Tamil-Brahmi script discovered on Tirupparankundram hill
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The picture shows the estampage on the Tamil- Brahmi script discovered on January 20, 2013 on a step leading to a pond on top of the Tirupparankundram hill, near Madurai. Photo: R. Ramesh -
Handwritten copy of the Tamil-Brahmi script discovered on January 20, 2013 on top of the Tirupparankundram hill, near Madurai. The script, in two lines, reads “Muu-na-ka-ra” and “Muu-caka- ti.” The script is datable prior to the first century BCE. Photo: M. Prasanna
The lines read as “Muu-na-ka-ra” and “Muu-ca-ka-ti”
Young archaeologists M. Prasanna and R. Ramesh like to
climb the hills around Madurai, which have pre-historic rock art,
Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions on the brow of natural caverns, beautiful
bas-reliefs of Jaina “tirthankaras” and beds cut on the flat rock
surface for the Jaina monks to sleep on. These hills include Mankulam,
Keezhavalavu, Tiruvadavur, Varichiyur, Mettupatti, Anaimalai, Kongar
Puliyankulam and Muthupatti.
The duo aspired to
discover a Tamil-Brahmi script on the hills. While Prasanna is an
assistant archaeologist in the Archaeological Survey of India, Ramesh
works in the University Grants Commission-Special Assistance Programme
under Professor K. Rajan of the Department of History, Pondicherry
University.
On January 20, 2013, they climbed the
Tirupparankundram hill, where three Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, datable
to the first century BCE, were discovered many decades ago. As they
climbed the several hundred steps leading to the Kasi Viswanathar
temple, they wondered whether they would be lucky this time. Behind this
temple are bas-reliefs of Jaina tirthankaras on the rock surface. There
are also recently carved images of Ganesa, Muruga, Bhairava and others.
Near the temple, there is a pond and a shrine dedicated to Machchamuni
(matsya muni), meaning fish god. The pond is full of fish. There are
steps cut on the rock, leading to the pond.
As they
were scanning the rock surface, their eyes fell on the steps leading to
the pond and they saw what looked like a Tamil-Brahmi script in two
lines. Excited, they turned the pages of the book titled “Tamil-Brahmi
inscriptions,” published by the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department in
2006. They read the pages on the earlier discoveries of the Tamil-Brahmi
script at Tirupparankundram and found that this was a new discovery.
They rang up Dr. Rajan who confirmed that it had not been documented
earlier.
The lines, each having four letters, read
as, “Muu-na-ka-ra” and “Muu-ca-ka-ti.” The first line has a trishul-like
symbol as a graffiti mark at its end. The first letter “muu” can mean
“three” or being ancient or old. “In the present context, the meaning of
ancient is more probable,” Ramesh and Prasanna said. The
na-ka-ra/na-kar-r represents a town or city. So the first line could be
read as “ancient town,” probably meaning Madurai, they suggested. In the
second line, the first letter “muu” again stands for “ancient or old.”
The remaining three letters, ca-ka-ti/ca-k-ti may represent a “yakshi,”
they said. (Yakshis are women attendants of the 24 Jaina tirthankaras).
“So the inscription can be read as goddess of the ancient city. But it
is open to different interpretations,” they said.
V.
Vedachalam, retired senior epigraphist, Tamil Nadu Archaeology
Department, said the first line stood for an elderly Jaina monk and the
second one could mean “motcha/moksha gadhi.” So the script could stand
for a Jaina monk who, facing north, went on a fast unto death there.
That is, he attained nirvana. This is the first time that a Tamil-Brahmi
script, referring to a Jaina monk who fasted unto death, had been
discovered. Other Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions referred to donors who cut
beds on rocks for Jaina monks or sculpted rock-shelters for them.
A.
Karthikeyan, Professor, Department of Tamil Studies in Tamil University
at Thanjavur, suggested that the inscription could be read as “the
attainment of liberation or salvation (moksha) of a female monk
(saadhvi), namely elderly naakaraa. “Moksha gadhi” could be changed into
muccakati. “It is difficult to assign a date to this inscription but it
can be dated prior to the first century BCE,” said Dr. Rajan.
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