________________
Early Archaic Early
III. Kilavalavu IV. Konkarpuliankulam 10,11 V. Vikkiramaankalam 13,17 VI. Mettupatti
18,26 VII. Karunkalkutti 28 VIII. Alakarmalai
30-44 IX. Varichiyur
45,46,47 X. Tiruppankunram 48-51 XI. Muattupatti 52,53,54 XII. Anaimalai
55
15
3 4 3
Archaic(2)earlymid(13). Early Middle. Early (3) Mid (1) Early Middle
Out of 52 inscriptions from Madurai caves, Mahadevan has illustrated the text of 47 in the corpus. On paleographic considerations, he classifies them into four categories.
Archaic and early Middle Period If Late Period III Transitional Period IV
Second B.C.E - First C.E. First to Second C.E. Third to Fourth C.E. Fifth to Sixth C.E.
The table above and the plates of the inscriptions thus indicate that most of the inscriptions belong to the first two periods, the antiquity ranging between Second B.C.E to Second C.E. The caves were thus active for 400 years.
Tamil-Brāmhi means that it is written in Brāmhi script while the language used is Tamil, and the distinctive feature is the scriptization of Tamil dialectical expression. In this context, although da could be very well written in Brāmhi, ta was used. It is mainly because ta is the letter used for da in Tamil language. Thus, it has to be understood that tana refers to dāna, the gift.
The scriptization process shows changes as displayed in Mankulam: 1 and 2 are almost the same, but the spellings are made different as shown in the example below.
Marikulam 1 paali iya, asiriya ikku Mankulam 2 paali ya, asiriya ku
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