some years ago there was a discussion on this list concerning the habit to state the Kollam year number without the thousands in Malayalam manuscripts (not inscriptions!). If I remember well, the topic was raised by Ken Zysk (I can’t access the list archive right now because of a "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded” error).
My question is: do some of you know about any publication dealing with (or just referring to) this usage in any South Indian manuscript traditions (not only Malayalam)?