Linguistic History of Ancient India - Paperback

by Naanchil Natarajan (Editor), V. T. Chellam (Author)

Some scholars prefer to commence the linguistic history of Tamil with the rock inscriptions found near Madurai, believed to have been inscribed by some Jain monks. As those inscriptions coincide with the 3rd century B.C., they say that the Tamils did not have scripts earlier to that period and ascribe Sangam literature to "oral poetry". Those who subscribe for this hypothesis include Epigraphists, Archaeologists as well as Marxian theoreticians of contemporary world. But historians like Prof. V.T. Chellam and archaeologists like K.V. Ramesh do not subscribe to this hypothesis. Tamils used palm leaf manuscripts as their stationery for writing, from time immemorial, which are perishable materials. Palm leaf manuscripts will survive in good condition for about 200 years and Tamil scholars re-published them by copying them periodically in fresh palm leaves. Tolkaappiyam, Tirukkural and Sangam literature have been preserved in this process, till the printing press came into usage. Therefore, the history of writing system of Tamils has to be ascertained in an objective manner. Now, archaeological excavations in Keezhadi, Aadhichanallur, Korkai, Poonpuhar, Pattinam etc., have yielded to large number of potsherds with Tamili scripts and they have been assigned much earlier period in first millinnium B.C.. This book tries to explain the development of Tamili scripts from Indus Valley scripts and the contribution of Tamils for linguistics.