LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 18:1 January 2018
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Contributions of the Tamils to the Writing Systems of
Some South-East Asian Countries

Dr. N. Nadaraja Pillai

Abstract

Keywords:

Introduction

The Tamilnadu of the period 500 – 1300 AD was ruled by the two great dynasties, namely, the Pallavas of Kanchi from 500 – 900 AD and the Later mighty Chozhas (spelled Cholas also) of Thanjavur from 900 – 1300 AD. These two dynasties have contributed a lot to the art, architecture, religion, language and literature of Tamilnadu, which are unparalleled. The Tamil Brahmi, a separate branch of Brahmi script has developed with the ‘vaTTezhuttu’, an indigenous script mostly used in the Pandiya kingdom of Tamilnadu. Further, it is also a fact that the Tamil Brahmi was in use even earlier to 400 BC attested in the maakkodai silver coin of the Chera kings of Tamilnadu (Nagasamy, 1981). Though it is not the theme of the paper, a context is set, here, to discuss about the Brahmi script of Emperor Ashoka, which is considered as the earliest script (238 BC) and has contributed to the development of Indian scripts. Here is a picture of the inscription of Ashoka (238 BCE), in Brahmi 1. (Nikam and McKeon, 1959).

The Poruntal archaeological discovery has proved it beyond any judicious doubt that the inscriptions found on the pot shreds have been dated 5th century B.C. The Adichanallur burial urn inscription has already been deciphered and the language is Tamil. The estimate based on the preliminary thermo-luminiscence testing is 500 B.C. and the upper limit is 1500 B.C. The carbon dating of the same would have taken the period of the script still far back. These findings show that the ‘Tamizhi script’ is at least two centuries older than the Brahmi of Emperor Ashoka’s edicts. This would mean that the Tamizhi script has contributed to the development of the so-called Brahmi script used in Emperor Ashoka’s Prakrit edict, which itself is a misnomer.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. N. Nadaraja Pillai
Professor-cum-Deputy Director
Central Institute of Indian Languages
Mysore 570006
Karnataka
India
nadarajapillai@rediffmail.com

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