International Association of Tamil Research, 1971], 73–106), 83, stresses their overall close paleographic resemblance to Aśokan Brāhmī and hence dates the earliest specimens to the second and first centuries B.C. But Dani (DIP 72–4) places them in the first century A.D., citing the evidence of potsherds from Arikamēḍu bearing inscriptions in this script (AI 2, 1946, 109–14) which are stratigraphically datable to this period. However, Mahadevan points out that in some respects the Arikamēḍu inscriptions are paleographically more advanced than the early cave inscriptions, and thus his dating seems preferable.