Tamil-Brahmi
Encyclopedia
Tamil-Brahmi, or Damili is an early phonetic script used to write Tamil
characters. It is a variant of many Brahmi
scripts used throughout South Asia
, namely Ashokan Brahmi, Southern Brahmi, Bhattiprolu script
and the Sri Lankan
based Sinhala-Brahmi. It is known from surviving inscribed cave beds, pot sherds
, Jar burials, coins, seals and rings. It was used widely across present-day Indian
states of Kerala
, Tamil nadu
(known in ancient times as Tamilakam
) and in neighboring Sri Lanka. Some examples have been identified in places like Egypt
and Thailand
as well.
Dates of the early inscriptions are not settled although they are variously dated from 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE. Of the many Brahmi varieties, Tamil-Brahmi is related to both Bhattiprolu and Sinhala-Brahmi. Origin theories of it are controversial as well, with mainstream consensus around a post Ashokan
or Early Mauryan dispersal (ca 322-185 BCE) with number of alternative dating of inscriptions of both Brahmi and Tamil-Brahmi that questions the settled chronology. It is distinguished from Standard Brahmi, by an inherent vowel marker for pure consonants and consonants. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have been useful in dating the early history of the Tamil people
and their literary creations known as Cankam literature. Tamil-Brahmi is the parent script of the subsequent Tamil script Vatteluttu
.
is that Brahmi in general dispersed to South India
and Sri Lanka due to the efforts of Jaina and Buddhist missionaries post 3rd century BCE. But there are a number of competing theories and dates of dispersal based on archeological, literary and epigraphic reviews.
work Samavayanga Sutta
(traditionally dated to 300 BCE) and Pannavana Sutta (dated to 168 BCE) where a script called Damilli is mentioned. In the Buddhist work, Lalitavistara (translated into Chinese
in 308 CE), a script called Dravidalipi is mentioned. According to Kamil Zvelebil
, Damilli and Dravidalipi are synonymous for Tamil writing. References to writing are also available in early Tamil literature
. Tolkappiyam
in stanza 16 and 17 mentions dots added to consonants. The author of Tolkappiyam displays awareness of a writing system and the graphic system as he knew it corresponds with later writing systems. Other works such as Tirukkural
mentions writing using the word eluttu. Cilappatikaram mentions kanneluttu that was used to mark merchandise imported at the port emporium of Kaveripattinam
, it also mentions kanneluttalar or scribes
. A reference to palm leaf manuscript
writing is found in Nalatiyar
and Purananuru
mentions a hero stone
that has the name of the hero etched in it. Based on the literature analysis, Kamil Zvelebil believes writing was known to Tamil people at least from the 3rd century BCE.
having consensus. According to Mahadevan, Brahmi script reached the Tamil country due the southern spread of Jainism
and Buddhism
from North India
, and was adapted to suit the Tamil phonetic system. This theory presupposes that Brahmi script itself was either invented or originated within the imperial courts of Mauryan kingdom and it was dispersed to South India
and Sri Lanka post 3rd century BCE. The time line of dispersal is either post Ashokan or early Mauryan period. Ahmed Hassan Dani questioned the 3rd BCE date and suggested 1st century CE as the probable date but this has been discounted by others such as T.V. Mahalingam and Richard Salmon. The earliest surviving acceptably dated Tamil-Brahmi inscription is the Tissamaharama Tamil Brahmi inscription
dated to the 2nd century BCE in Sri Lanka.
