Carbon dating evidence for Tamil Brahmi being older than Asokan Brahmi by more than 200 years
Mani Manivannan
Did the Tamil-Brahmi script originate in the post-Asokan period, that is, after the 3rd century BCE, or is it pre-Asokan? A cist-burial excavated in 2009 at Porunthal village, on the foothills of the Western Ghats, 12 km from Palani in Tamil Nadu, has reignited this debate because of the spectacular variety of grave goods it contained.
One of the two underground chambers of the grave was remarkable for the richness of its goods: a skull and skeletal bones, a four-legged jar with two kg of paddy inside, two ring-stands inscribed with the same Tamil-Brahmi script reading “va-y-ra” (meaning diamond) and a symbol of a gem with a thread passing through it, 7,500 beads made of carnelian, steatite, quartz and agate, three pairs of iron stirrups, iron swords, knives, four-legged jars of heights ranging from few centimetres to one metre, urns, vases, plates and bowls. It was obviously a grave that belonged to a chieftain ( The Hindu , June 28, 2009 and Frontline , October 8, 2010).
When K. Rajan, Professor, Department of History, Pondicherry University, excavated this megalithic grave, little did he realise that the paddy found in the four-legged jar would be instrumental in reviving the debate on the origin of the Tamil-Brahmi script. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of the paddy done by Beta Analysis Inc., Miami, U.S.A, assigned the paddy to 490 BCE. “Since all the goods kept in the grave including the paddy and the ring-stands with the Tamil-Brahmi script are single-time deposits, the date given to the paddy is applicable to the Tamil-Brahmi script also,” said Dr. Rajan. So the date of evolution of Tamil-Brahmi could be pushed 200 years before Asoka, he argued.
This dating, done on the Porunthal paddy sent to the U.S. laboratory by Dr. Rajan, took the antiquity of the grave belonging to the early historic age to 490 BCE, he said. It held great significance for Tamil Nadu's history, he added. This was the first time an AMS dating was done for a grave in Tamil Nadu.
Vinodh Rajan
When contacted, Mr. Mahadevan, a leading authority on the Tamil-Brahmi and Indus scripts, and Dr. Subbarayalu, Head, Department of Indology, French Institute of Pondicherry, said it was difficult to reach a conclusion on the basis of one single scientific dating.
Mr. Mahadevan described the dating as “interesting” but said “multiple carbon-dates are needed” for confirmation. “If there are several such cases, history has to be re-written because up to now, the scientifically proved earliest date is from Tissamaharama in southern Sri Lanka, where a Tamil-Brahmi script is dated to 200 BCE.” If there is scientific evidence that the paddy is dated to 490 BCE, “we have to sit up and take notice, and wait for confirmation,” Mr. Mahadevan said.
The Asokan-Brahmi is dated to 250 BCE. Megasthenes, the Greek Ambassador to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, Emperor Asoka's grandfather, had stated that the people of Chandragupta Maurya's kingdom did not know how to write and that they depended on memory. Besides, there is no inscription of the pre-Asoka period available. Mr. Mahadevan said: “Supposing a large number of carbon-datings are available from various sites, which will take us to the period of the Mauryas and even the Nandas, we can consider. But to push [the date of the origin of the Tamil-Brahmi script] a couple of centuries earlier with a single carbon-dating is not acceptable because chances of contamination and error are there.”
Dr. Subbarayalu also argued that on the basis of one single scientific dating, it was difficult to reach the conclusion that Tamil-Brahmi was pre-Asokan. There should be more evidence to prove that Tamil-Brahmi was earlier to the time of Asoka, in whose time was available the earliest Brahmi script in north India.
Mr. Mahadevan's conclusion that Tamil-Brahmi is post-Asokan and it had its advent from about the middle of the third century BCE is based on “concrete archaeological as well as palaeographical grounds” and this date is as yet the most reasonable one, in spite of minor points of difference on his dating of individual inscriptions, said Dr. Subbarayalu.
The date of the Tamil-Brahmi script found at Porunthal, on palaeographic basis, could be put only in the first century BCE/CE and “cannot be pushed back to such an early date [490 BCE].” The three letters “va-y-ra” found on the ring-stands were developed and belonged to the second stage of Mr. Mahadevan's dating of Tamil-Brahmi. “It is premature to revise the Tamil-Brahmi dating on the basis of a single carbon date, which is governed by complicated statistical probabilities,” Dr. Subbarayalu said. The word “vayra” is an adapted name from the Prakrit or Sanskrit “vajra” and it is difficult to explain convincingly the generally dominant Prakrit element in Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions found on rock and pot-sherds if Tamil-Brahmi is indigenous and pre-Asokan and transported from south India to north India, he says.
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க. தில்லைக்குமரன் (Ka. Thillaikumaran)
From: Mani Manivannan [mailto:mmani...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 9:24 AM
To: tamilmanram; மின்தமிழ்; அன்புடன்
Subject: Carbon dating evidence for Tamil Brahmi being older than Asokan Brahmi by more than 200 years
விஜயராகவன்
neolithic sites in Tamilnadu.
Without taking language related pre-concieved notions, these need to
be excavated, studied and analyzed to have a good idea of the cultures
which prevailed for thousands of years
Before urbanization, mining and quarrying for housebuilding destroy
these sites forever, they need to be recovered.
http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_alphalist_tamilnadu.asp
http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/megaliths
This is good blog of meglaithic sites in TN and I don't know whether
the owner of the site in a member of Mintamil
http://megalithicburialsitesintamilnadu.blogspot.com/
Vijayaraghavan
Subashini Tremmel
This is good blog of meglaithic sites in TN and I don't know whether
the owner of the site in a member of Mintamil
http://megalithicburialsitesintamilnadu.blogspot.com/
Vijayaraghavan
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விஜயராகவன்
> 2011/8/30 விஜயராகவன் viji...@gmail.com
> > ...
>
> > This is good blog of meglaithic sites in TN and I don't know whether
> > the owner of the site in a member of Mintamil
>
> >http://megalithicburialsitesintamilnadu.blogspot.com/
>
> Very interesting blog. Looks like started on the 15th of Aug this year. The
> blog records shows the Author's name as "Too Tired". This name is not in
> Mintamil list.
>
> Suba
Vij
விஜயராகவன்
http://www.saigan.com/heritage/swaminathan/sittannavasal/Sittannavasal%20-%20a%20booklet.pdf
Vijayaraghavan