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Persian-Tamil inscription from āmbūr Fort

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Iravatham Mahadevan
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Extract

I read with interest the brief report on the Persian–Tamil inscription on a stone tablet recording the reconstruction of the Āmbūr Fort in Tamilnadu, and now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum (BSOAS, XLIX, 3, 1986, 553–7). As a Tamil epigraphist, I was particularly interested in the Tamil text edited by J. R. Marr (ibid., 553, n. 3). Unfortunately, he has misread two words (each occurring twice), made wrong segmentations of two other words and omitted the last word in the text. These happen to be crucial words and consequently his translation has suffered. The Tamil characters of the epigraph are almost modern and they can be made out quite clearly from the excellent reproduction (ibid., pi. I). Without more ado, I proceed to furnish a revised transliteration and translation of the Tamil record with brief notes on some of the interesting expressions occurring in it.

Type
Notes and Communications
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , October 1988 , pp. 540 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1988

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References

Notes

1. Personal names: There are three pairs of personal names in the text. In accordance with the Tamil convention, we have to regard the first name in each pair as that of the father and the following one as that of the son.

2. Occupations: kal tacca, ‘stone mason’ and oṭṭa (< Te.oḍḍa), ‘stone or quarry worker’ are prefixed to personal names to indicate occupations. Oḍḍar are Telugu-speaking migrants into the Tamil country from UỐra (Orissa).

3. Caste names: Pōyan (< Te. Bōya) is a member of a Telugu-speaking caste in Tamilnadu traditionally engaged in quarrying and dressing of stones and digging of wells. Cērvaikāṟaṉ (more correctly, Cērvaikkāraṉ) is a Tamil caste name. In the present context the meaning ‘army commander’ (recorded in the Tamil lexicon) also seems apt.

4. Place names: Kāmāṭṭicaṟu (more correctly,-ceṟu) is a place name. Cent is literally a ‘tank, field or enclosure’ and is used as a suffix to place names. Tuṟkkam (< Skt. durgam) means ‘fort’.