are found in the citadel
of Anuradhapura
in Sri Lanka and are dated to the 4th century BCE. According to Allchin et al., Brahmi developed before the southern spread of Ashokan missionary activities and spread across South Asia due to trade networks. There have been number of inscriptions found in Tamil Nadu
that have been tentatively dated to 6th century BCE in Adichanallur
and 5th century BCE in Porunthal. But these early Tamil Nadu dating do not have mainstream acceptance. The post Ashokan dispersal theory developed by Mahadevan fails to take in to account the Anuradhapura findings and is solely based on epigraphic review and does not take into account relevant archeological data.According to R. Nagaswamy and Gift Siromony, Tamil Brahmi or Damili developed independently of Standard Brahmi in Tamilakam and was adopted by northern based Mauryan empire for imperial inscriptions. Coningham (1996), Kasinathan (1995), K.V. Ramesh, M.D. Sampath, K.G. Krishnan, K.V. Raman (1976) and Deraniyagala (1992) believe that Brahmi is pre-Asokan and entered into Tamil Nadu from Sri Lanka. K. Rajan believes the origin of Tamil Brahmi needs to seen from the common cultural area of ancient Tamilakam and Sri Lanka.
. The layer on the top is considered younger than the layer that is found below. Thus, a succession of layers provides a relative chronological sequence from earliest to latest. The inscribed potsherds recovered from Kodumanal
when analyzed on the basis of stratigraphical sequences are dated to 4th century BCE at the lowermost level. The lowermost level potsherd had the scripts peculiar to Tamil characters and in addition distinctive paleographic shape for letter m. Further, there is omission of voiced
consonants, aspirates and sibilants peculiar to Tamil-Brahmi. This phenomenon is not confined to the Kodumanal in Kongu Nadu
but found throughout the Tamil Nadu, Kerala and in Jaffna peninsula
of Sri Lanka. The evolution and uniform adoption of this peculiar script would have taken considerable time to spread widely. According K. Rajan, the introduction or evolution or origin of script in Tamil Nadu might well be beyond 4th century BCE due to the uniformity of the script, lack of grammatical errors and the widespread usage.
Tamil-Brahmi had notable peculiarities when compared to the Standard Brahmi. It had four different characters to represent Dravidian language phonemes not represented in the standard northern-based Brahmi used to write Indo-Aryan Prakrits. It was also the first Indic writing system that moved towards alphabetization. The attempt at alphabetization eventually failed due strong influence from neighboring Indic abugida writing systems.
The closest resemblance to Tamil-Brahmi is to its neighboring Sinhala-Brahmi. Both seem to use similar letters to indicate phonemes’ that are unique to Dravidian languages
although Sinhala-Brahmi was used to write an Indo-Aryan
Prakrit
used in the island of Sri Lanka. Apart from Sinhala-Brahmi, there are Tamil-Brahmi writings found in Sri Lanka from Kantharodai
in the north to Tissamaharama
in the south. All these are dated to 2nd century BCE. There is Sinhala-Brahmi inscriptions found in Tamil Nadu as well.
The Bhattiprolu inscription found in present day Andhra Pradesh
also shows systemic but not paleographic similarity to Tamil Brahmi. According to Richard Salmon, the Bhattiprolu script was originally invented to write a Dravidian language but was reapplied to inscribe in an Indo-Aryan
Prakrit. Hence both the Bhattiprolu and Tamil Brahmi share common modifications to represent Dravidian languages. Bhattiprolu script is also considered the Rosetta Stone
of Tamil Brahmi decipherment.
According to Iravatham Mahathevan there are three stages in the development of the script. The early stage is dated from 3rd/2nd century BCE to 1st century BCE. The later stage is dated from 1st century CE to 2nd century CE. The third stage is dated from 2nd century CE to 3rd/4th century CE. According to Gift Siromony, the types of Tamil Brahmi writings do not follow a very clear chronology and can lead to confusion in dating. According to K. Rajan, the Ashokan Brahmi corresponds with the Stage II of Tamil Brahmi per Mahadevan’s classification. Hence according to him, Stage I may have to be reassessed from the proposed time line. From 5th century CE onwards Tamil is written in Vatteluttu in the Chera
and Pandya country and Grantha or Tamil script in the Chola and Pallava
country. Tamil Brahmi inscriptions in cave beds and coins have provided historians with identifying some kings and chiefs mentioned in the Cankam
Tamil corpus as well as related Ashokan pillar inscriptions.
but later it is found in Tiruchi, Kaveripattinam and Tondaimanadalam
. The languages used in most of the inscriptions betray a thorough assimilation of Prakrit elements per rules established by Tamil grammarians. The early inscriptions also show potential Kannada influences due to Jaina inflow from what is today Karnataka
. In its usage, it differed considerably from other scripts used in contemporary South Asia as its use was widespread in rural and urban areas and across different social classes.
