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34 THE JAINS IN THE TAMIL LAND.
to the end of the third and the beginning of the second century B.C. They are found scattered in the following places :-1. Marugaltalai, 2. Anaimalai, 3. Tirupparankunram, 4. Arittapatti, 5. Kilavalavu, 6. Karungālakkudi, 7. Muttupatti, 8. Siddharmalai, 9. Kongar-Puliyañgulam, 10. Alagarmalai, 11. Sittannavasal. No one has succeeded in deciphering these inscriptions. Looking carefully into the characters, one finds such Tamil words as Pāli, Madhurai, Kumattur.1 The identification of a few Tamil words written nevertheless in Brahm: characters has led scholars to propound the view that these characters were perhaps in use in the Pandyan country even in that early period, and that these may have developed into the Tamil Vatteluttu just as they developed into the present Tamil, Grantha, Canarese and Telugu characters. We are not just now concerned with these questions. These records are, perhaps, Jain in character, for, not far off from the places where these inscriptions are found, we have ruins of Jain temples, with mutilated statues of Jain Tirthankaras, with their respective iconographic symbols such as the hooded serpent or the triple umbrella. If the date of the inscriptions is the beginning of the third century B.C., as. has been conceived by specialists, the inference may perhaps be made (u), Challehanai (FC). Madras Epigraphical Reports 1907, pp. 60-61.
The following words can also be identified:-Nadu (s,) Kayipan (ru), Kudumbihan (குடும்பிகன், Pölāliyan(போலாலை ), Kanyan (G), Chirya
Madras Epigraphical Reports 1910, pp. 77-78.
