Old Tamil Script

A stone-inscription with Indo-arabic numerals 355. Very strange, for at first the number looked like 1355, roughly a 100 years after the Darasuram temple was built. But later, Kingsley tells me the number is 355...what looks like 1 is in fact a part of the previous letter. Kingsley also tells me that in Tamil temples, numbers would be written out in words and not using numerals. Altogether a strange piece of writing.

beautiful and well-preserved ancient Tamil script at the 8th century Kailasanatha Temple in Kanchipuram. Interestingly, the older script shares much more similarity to Hindi than the modern scripts have evolved.

This script was found on the temple walls of the Tanjore Bragadeeshwara temple. This is very different from the present Tamil script.

கல்வெட்டு (Kalvettu - Kal = stone + vettu = Cut/carve/etch) at Kasi Viswanathar temple, at Tenkasi, Tamilnadu. A kalvettu recorded details such as the king of the province, his regnal year, his predecessors, the wars he fought in, the enemies he conquered. It lists the grants that king has made towards building that temple, who built it, and what kind of charities and donations will keep it afloat. This makes these kalvettu-s a great record of history.

11th century Tamil inscriptions on one wall of the Brihadeeswara temple, Tanjavur. Taken on 24th of October, 2007.