A.C. Burnell (1874), attempted the earliest work on South Indian paleography, but it was due to the efforts of K. V. Subrahmanya Ayyar (1924), H. K Krishna Sastri and K.K. Pillai that it was understood to be written in an early form of Tamil, not Prakrit. The early attempts assumed more Prakrit loan words than what was actually used, hence the decipherment was not entirely successful. Iravatham Mahathevan identified the writings as mostly consisting of Tamil words in the late 1960s and published them in seminars and proceedings. This was further expanded by T.V. Mahalingam (1967), R. Nagaswamy (1972), R. Panneerselvam (1972) and M. S. Venkataswamy (1981).
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
characters. It is a variant of many Brahmi
Brahmi
Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered to be early known examples of Brāhmī writing...
scripts used throughout South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
, namely Ashokan Brahmi, Southern Brahmi, Bhattiprolu script
Bhattiprolu Script
The Bhattiprolu script is a variant of the Brahmi script which has been found in old inscriptions at Bhattiprolu, a small village in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, South India...
and the Sri Lankan
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
based Sinhala-Brahmi. It is known from surviving inscribed cave beds, pot sherds
Sherd
In archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well....
, Jar burials, coins, seals and rings. It was used widely across present-day Indian
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
states of Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
, Tamil nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
(known in ancient times as Tamilakam
Tamilakam
' refers to the classical era territory of old South Indian royalties covering modern Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Tamil Eelam and southern parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka.; In an academic context, Tamilakam is used to refer to these territories as a single cultural area, where Tamil was the natural...
) and in neighboring Sri Lanka. Some examples have been identified in places like Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
as well.
Dates of the early inscriptions are not settled although they are variously dated from 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE. Of the many Brahmi varieties, Tamil-Brahmi is related to both Bhattiprolu and Sinhala-Brahmi. Origin theories of it are controversial as well, with mainstream consensus around a post Ashokan
Ashoka
Ashok Maurya or Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...
or Early Mauryan dispersal (ca 322-185 BCE) with number of alternative dating of inscriptions of both Brahmi and Tamil-Brahmi that questions the settled chronology. It is distinguished from Standard Brahmi, by an inherent vowel marker for pure consonants and consonants. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have been useful in dating the early history of the Tamil people
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
and their literary creations known as Cankam literature. Tamil-Brahmi is the parent script of the subsequent Tamil script Vatteluttu
Vatteluttu
Vatteluttu alphabet, also spelled Vattezhuttu alphabet is an abugida writing system originating from the Tamil people of Southern India...
.
Origins
The origins of the Brahmi in general and Tamil-Brahmi specifically are unclear. There are number of inscriptions whose dates have not been settled yet. Nevertheless a number of theories has been put forward with literary, epigraphic and archeological evidence. The consensus of EpigraphistEpigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
is that Brahmi in general dispersed to South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
and Sri Lanka due to the efforts of Jaina and Buddhist missionaries post 3rd century BCE. But there are a number of competing theories and dates of dispersal based on archeological, literary and epigraphic reviews.
Literary review
The earliest mention of a script for writing the Tamil language is found in the JainaJainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
work Samavayanga Sutta
Samavayanga Sutra
The Samavayanga Sutra is the 4th amongst the 12 Angas of the Jaina canon. The sutra is believed to have been composed by Gandhara Sudharma Svami. This ancient manuscript is the holy book of the Svetambara sect. This text contains the essence of Jain religion, defined and catalogued systematically....
