Early Inscribed Hero Stones in Tamil Nadu

Tue Mar 4 19:14:49 UTC 2008

Fair enough -- I agree I need to read the review before saying any  
more.  Still, I find it amazing that marginal people such as cattle  
rustlers (to use an Americanism) would have access to writing in any  
way at such an early date, whether the masons were literate or not.  I  
also appreciate your comment about the voiced/unvoiced letters.   
Whoever first adapted the Brahmi alphabet for Tamil had quite  
impressive linguistic insight and realized that two sounds (e.g. t and  
d) that are different in Sanskrit must be written the same in Tamil  
(tt is pronounced tt, while VtCV is has a voiced dental).  In Tamil,  
these are allophones.

On Mar 4, 2008, at 10:11 AM, Tieken, H.J.H. wrote:

> Dear Professor Hart,
> 1) I think we do well to maintain a distinction between the scribe  
> who composed the text and the stone mason who inscribed the text on  
> the stone.
> 2) If I understand you correctly, you read the inscriptions as  
> follows: "the/this stone is/represents the stealing of cattle  
> by ...". As far as I see it this is something else than "this stone  
> is erected to commemorate the stealing of cattle by ..." But if you  
> say this is a normal sentence in Cankam Tamil literature, then I  
> suppose it is.
> 3) Why don't you read my review first, before reacting.
> With kind regards
> Herman Tieken
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Indology on behalf of George Hart
> Sent: Tue 3/4/2008 6:50 PM
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Early Inscribed Hero Stones in Tamil Nadu
>
>
>
> Would someone explain how this illiterate person knew how to write the
> name of the dead hero?  There are many Tamils, Hindi speakers, English
> speakers who habitually misspell words.  Shakespeare is supposed to
> have spelled his own name many ways.  I don't think he was illiterate.
>
> On Mar 4, 2008, at 9:18 AM, Maheswaran Nair wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> I agree with Herman Tieken.
>>> It would follow that the scibe who was
>>> responsible for engraving the text could himself neither read nor
>>> write.
>>> He was a stone mason, whose job consisted mainly in copying the
>>> letters
>>> of his examplar, which for him was just a string of images. I, for
>>> one,
>>> am unable to follow Mahadevan where he argues that the inscriptions
>>> testify to the widespread literacy in Tamilnadu at the period and
>>> that
>>> literacy had spread to all strata (sic) of the population.
>> True. A present evidence to testify:Today, if you travel from north
>> to south through NH 47 of India you can see in the boards on the
>> roadside the name of the place Kanyakumari written as Knyakrmari in
>> Devanagari. The person who wrote it is a painter who is not capable
>> of taking into account such mistakes.
>> Regards
>> K.Maheswaran Nair
>> University of Kerala
>> India
>>
>>
>> Quoting "Tieken, H.J.H." <H.J.H.Tieken at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL>:
>>
>>> Dear Richard,
>>> Mahadevan's conclusions regarding literacy in early Tamilnadu
>>> should be
>>> treated carefully. See my review of Mahadevan's edition of the Tamil
>>> Brahmi inscriptions, which has appeared in ZDMG 157/2 (2007),
>>> pp.507-511. In it I discuss, among other inscriptions, no. 54. If my
>>> interpretation is correct, it would follow that the scibe who was
>>> responsible for engraving the text could himself neither read nor
>>> write.
>>> He was a stone mason, whose job consisted mainly in copying the
>>> letters
>>> of his examplar, which for him was just a string of images. I, for
>>> one,
>>> am unable to follow Mahadevan where he argues that the inscriptions
>>> testify to the widespread literacy in Tamilnadu at the period and
>>> that
>>> literacy had spread to all strata (sic) of the population. The same
>>> question, namely if the stone mason could read or write, arises in
>>> connection with one of the inscriptions discussed by Rajan. In any
>>> case,
>>> his inscription no. 1 shows a highly curious word order. Actually,  
>>> it
>>> seems to consist of three parts: 1. kal "stone", 2. petutiyan
>>> antavan,
>>> personal name, 3. kutal ur a kol, "of kutal ur" and "stealing of
>>> cattle". Rajan translates: "This hero stone is raised to a man  
>>> called
>>> tiyan antavan of petu village who died in the cattle raid that
>>> happened
>>> at kudal ur", ignoring the irregular word order.
>>> Apart from all this, the use of the northern Brahmi script does
>>> testify
>>> to an amazingly sharp observation of Tamil phonology, in which the
>>> voiceless and voiced plosives are allophones.
>>> Kind regards
>>> Herman Tieken
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Indology [mailto:INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] On Behalf Of  
>>> Richard
>>> Salomon
>>> Sent: dinsdag 4 maart 2008 3:50
>>> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>>> Subject: Re: Early Inscribed Hero Stones in Tamil Nadu
>>>
>>> Interesting discovery. George Hart's comments on early literacy in
>>> Tamil
>>> seem to accord well with those of I. Mahadevan in his Early Tamil
>>> Epigraphy (2003), pp. 160-1.
>>>
>>> Richard Salomon
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "George Hart" <glhart at BERKELEY.EDU>
>>> To: <INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk>
>>> Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 6:38 PM
>>> Subject: Early Inscribed Hero Stones in Tamil Nadu
>>>
>>>
>>>> Recently, 4 inscribed hero stones (naTu kal) have been unearthed in
>>> Tamil
>>>> Nadu.  The writing on them, in Tamil Brahmi script, can be
>>> conclusively
>>>> dated to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE.  They show that even  at this
>>> early
>>>> date, literacy was common in Tamil Nadu and was not  confined to a
>>> small
>>>> elite group -- hero stones were most often erected  to men who
>>>> died in
>>>
>>>> cattle raids (such inscribed stones are mentioned  several times in
>>> Sangam
>>>> literature).  The language is pure Tamil;  there are no Prakrit or
>>>> Sanskrit words.  Archeological evidence shows  extensive trade and
>>>> connections with North India during this period,  and it is not
>>> surprising
>>>> that the Brahmi writing system made its way  down the coast
>>>> (probably
>>>> through traders) and was adopted in Tamil  Nadu in about the the  
>>>> 3rd
>>>> century BCE.  The Sangam poems can be dated  to the first two or
>>>> three
>>>
>>>> centuries CE on much evidence -- linguistic,  historical,
>>>> paleographic
>>>
>>>> (inscriptions found with the name of the  Sangam king Atiyamaan),
>>>> etc.
>>> It
>>>> makes perfect sense that this great  literature was written about 3
>>>> centuries after writing was adopted and  literacy became fairly
>>>> widespread.  A similar thing happened in Greek  5 centuries  
>>>> earlier.
>>>>
>>>> The finds have been written up by Prof. K. Rajan, Dept. of History,
>>>> Pondicherry University: "The Earliest hero Stones of India" in
>>>> International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics (vol.36 no.1 Jan.
>>>> 2007,
>>>
>>>> pp.51-57) and "Thathappatti:Tamil-Brahmi Inscribed Hero Stone in  
>>>> Man
>>> and
>>>> Environment" (vol.32, no.1, 2007, pp.39-45.)
>>>>
>>>