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APPENDIX D.
period of literary activity, for there can be no grammar, without literature. If it.is true that Vatteluttu was the earliest Pandyan script and that, as hans beert remarked, it was.derived from the Brāhmi inscriptions, we must allow at least three centuries for the development of a literature sufficiently wide to need a grammar. This would bring the date of Tolkāppiyar to the end of the 2nd century A.D. Allowing two more centuries for the first two Academies we may safely arrive at the conclusion that in all probability the third Academy was founded in the 5th or 6th century A.D., a period sufficiently near the epoch for which epigraphic records are available, when Vatteluttu was perfected and from which we have a continuous literary history.
It is well known that between the Brahmi inscription of the South and the 'Vatteluttu inscription of the 8th century A.D. referred to above there is absolutely no inscription written in any character or any coin legerfd to enable us to fix with some certainty the chronology of the Pandyan kings. Scholars who in season and out of season sing the glories of the Sangam Age, its evast literature and spacious traditions have not cared to inquire why for a period of more than a thousand years there has absolutely been no inscription. A few who thought about the subject argue that notwithstanding the very early literary activity, the Tamils did not know or
Absence of inscription prior to 8th century.