(traditionally dated to 300 BCE) and Pannavana Sutta (dated to 168 BCE) where a script called Damilli is mentioned. In the Buddhist work, Lalitavistara (translated into Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
in 308 CE), a script called Dravidalipi is mentioned. According to Kamil Zvelebil
Kamil Zvelebil
Kamil Václav Zvelebil was a distinguished Czech scholar in Indian literature and linguistics, notably Tamil, Sanskrit, Dravidian linguistics and literature and philology.- Biography :...
, Damilli and Dravidalipi are synonymous for Tamil writing. References to writing are also available in early Tamil literature
Tamil literature
Tamil literature refers to the literature in the Tamil language. Tamil literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than two thousand years. The oldest extant works show signs of maturity indicating an even longer period of evolution...
. Tolkappiyam
Tolkappiyam
The Tolkāppiyam is a work on the grammar of the Tamil language and the earliest extant work of Tamil literature. It is written in the form of noorpaa or short formulaic compositions and comprises three books - the Ezhuttadikaram, the Solladikaram and the Poruladikaram. Each of these books is...
in stanza 16 and 17 mentions dots added to consonants. The author of Tolkappiyam displays awareness of a writing system and the graphic system as he knew it corresponds with later writing systems. Other works such as Tirukkural
Tirukkuṛaḷ
Tirukkuṛaḷ , sometimes spelt 'Thirukkural, is a classic of couplets or Kurals or aphorisms celebrated by Tamils. It was authored by Thiruvalluvar, a poet who is said to have lived anytime between the 2nd and 6th centuries AD. Although the exact period of its composition is still disputed,...
mentions writing using the word eluttu. Cilappatikaram mentions kanneluttu that was used to mark merchandise imported at the port emporium of Kaveripattinam
Kaveripattinam
Kaveripattinam is a panchayat town in Krishnagiri district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is approximately 100 km from Bangalore. The town is very green because of the KRP Dam nearby. Kaveripattinam is famous for its cultivation of mangoes. There are lot of mango pulp industries, milk...
, it also mentions kanneluttalar or scribes
Scribes
Scribes is a minimalist and extensible text editor for GNOME that combines simplicity with power. Scribes focuses on ways workflow and productivity can be intelligently automated and radically improved...
. A reference to palm leaf manuscript
Palm leaf manuscript
Palm leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. They served as the paper of the ancient world in parts of Asia as far back as the fifteenth century BCE. and possibly much earlier. They were used to record actual and mythical narratives in South Asia and in South East Asia...
writing is found in Nalatiyar
Nalatiyar
Naaladiyar is a Tamil poetic work of didactic nature belonging to the Pathinenkilkanakku anthology of Tamil literature. This belongs to the 'post Sangam period corresponding to between 100 – 500 CE. Naaladiyar contains 400 poems, each containing four lines...
and Purananuru
Purananuru
Purananuru is a Tamil poetic work in the Pathinenmaelkanakku anthology of Tamil literature, belonging to the Sangam period corresponding to between 200 BCE – 100 CE. Purananuru is part of the Ettuthokai anthology which is the oldest available collection of poems of Sangam literature in Tamil....
mentions a hero stone
Hero stone
Hero stone is a memorial commemorating the honorable death of a hero in battle of Tamil People. A hero stone can display a variety of adornments, including bas relief panels, statues, and figures of carved stone...
that has the name of the hero etched in it. Based on the literature analysis, Kamil Zvelebil believes writing was known to Tamil people at least from the 3rd century BCE.
Epigraphic review
Post 3rd BCE dispersal
Based on epigraphic review, several hypotheses have been proposed, with the theory suggested by epigraphist Iravatham MahadevanIravatham Mahadevan
Iravatham Mahadevan is an Indian epigraphist, specializing on the Indus script and Early Tamil epigraphy.-Biography:Iravatham Mahadevan was born in 1930 in a Smartha Tamil Brahmin family of Thanjavur district. He was born in British Burma where his father Iravatham was practising as a...
having consensus. According to Mahadevan, Brahmi script reached the Tamil country due the southern spread of Jainism
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
from North India
North India
North India, known natively as Uttar Bhārat or Shumālī Hindustān , is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage...
