[Y-Indology] Date of tolkAppiyam

[Guest guest]

Dear Dr Ganesan,

 

--- Dr naga_ganesan <naga_ganesan wrote:

 

 

>Before scholars decide on the dates of layers of

>tolkAppiyam,Gift Siromony's discovery of puLLi letter

 

>in rock inscrptions dating to mid 2nd century,and R.

>Nagasamy found the unique puLLi letter used in mid

>2nd century AD Satakarni inscription. The definition

>of puLLi is in tolkAppiyam.

>

> <CTamil/message/311>

>

>Iravatham Mahadevan was dating TolkApiyam sections

>to 5th century. Conclusive archaeological data

>discovered by Gift Siromony, Prof. S. Raju, ...

>made him revise his 5th century date backward by

>at least 300 years. I. Mahadevan was talking

>about puLLi in 5th century back in 1960.

>Now he has revised his earlier guesses.

>

><INDOLOGY/message/1516>

>

 

And under Message 262 of Ctamil

 

>LS> This symbol, I understand, was not attested

>LS>>before 5th cent. AD (Falk, Schrift in alten

>Indien).

>

>I will give the exact words of Mahadevan updating his

>classification of Tamil Brahmi recors and the

>occurence of puLLi in second century AD coin and

>inscription as well.

>

>Falk's date of 5th century, as quoted by LS, need to

>be revised to 2nd century at least - a difference of

>300 years.

 

I am unable to understand the logic being

presented regarding inscriptions for dating the

Tolkappiyam in view of the fact that puLLi is in use

till date (except for short e & o). Even if Falk may

have assigned the date of puLLi to 5th century A.C. (I

have not gone through this part), but under section

9.2 PANini, p.257, para 2, he assigns the date of

Tolkappiyam as 1st or 2nd century A.C. and remarks on

the date assigned by T V Mahalingam(1967,117), viz.,

"about the 2nd half of the 1st millenium BC, if not

earlier" to be too early and in the same para he also

talks of puLLi. His original passage in German [Harry

Falk(1993):"Schrift im alten Indien: Ein

Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen", Gunter Narr Verlag

Tuebingen] is as follows:

******************************************************

Die Grammatik des TolkAppiyar fuer das fruehe Tamil

aus dem 1. oder 2. Jn.n.Chr. orientiert sich in ihrer

Systematik an PANini, laesst aber schon in den ersten

SutrAs (1,2; 1,14-17) erkennen, dass hier Sprache

nicht mehr von Schrift zu trennen ist: kurze Vokale

und auslautloses m werden characterisiert als

Grundzeichen mit einem Punkt darueber(vgl. P.S.

Subrahmania Sastri 1930, 1f.). Die Datierung des

Grammatikers "about the second half of the first

millenium B.C. if not earlier" bei T.V. Mahalingam

(1967, 117) ist sicher zu frueh."

******************************************************

 

Best regards.

 

Narayan Prasad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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