The Colas c9.9

c9.9

The language and script of the Cōḷa inscriptions varied with the time and place of the records. The language most commonly employed was Tamil; some Sanskrit records are known, besides several bilingual inscriptions employing both. Kannaḍa and Telugu were also employed in the Karṇāṭaka and Telugu areas. The assumption has sometimes been made¹³ that Tamil was the prevailing language in Cōḷa times in all places where the Tamil inscriptions of Cōḷa rulers are found, and that Tamil receded from these areas at a time subsequent to the period of Cōḷa rule in these parts. Such inscriptions are, however, only proof at best of the presence of some Tamil immigrants in non-Tamil regions that were brought for a time under Cōḷa rule. The recovery of some Telugu and Kannaḍa records of the Vijayanagar rulers and their Nāyak viceroys, and of the Hoysaḷas from distinctly Tamil areas cannot prove that the Tamil country exchanged its language for Telugu or Kannaḍa during the period of these records. The long Marathi inscription of Tanjore of A.D. 1803 is another instance. Vaṭṭeḷuttu was the prevalent script in which Tamil was written in the early centuries of the Christian era in the Pāṇḍya and Cēra countries; in the former it gave place to Tamil about the time of the Cōḷa conquest¹⁴ though 'in the insulated *malaināḍu* (Malabar) it continued as late as the middle of the eighteenth century A.D.' The Sanskrit language employed the Grantha script, closely allied to the Tamil in its evolution. Numerous as are the published inscriptions from which the evolution of the script can be traced with tolerable accuracy, chronological arguments drawn from palaeography are generally not so conclusive as might be wished, and must be received with caution. There are fewer chances of stone inscriptions being found to be forgeries than copperplate grants and, as a matter of fact, very few Cōḷa inscriptions are of doubtful authenticity. One of the most conspicuous examples is that of a record¹⁵ purporting to be dated in the twenty-ninth regnal year of a Rājēndracōḷa Rājakēsari. By mixing up in its historical introduction the events of different reigns, the record rouses suspicion; its palaeography belongs to the fourteenth century, and it is found in a temple of which the walls bear no other inscription of an earlier date than the reign of Rājarāja III.