, and was adapted to suit the Tamil phonetic system. This theory presupposes that Brahmi script itself was either invented or originated within the imperial courts of Mauryan kingdom and it was dispersed to South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
and Sri Lanka post 3rd century BCE. The time line of dispersal is either post Ashokan or early Mauryan period. Ahmed Hassan Dani questioned the 3rd BCE date and suggested 1st century CE as the probable date but this has been discounted by others such as T.V. Mahalingam and Richard Salmon. The earliest surviving acceptably dated Tamil-Brahmi inscription is the Tissamaharama Tamil Brahmi inscription
Tissamaharama Tamil Brahmi inscriptions
Tissamaharama Tamil Brahmi inscription refers to a fragment of black and red ware flat dish inscribed in Tamil in the Tamil Brahmi script excavated at the earliest layer in southern town of Tissamaharama in Sri Lanka. It is dated to approximately 200 BC by German scholars who undertook the...
dated to the 2nd century BCE in Sri Lanka.
Pre 3rd BCE dispersal
The evidence for pre-Ashokan dispersal comes from Sri Lanka. The earliest attested Brahmi inscriptions in South AsiaSouth Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
are found in the citadel
Citadel
A citadel is a fortress for protecting a town, sometimes incorporating a castle. The term derives from the same Latin root as the word "city", civis, meaning citizen....
of Anuradhapura
Anuradhapura
Anuradhapura, , is one of the ancient capitals of Sri Lanka, famous for its well-preserved ruins of ancient Lankan civilization.The city, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies 205 km north of the current capital Colombo in Sri Lanka's North Central Province, on the banks of the historic...
in Sri Lanka and are dated to the 4th century BCE. According to Allchin et al., Brahmi developed before the southern spread of Ashokan missionary activities and spread across South Asia due to trade networks. There have been number of inscriptions found in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
that have been tentatively dated to 6th century BCE in Adichanallur
Adichanallur
Adichanallur is an archaeological site near Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, India. The town is known locally as Aathichanallur, and has been the site of a number of very important archeological digs.-Archaeological excavations:...
and 5th century BCE in Porunthal. But these early Tamil Nadu dating do not have mainstream acceptance. The post Ashokan dispersal theory developed by Mahadevan fails to take in to account the Anuradhapura findings and is solely based on epigraphic review and does not take into account relevant archeological data.According to R. Nagaswamy and Gift Siromony, Tamil Brahmi or Damili developed independently of Standard Brahmi in Tamilakam and was adopted by northern based Mauryan empire for imperial inscriptions. Coningham (1996), Kasinathan (1995), K.V. Ramesh, M.D. Sampath, K.G. Krishnan, K.V. Raman (1976) and Deraniyagala (1992) believe that Brahmi is pre-Asokan and entered into Tamil Nadu from Sri Lanka. K. Rajan believes the origin of Tamil Brahmi needs to seen from the common cultural area of ancient Tamilakam and Sri Lanka.
Archeological review
Artifacts such as inscribed potsherds, coins or any other that are found in Tamil Nadu in successive undisturbed cultural layers are dated based stratigraphyStratigraphy
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....
. The layer on the top is considered younger than the layer that is found below. Thus, a succession of layers provides a relative chronological sequence from earliest to latest. The inscribed potsherds recovered from Kodumanal
Kodumanal
Kodumanal is a village located in the Erode district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It was once a flourishing ancient trade city known as Kodumanam, as inscribed in Patittrupathu of Sangam Literature. The place is a important Archaeological Site, under the control of State...
when analyzed on the basis of stratigraphical sequences are dated to 4th century BCE at the lowermost level. The lowermost level potsherd had the scripts peculiar to Tamil characters and in addition distinctive paleographic shape for letter m. Further, there is omission of voiced
VOICED
Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
consonants, aspirates and sibilants peculiar to Tamil-Brahmi. This phenomenon is not confined to the Kodumanal in Kongu Nadu
Kongu Nadu
Kongu Nadu is a region comprising the western part of the Tamil Nadu India. The region is bounded on the west and north-west by the Karnataka state, on the west by the Kerala state, on the east by Tondai Nadu, on the south-east by Chola Nadu and on the south by Madurai regions of...
