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AUGUST 2, 1872.]
ANCIENT TAMIL ALPHABET.
THE OLDEST KNOWN SOUTH INDIAN ALPHABET. By A. C. BURNELL, M.C.S., M.R.A.S., MANGALOR.
HE shown in the accompanying
Ttable is that used in the Tamil-Malayalam
inscriptions on copper in possession of the Jews and Syrians at Cockin. There are three of these:
A. A single copper-plate containing a grant by Vira Raghava to Iravi Korttan of Kodungalûr (Cranganore of the maps). In possession of the Syrians.
B. A document on five plates also in possession of the Syrians. By this one Maruvân Sapir Iso transfers some ground to a church (?) Tarisâpalli-built by one Ísodâtavirai, and constitutes the Jews and Syrians trustees.
C. Two plates in possession of the Jews, by which Bhaskara Ravivarmâ grants a principality to Isuppu (Yusuf) Rabban.
A great deal of vain speculation as to the dates has been wasted, but I think the question may be easily settled. A and C are clearly the oldest, being the documents by which the Jews and Syrians were originally established. Now the style of writing and language shows that these are of nearly the same date, and about the date of A there can be little doubt. It is said to have been executed when "Jupiter was in Capricornus, the 21st of the Mina month, Saturday, Rohini asterism." Strange. as it may seem, no one has as yet taken the trouble to get the necessary calculation worked out, even though this date is expressed in usual and intelligible terms. Some time ago I showed the passage to the ablest native astronomert in Southern India, and in two days he brought me the calculation worked out, proving that A. D. 774 is the only possible year.
The date of C has been much discussed; it was executed by Perumâl Bhâskara Ravi Varma, "in the 36th year against (etir, opposite) the 2nd year." Reference has generally been made to the Quilon Cycle (or rather era) used in Malabar in order to explain this date, but always with preposterous results. I can only suggest (after comparing Tamil inscriptions in which two years are mentioned) that it means in the 36th year of the king's age and second year of his reign.
e.g. Madras Lit. Soc. Jour. vol. XXI. pp. 30ffg. K. Krishna Josiyar.
Conf. Caldwell's Dravidian Grammar, p. 60, for another explanation.
In a paper on the Pahlavi language read before the Royal Bavarian Academy at Munich.
Taking into consideration the Kufic-Arabic attestations. Jour. Madras L. S. vol. XIII. I believe these inscriptions were first noticed by Anquetil Duperron.
229
B is not dated, it is however remarkable for two pages of attestations by witnesses which are in Kufic-Arabic, Pahlavi (Sassanian), and Chaldæo Pahlavi. Dr. Haug attributes these to the early part of the 9th century.§
Thus all the means for fixing the date of these documents point to the latter half of the 8th and early part of the 9th century, during which time the glorious rule of the early Abbaside. Khalifs caused Arab trade and enterprise to spread in a way before unknown, and which therefore is the earliest and most likely period for such settlements as those of the Jews and Syrians near Cochin. These colonies must soon have extended; the Syrians (rather Manichæans than Nestorians) are still very numerous in Travankor and Cochin, and there is a considerable society of ancient proselytes near Cochin, called. "Black" Jews; but western meddlesomeness and bigotry have long done their worst and ruined the good feeling which once existed among these different persuasions.
The inscriptions have been critically translated and explained by F. W. Ellis (1819) and Dr. Gundert. Unfortunately they chiefly consist of lists of privileges, mostly obscure and without importance. Palæographically they are, however, of the greatest value, for they are the oldest inscriptions in Southern India that have been as yet discovered, and give the oldest form of the ancient Tamil alphabet. This alphabet was once used over all the South Tamil and Malayalam country, but chiefly in the extreme South. It appears to have fallen into disuse in the Tamil country about the 10th century, but was gene. rally in use in Malabar up to the end of the 17th. It is still occasionally used for deeds in Malabar, but in a more modern form, and still more changed, it is the character used by the Mâppilas of North Malabar and the Islands off the coast.†
Its origin may be guessed with great probability rather than proved. From the earliest historical times we find a trade with the east by way of the Red Sea conducted by. Phoenicians and Sabeans, perhaps by Egyptians, and later by
Given in the 1st edition of Dr. Gundert's Malayalam Grammar (in Malayalam).
† See M. D'Abbadie's note, ante p. 32.-Ed.
Conf. Benfey's remarks in Orient und Occident, III. p. 170. I have heard it asserted that there are Indian inscriptions in the Wadi Mukattab (near Sinai), but when I was there in 1868, I looked in vain for them. The natives of India probably stayed at home always as now.
