Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century C.E. (Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions)

Book Specification

Book Description

unhidewhenused=”false” qformat=”true” name=”No Spacing”> –>

About the Book

This is Volume I of the revised and enlarged Second Edition of Early Tamil Epigraphy, first published in 2003. The Volume deals with Tamil-Brahmi stone inscriptions discovered up to 2012. The main feature of the edition is that it is based on fresh in situ delineation and digitisation of the cave inscriptions included in the Corpus.

This work provides a detailed account of the discovery and decipherment of the inscriptions and relates their language and contents to early Tamil literature and society. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions on pottery, coins, seals and rings, have also been utilised to present a more complete picture of early Tamil epigraphy. Two new section deal with Prakrit inscriptions on pottery and other inscribed objects, and Sinhala-Prakrit pottery inscriptions, from Tamilnadu, which bring out the interaction of Tamil-Brahmi with other contemporary languages and scripts of South India and Sri Lanka.

The study deals comprehensively with the epigraphy, language and contents of the inscription. The text are given in transliteration with translation and extensive word by word commentary. The inscriptions are illustrated with direct photographs in colour, together with delineations and estampages for comparative study. Palaeography of Tamil-Brahmi is described in detail with the help of letter charts. The special orthographic and grammatical feature of the earliest Tamil inscriptions are also described. A glossary of inscriptional words and several classified word lists have been added to aid further research.

About the Author

Iravatham Mahadevan (b. 1930) has published Widely on Indian epigraphy, especially on the Indus and Brahmi scripts. He was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1970 for research on the Indus script and the National Fellowship of the Indian Council of Historical Research in 1992 for work on the Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions.

His books, The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977), and Early Tamil Epigraphy (2003) are recognised internationally as major source books for research in these fields.

He has received many awards including, more recently, the title Tamil Chennai from the Madurai Kamaraj University (1995), the Copper Plaque of the Tamilnadu Archaeological Society (1998), the annual award of the Federations of Tamil Sangams of North America (2001), V. Chelvanayakam Award, Colombo (2004), the P.L. Gupta Medal of the Tamilnadu Numismatic Society (2006), the Madras Sanskrit College Centenary Award (2007), the Dravidian University Award for research publications in Dravidian languages (2008), Padma Sri by the President of India (2009), D. Litt degree by the Tamil University, Thanjavur (2009), Tiruvalluvar Award by the Government of Tamilnadu (2010), the Lifetime Literary Achievement Award by the Tamil Literary Academy, Canada (2010), Tolkappiyar Award (Presidential Award for Classical Tamil) for 2009 – 10 instituted by CICT and the Campbell Memorial Gold Medal for 2010 – 12 by the Asiatic Society of Mumbai for distinguished service in Oriental research.

Iravatham Mahadevan joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1954 and retired voluntarily in 1980 to devote himself to academic pursuits. He lives in Chennai.

Foreword

The Central Institute of Classical Tamil takes great pleasure in bringing out the second revised and enlarged edition of Early Tamil Epigraphy by Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan. The first edition was published in 2003 jointly by Crea, Chennai, and the Harvard University, USA, including it in the Harvard Oriental Series. The book received international acclaim as the definitive study of early Tamil epigraphy.

The present publication is part of a larger effort to document and construct a digital archive of all the Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions in the caves of Tamilnadu and Kerala. This digital archive will be in the public domain coinciding with the launch of this book. It is significant that the author was inspired to write the second edition as a result of the digitisation effort undertaken by the Central Institute of Classical Tamil.

This book, Early Tamil Epigraphy presents a comprehensive account of the origin, development, discovery and deciphering which began with the efforts of Shri K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyer in the 1920’s. Some of those ideas have been expanded on and revised by the next generation of scholars, in particular the author of this book. The book is at once a lay person’s guide, a researcher’s reference tool, a student’s text book – a very comprehensive edition.

Part I of the book deals with the discovery and deciphering, language and polity in the context of early Tamil epigraphy. Part II of the book deals with the technical aspects of epigraphy – in particular palaeography, orthography and grammar. Part III presents the comprehensive corpus of Tamil-Brahmi stone inscriptions. The concluding section is an exhaustive commentary and a word-by-word analysis of the inscriptions. The book also includes a selection of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions on pottery, coins and seals found in Tamilnadu and elsewhere. The book correlates the development of Tamil Language with inscriptions found in other languages and scripts in Tamilnadu in the same period.

The Central Institute of Classical Tamil is sure that this volume will be an invaluable record of the priceless heritage that not only people interested in Tamil studies will appreciate but any reader will cherish. The Central Institute of Classical Tamil is proud to present this masterpiece to the Tamil World.

Preface

Tamil was formally accorded the status of a Classical language by the Government of India in 2004. The responsibility for preparing an action plan for the promotion of research in Classical Tamil was initially entrusted to the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore. During one of the discussions held in 2005 to formulate the schemes for inclusion in the action plan, I had suggested to Prof. Udaya

Narayana Singh, Director, and Prof. K. Ramasamy, Deputy Director, CIIL, to take up the documentation of the earliest inscriptions in Tamil, employing the best available digital technology. The proposal was accepted which is the genesis of the present publication. It is my duty to thank the Director, CIIL and his colleagues for their invaluable help in initiating this project.

The Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT), Chennai, was established in 2007 to implement the Central plan schemes for promoting research in Classical Tamil. One of the first, and still the largest, projects implemented by CICT is the documentation of the earliest Tamil inscriptions and heritage monuments on HD Video and High Resolution still imagery, indexed, catalogued and held as a digital archive by CICT. Even as this long-term programme got under way, I was invited by CICT to prepare a revised edition of my book, Early Tamil Epigraphy (first published in 2003), dovetailing it with the ongoing documentation of Tamil-Brahmi and Vatteluttu stone inscriptions. I need hardly add that I accepted the offer with alacrity as it would bring to fruition the project I had only dreamt about for long. I am thankful to the Director, CICT, for implementing the scheme for documentation of the earliest Tamil inscriptions and for including the revised edition of my book within its scope.

The CICT entrusted the execution of the project to the Centre for Plants, People and Ecosystems (CPPE), Chennai, a non-profit organisation working in this field. The CICT project team constituted by CPPE started the work in December 2007 and successfully completed most of the field work by the end of 2010. I am thankful to M. V. Bhaskar, Project Coordinator, and his colleagues for the efficient execution of the project.

I was happy to inaugurate the work at Mamandur, but could not participate in further field work due to health problems except once at Pulankurichi in 2010. The team led by Bhaskar completed the field work on its own with a copy of Early Tamil Epigraphy to serve as the guide to locate the caves and inscriptions.

I was shown the results of the photographic survey for verification of the in situ delineations, enlarged on the computer screen. I could hardly believe my eyes, looking at the amazingly clear photographs of the caves and the remarkable accuracy of the delineations. I could sense that it is not only the superior technology but also the total involvement of the team in the project, which produced such excellent results. I am proud to have been a member of the team, though working from only behind the scenes.

It has taken me more than two years (2010 – 12) to complete editing the present publication which includes only the Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions. I must again thank Bhaskar for personally undertaking the laborious and time-consuming task of typesetting the revised edition afresh in Unicode.

I have received help from a large number of institutions and scholars for my research as acknowledged by me in the first edition of the book. I shall have to confine myself to thanking those who directly contributed to the making of the present, revised edition. My thanks are due to Prof. V.C. Kulandai Swamy, closely associated with the moveme