but found throughout the Tamil Nadu, Kerala and in Jaffna peninsula
Jaffna Peninsula
The Jaffna Peninsula is an area in Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is home to the capital city of the province, Jaffna and comprises much of the former land mass of the ancient Tamil kingdoms of the Nagas and the medieval Jaffna kingdom. The peninsula is mostly surrounded by water, connected to...
of Sri Lanka. The evolution and uniform adoption of this peculiar script would have taken considerable time to spread widely. According K. Rajan, the introduction or evolution or origin of script in Tamil Nadu might well be beyond 4th century BCE due to the uniformity of the script, lack of grammatical errors and the widespread usage.
The script
The closest resemblance to Tamil-Brahmi is to its neighboring Sinhala-Brahmi. Both seem to use similar letters to indicate phonemes’ that are unique to Dravidian languages
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
although Sinhala-Brahmi was used to write an Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan refers to:* Indo-Aryan languages* Indo-Aryan migration, a supposition that holds that the Indo-Aryans migrated to India.* Indigenous Aryans, a theory that holds that the Indo-Aryans are native to India....
Prakrit
Prakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
used in the island of Sri Lanka. Apart from Sinhala-Brahmi, there are Tamil-Brahmi writings found in Sri Lanka from Kantharodai
Kantharodai
-See also:*Nallur *Vallipuram*Naguleswaram temple*Nainativu*Kudiramalai...
in the north to Tissamaharama
Tissamaharama
Tissamaharama is a town in south-eastern Sri Lanka. It used to be the capital of the Sinhalese Kingdom of Ruhuna as early as the 3rd century B.C. Only few buildings from that period can still be seen today. The large artificial Tissa Wewa lake, which was a part of a sophisticated irrigation...
in the south. All these are dated to 2nd century BCE. There is Sinhala-Brahmi inscriptions found in Tamil Nadu as well.
The Bhattiprolu inscription found in present day Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
also shows systemic but not paleographic similarity to Tamil Brahmi. According to Richard Salmon, the Bhattiprolu script was originally invented to write a Dravidian language but was reapplied to inscribe in an Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan refers to:* Indo-Aryan languages* Indo-Aryan migration, a supposition that holds that the Indo-Aryans migrated to India.* Indigenous Aryans, a theory that holds that the Indo-Aryans are native to India....
Prakrit. Hence both the Bhattiprolu and Tamil Brahmi share common modifications to represent Dravidian languages. Bhattiprolu script is also considered the Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
of Tamil Brahmi decipherment.
According to Iravatham Mahathevan there are three stages in the development of the script. The early stage is dated from 3rd/2nd century BCE to 1st century BCE. The later stage is dated from 1st century CE to 2nd century CE. The third stage is dated from 2nd century CE to 3rd/4th century CE. According to Gift Siromony, the types of Tamil Brahmi writings do not follow a very clear chronology and can lead to confusion in dating. According to K. Rajan, the Ashokan Brahmi corresponds with the Stage II of Tamil Brahmi per Mahadevan’s classification. Hence according to him, Stage I may have to be reassessed from the proposed time line. From 5th century CE onwards Tamil is written in Vatteluttu in the Chera
Chera dynasty
Chera Dynasty in South India is one of the most ancient ruling dynasties in India. Together with the Cholas and the Pandyas, they formed the three principle warring Iron Age Tamil kingdoms in southern India...
and Pandya country and Grantha or Tamil script in the Chola and Pallava
Pallava
The Pallava dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which ruled the northern Tamil Nadu region and the southern Andhra Pradesh region with their capital at Kanchipuram...
country. Tamil Brahmi inscriptions in cave beds and coins have provided historians with identifying some kings and chiefs mentioned in the Cankam
Athiyamān Nedumān Añci
Athiyamān Nedumān Añci was one of the most powerful Tamil Vēlir kings of the Sangam era. A famous royal of the Athiyamān family dynasty, he was the contemporary and the patron of poetess Auvaiyar of the Sangam period. Athiyamān was a dynastic title of the Vēlir line who ruled over the Dharmapuri,...
