The meaning of Polal- in Tamil inscription

[N. Ganesan]

Dear Prof. Schalk,

Just saw your mail forwarded to the Indology list.

Question 1:
Is the "polal" in Polalaiyan in the early inscription
connected with the word, "po_lil" (flower garden-pond)? We know
in many instances the travelling merchant guilds built and
paid for the maintenance the "po_lil" gardens. Usually
Trade was divided into 5 departments among these merchants.
Their camps were called "aim po_lil" (= 5 po_lil).
There are KannaDa and Tamil inscriptions describing the
"po_lil" of the merchant guilds. The famous town recording
the merchant guild inscription is the aihoLe inscription in
Karnataka. AihoLe has another name ayyavoLe (< ayyapoLe) where
-v- < -p- change has occured. Po_lilvAycci is situated right on
the trade route between Central Kerala and TN, And new
Merchant Guild 500's inscriptions are found near Tiruchy.
Hence, is it possible Po_lalaiyan is a Merchant from I_lam?

Question 2:
What does I_lam mean? Tamil litetature records it as toddy
and gold. Was there a letter "c" as the first letter
I_lam/cI_lam? Does I_lam mean "date palm tree"?
Note also Ikkam/Iccam etc. denote 'date palm' tree.

Regards,
N. Ganesan

----------------------------
From: Peter Schalk  <peter.schalk at relhist.uu.se>

Dear friends,

[...]

Here I give the first reference to the word ilam in history.

The earliest now available reference to the word ilam is in a Tamil
inscription from about the 1st -2nd century AD. It was found in
Tirupparankunram in present Tamilnadu. The Tamil script and its
predecessor Vatteluttu, was not yet in use. The script was Pirami
(Brahmi) that was also used in Northern India and in the island, but
adopted to Dravidian languages. This special Pirami is also called
Dravidi by some Western scholars in the tradition of Georg Bühler.
Some South Indian scholars use the label Tamili. Some say Southern
Brahmi to contrast it with Northern or Asokan Brahmi.

The first line of the inscription which is written on a stone-bed,
runs:

erukatur ilakutumpikan polalaiyan

"Polalaiyan, [resident of] Erukatur, the husbandman [ householder]
from Ilam."

The word for ilam is written as ila with short i and the retroflex
approximant l. I have amended it to ilam. Short i stands also for
long i like short u stands for long u in -ur in Erukatur. My amending
does not break any convention.

The donor of the inscription is evidently a householder from Ilam,
but residing in Erukatur.

Ilam refers here to the island as a whole. One important point is
that this toponym is a little older than cinkalam. The implications
you can imagine yourself.

Regards

Peter Schalk
Rödbetsgatan 17 754 49 Uppsala Sweden

Phones: +46 18 252682, +46 70 4947669 (mobile).
Fax: +46 18 241786

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