Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t6.46

c7.s2.t6.46

In the far south, three scripts, namely, Grantha, Tamil, and Vaṭṭeḻuttu, made their appearance in the early medieval period; of these, the first was used for writing Sanskrit, the other two for Tamil. These scripts constitute a distinct subgroup, and while there is no question that all three are Brāhmī-derived, the precise details of their evolution are still somewhat unclear and controversial, due mainly to the paucity of inscriptional materials in the centuries immediately preceding their appearance. Although Bühler (BIP 75) thought that the Tamil script was derived from a northern alphabet, it is nowadays recognized that it, along with Grantha and Vaṭṭeḻuttu, developed from earlier southern scripts (cf. IIEP 124 and IESIS 222). Grantha and Tamil in their earlier stages resembled the forerunner of the Telugu-Kannada script, and are presumably derived from it. Vaṭṭeḻuttu, which Bühler (BIP 51–6) thought to be a cursive variety of Tamil, is nowadays generally considered to be a separately developed script; some scholars¹¹³ have recently pointed out apparent affinities with the later stages of the Tamil Brāhmī script (2.2.5.1) and suggest that Vaṭṭeḻuttu is actually the descendant of it.