Tamil corpus as well as related Ashokan pillar inscriptions.
Usage
Although Tamil writing was initially believed to be concentrated amongst the Jaina and Buddhist circles, it eventually spread throughout the population with kings, chiefs, potters, toddy tappers and merchants using it extensively throughout Tamilakam and abroad. But according to archeological findings, the script was widely used along with Megalithic Graffiti Symbols for funerary and other purposes and such usage predates the use by different religious sects. The initial concentration of the writing was detected around MaduraiMadurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
but later it is found in Tiruchi, Kaveripattinam and Tondaimanadalam
Tondai Nadu
Tondai Nadu is a historical region located in the northernmost part of Tamil Nadu. The region comprises the districts which formed a part of the traditional Pallava kingdom...
. The languages used in most of the inscriptions betray a thorough assimilation of Prakrit elements per rules established by Tamil grammarians. The early inscriptions also show potential Kannada influences due to Jaina inflow from what is today Karnataka
Karnataka
Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
. In its usage, it differed considerably from other scripts used in contemporary South Asia as its use was widespread in rural and urban areas and across different social classes.
Decipherment
Tamil Brahmi was not deciphered as a separate script until the mid 20th century CE. Until then it was assumed to have been Standard Brahmi writing of Prakrit language. The deciphering of the Grantha, Vatteluttu, Nagari and Tamil scripts of the south Indian inscriptions dating from the 7th century A.D. and their evolutionary stages, based on their resemblance to the modern forms of the scripts, seemed relatively easier and more successful than that of the early Brahmi inscriptions. The early Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions posed a greater challenge on account of their archaic characters and orthographic conventions, which were different from the original Brahmi used for Prakrit.A.C. Burnell (1874), attempted the earliest work on South Indian paleography, but it was due to the efforts of K. V. Subrahmanya Ayyar (1924), H. K Krishna Sastri and K.K. Pillai that it was understood to be written in an early form of Tamil, not Prakrit. The early attempts assumed more Prakrit loan words than what was actually used, hence the decipherment was not entirely successful. Iravatham Mahathevan identified the writings as mostly consisting of Tamil words in the late 1960s and published them in seminars and proceedings. This was further expanded by T.V. Mahalingam (1967), R. Nagaswamy (1972), R. Panneerselvam (1972) and M. S. Venkataswamy (1981).
Significant Tamil Brahmi findings
- A broken storage jar with inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi script in Quseir-al-Qadim, (Leukos Limen) EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, 1st century BCE. Two earlier Tamil Brahmi inscription discoveries at the same site, 1st century CE. - An inscribed amphora fragment in Tamil at the ancient PtolemicPtolemyClaudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
-RomanAncient RomeAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
settlement of Berenice Troglodytica, Egypt, 1st century BCE- 1st century CE. - Tamil-Brahmi inscription on pottery found in Phu Khao Thong, ThailandThailandThailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, 2nd century CE. Touchstone (uraikal) engraved in Tamil in the Tamil-Brahmi script at Khuan Luk Pat, 3rd-4th century CE. - Potsherds with Tamil Brahmi inscriptions found in Poonagari, JaffnaJaffnaJaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical...
, 2nd century BCE. - Black and red ware potsherd with Tamil Brahmi inscriptions in Ucchapanai, Kandarodai, Jaffna, 3rd century BCE.
- Tamil Brahmi inscriptions on a pot rim in Pattanam (MuzirisMuzirisMuziris is an ancient sea-port in Southwestern India on the Periyar River 3.2 km from its mouth. The derivation of the name Muziris is said to be from "Mucciripattanam," "mucciri" means "cleft palate" and "pattanam" means "city". Near Muziris, Periyar River was branched into two like a...
), KeralaKeralaor Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
, 2nd century CE.