TAMIZHI - The untold story | Ashokan Brahmi | PHASE - 1

To reach out to people all over humans came up with scripts

(letters) . Humans came up with, so many modes of communication so far but over thousands of years an important and inseparable mode of communication in human lives still remember to be script . Today we use tamizh script to read and write tamizh language where did this tamzhi script originate from ? And during which era would have it originated ? Have this questions ever across our minds ? In pursuit of answer to these question . To prove the history of tamizh people with evidence . But this journey into the tamil script starts and ends not from the land of modern days of tamizh nadu . It comes as surprise .

Girnar , Gujarat

A mountain range said to be even older than the Himalayas. It is an important place of pilgrimage for the Jain's and the Hindus . A mountain range that has lot of treasures and ancients stories hidden inside it . Along with those there exists a big rock at its base which consists of an inscription with peculiar writing on it . People who lived in these part centuries ago were surprised to see these peculiar writing on this inscription with these writing many such inscription with these kinds of writing all over them were not just in girnar but also in Andhra , Karnataka , Odisha , Bangladesh in fact , it was also found in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan .

Inscription

Unable to read or understand these readings people believed that someone hidden a treasure in these mountains and left the information in the form of these writings . So that no one can decipher it .Do these writing indeed lead to hidden treasures? If so , who wrote them ? And during which era was it written ? Did anyone make an attempt to decipher them ? Many of them attempted to decipher those writing . Muhammad Bin Tughluq was the first one to attempt to read those readings . He took the help of pundits from all over and asked them to decipher it for him . But no one succeed pundits who lived during the era of Muhammad Bin Tughluq in the 13th century AD couldn't decipher those writings . The effort to decipher those writings continued for centuries .

Muhammad Bin Tughluq

Britishers who came to India in the 17th century were very keen and interested in India's languages , history and culture . That was because the Britishers wanted to capture and rule over India . They wanted the Indians to accept their administrations . So they were very keen on Indian languages , philosophies , religions and scripts and also they discovered a lot . They knew these discovered a lot . They knew these discovered will help them set base for an administration here . Therefore they discovered many inscriptions . At the time in the year 1784 under the leadership of William Jones , an administration set in Calcutta called the Asiatic society they allotted funds in order to dig deep into the history of east Asians countries . They took the research on these script to the net level .

James Prinsep

During the time James Prinsep was appointed as the treasury officer here . He got the opportunity to examine the local coins and bills . He was also keen on learning the culture of our country . So , he took a special interest on deciphering the writings on these inscription found had sanskrit written . But when Prinsep did a research on these inscription found had Sanskrit written . But when prinsep did a research on this inscription , he saw some conjunct consonants (மெய் எழுத்துக்கள் ) like features on these writings . Since conjunct consonants aren't a part of sanskrit languages older than sanskrit .

Inscriptions-with conjunct consonants(மெய் எழுத்துக்கள்)

These writings on the rock that must be over 15oo years old so, what is the languages that could be one of the most ancient languages of India ? When Prinsep and other scholars like him us seriously looking to find this out . Christian Lassen was trying to decipher the same using archaeological artifacts .

Christian Lassen

Orientalist professor ,

University of Bonn

1826-1864

Billingual coin

That when he found something what would help in deciphering the complete history of India Billingual coin ! He found a bilingual coin with both side inscribed but in two different scripts . One side of the coin had writing in Greek script . Based on the phonetic sound the Greek words made Lasser tried to decipher the unrecognized script by comparing them using Greek script Lasser by comparing them using them using Greek script Lasser deciphered the unrecognized script to read "AGATHOKLEOYS " . He recorded his finding in a letter and send it over to Prinsep read it and he carried out a reach on the billingual coins like lassen did prinsep deciphered many more words and then compared them with the writings in the inscription and thus , he deciphered the entire inscription . He compared them one by one and he said these writing are in Brahmi script . He also called as Parakritam .

Brahmi script

Until then , the most ancient language of India was believed to be sanskrit . The experts who believed so where surprised by this news . Many experts consider sanskrit to be the oldest script . But sanskrit script came into existence in India , only during the 1st century AD so , the language that existed before that was called prakritam and especially megadha dialect . So it was only in the 1st century AD sanskrit was established in India script and languages . So Prinsep found that the languages in the inscription as Parakritam but why did he address the script as Brahmi ? Did the people from the period also address that script as brahmi ? Why brahmi ? We have no idea what the people during the period addressed this script as . It was Prinsep who addressed it as brahmi for the first time . We got know about life of Indian scripts from the book Samavayanga Suddha which was written in the 1st century BC . That book contains a list that talks about 18 scripts . One of this called as Brahami .

Lalithauistram - book now a days it's translate in English and also various languages

A Buddhist book called Lalithauistram written in 1st century AD contains a list of scripts from ancient India . It list a script named Brahmi as the first one . And thus it is believed that prinsep address this script as Brahmi after prinsep found the way to decipher brahmi script information from many inscriptions in India were deciphered . So what the people believed for centuries become true indeed there was a hidden treasure in these mountain ranges .

YES A treasure - HISTORY !!!

It was discovered that these inscription were sculpted by king Ashoka and his during reign they converted into Buddhism and in order to spread across Buddha all over , he had sculpted these inscriptions not just India but such inspection from all over south east Asian countries gives us the idea about the kingdom of king Ashoka ruled ? When did he got these rocks sculpted ? Answer to these questions lie in this inscription itself . So, the writing on the inscription 13th of king Ashoka .

king Ashoka

Ashoker had mentioned about the rulers from other regions one of them he mentioned was the Greek ruler , Antiochus , Greek History clearly mentions the 3rd century BC since, king Ashoka had mentioned Antiochus as his contemporary the experts predicated the king Ashoka must also have lives during the 3rd century BC . The History of north India after reading the brahmi writings in king Ashoka's inscriptions was found to be dated back to 2300 years . But what's the history of the tamizh land in south that was outside Ashoka's kingdom ? Inscription carrying scripts similar Ashoka's , brahmi were found Madurai in the year 1886 by Robert Seveell . Through many such inscription were found in the land of tamizh it wasn't detailed as that of Ashoka instead they were simpler . Then who sculpted those sculpted these inscription 2300 years ago in tamizh nadu .

In which languages has it been sculpted ? did the people who lived in this land 2300 years ago speak tamizh ?? What is written on these inscription ? Could it be something related to religions and philosophies like those in North India ? If so then what religious existed 2300 years ago in this land ? Did the king Ashoka rule over hear ? What are the facts about ancient land of tamizh that will emerge from there inscriptions ?

So come ,

let's continue this journey ......

Tamizhi!!!