Fresh scientific dates push origin of Tamili script by a century

Chennai: Fresh scientific dates obtained through Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating of samples collected from archaeological sites excavated by the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology (TNSDA) have pushed the origin of Tamili (Tamil-Brahmi) script by a hundred years to the 7th Century BCE.

Of the 73 AMS dates obtained from Beta Analytic Laboratory, Florida, after a detailed analysis of samples collected from excavation sites such as Kodumanal, Keeladi, Korkai, Alagankulam, Porunthal and Sivagalai, the earliest date arrived at is 685 BCE from Sivagalai in Thoothukudi district, sources in the TNSDA told DH.

The calibrated date at Keeladi, an urban industrialised settlement found on the banks of the Vaigai river near Madurai, is 679 BCE.

The new findings, which have been published in an international journal, are significant as the earlier findings in 2019 based on AMS dating of excavated materials had fixed the date for Tamili as 6th Century BCE.

Carbon-dating of artefacts from Keeladi and paddy husks found inside a burial urn in Sivagalai have found that they are 2,600 years and 3,200 years old respectively.

These findings by the TNSDA in 2019 and 2021 created a buzz with Chief Minister M K Stalin asserting that efforts will be taken to rewrite India’s history from Tamil Nadu through scientific means.

This pushed the Sangam era by three hundred years than it was thought to be – the ASI, which conducted the first two phases of excavation, also derived the period of the Sangam-era archaeological site to be between 8th century BCE to 3rd century CE.

“Of the 73 AMS dates of Tamili samples, 43 of them belong to the pre-Asokan times. These dates negate the hitherto held view that Brahmi scripts were introduced during Asokan times,” Prof K Rajan, a renowned academic who is closely involved with TNSDA, told DH.

Another important chronological feature is that nearly 8 AMS dates fall in 7th century BCE, clearly pushing the origin of Tamili script to 7th century BCE as of today, Prof Rajan added.

Almost all the excavated sites of Early Historic times in Tamil Nadu met with Tamili inscribed potsherds and unlike cave inscriptions, these inscribed potsherds were engraved with personal names by the common man.

“It reflects the nature of the literacy rate. One could hardly identify any mistake in the writing. Its widespread uniformity in writing, grammar, linguistic pattern, orthography and many other patterns found across Tamil Nadu demonstrate the penetration of literacy and the level of literacy in Tamil Nadu during Early Historic times,”  Prof Rajan added.

The findings were also part of an ambitious project that the TNSDA has embarked on to document and digitise over 15,000 graffiti and Tamili-inscribed potsherds and place them in the public domain for researchers to decipher them.

While the Tamili script has been deciphered, the graffiti marks are yet to be and the foremost question that the project seeks to address is whether graffiti marks were the 'intermediatory script' between Indus and Brahmi scripts. 

“This is the first time that we embarked on such a project. We have completed the documentation of all graffiti inscribed potsherds recovered from 97 archaeological sites by creating a vast database. Based on the master database, base signs and their variants are identified in the second phase of the work,” Dr R Sivanantham, Joint Director, TNSDA, told DH.

In total, 45 base signs and their variants are identified. Besides, the combination of two or three base signs led to the emergence of several composite signs.

“The structure, context, and inter-changeable position of base signs suggest that these are not mere markers, they are a part of a writing system. Its later day association with Tamili inscriptions further strengthened our view,” Sivananthan added.

The number of occurrences of graffiti marks drastically went down once the Tamili script started appearing thereby showing the close relationship between these two writing systems, he noted.

Prof Rajan said Tamil Nadu is the only state that failed to yield any inscription in Prakrit language while the entire Indian sub-continent is spread out with Brahmi inscriptions written in Prakrit language.

“The total absence of Prakrit inscription indirectly demonstrates that Tamil language and Tamili script was well-established and it did not permit Prakrit language to penetrate much deeper into Tamil country,” he added. 

Once the graffiti marks are identified as part of the writing system then the question of its origin will be probed after which scholars will try to link it with the Indus script as the Indus script is considered one of the earliest scripts encountered in India, Rajan said, adding that scholars feel there must be a link between Graffiti and Indus writing systems.