Why Old Brahmi inscriptions of Tamil lands are not a proof for Sangam literature This is Arattamalai(pugalur) inscription 1.mutā amaṇaṉ yāṟṟūr ceṅkāyapaṉ uṟaiy 2. kō ātaṉ cel irumpoṟai makaṉ 3. peruṅkaṭuṅkōṉ makaṉ iḷaṅ 4. kaṭuṅkō iḷaṅkō āka aṟutta kal This is the Brahmi into English lipi I wrote this reply to my Tamil friend And explained my logic and reasoning So what is new here?! It was there inscribed on the rocks by Jains who brought the Brahmi script to South Kannada and Tamil region came under Jain influence Jains were like Christians, they used local language for propagation, so early tamil inscriptions are found but they are not developed like Naneghat or Junagadh or any Sanskrit/ prakrit inscriptions of same time period (I asked you @Thought_Wander, to show one such matching inscription of scale and size in poetic metre in Tamil, you didn’t answer with matching complex sophisticated inscriptions of same time ! Because Tamil at that time had only oral traditions / folklore and Jains brought the script tried to write Tamil and needed few changes for the Tamil phonemes so they changed those letters a little and wrote these inscriptions which gives basic info of the Jain donations for their monasteries ! So why even this rudimentary inscriptions are not found in Andhra Telugu lands?! Andhra had the highest viharas( Bihar got its name based on Vihars, but Andhra has more Buddhist Vihars than Bihar) It was the propaganda base for Buddhism, Nagarjuna Konda is the epicentre of Buddhism spread to Southeast Asia and Lanka, please read Buddhism in Andhra But Buddhism was like Islam( Arabic) Buddhists used their Magadha Prakrit (Pali) thats why the Andhra lands which was heavily influenced by Buddhism did not use Telugu but Prakrit brahmi to write ! The oral traditions of Telugu people were recorded too but in Prakrit, Hala’s Gaha Sattasai ( it’s ditto Aga naanooru) but written in Prakrit! It is dated 1st century but it maybe later work as per Tieken (read Kavya of South India by Herman Tieken) So I firmly believe, the dating of sangam should be 7-9th CE when we get the proper Tamil Inscription with long sentences (Thiruvallarai etc) Before that it was orally available maybe even thousand years before common era and the Banar kula mendicants carried those songs orally for long time! few Prakrit- Tamil inscriptions doesn’t prove Sangam was there at that time! It was later composed including this info on the walls and all this were made into Anthology, composed new poems too in archaic style by dedicated expert poets in later Pandya court! Kannada Tamil and Telugu all have their own lipi Inscriptions within few decades so no big difference The architectural structures matching Tamil antiquity claim is not yet found! In fact andhra had sophisticated building structures (ex. Amaravati stupa) which needs much more technology science complex society to execute such structures, so writing poem was not that difficult but they were done in prakrit not in Telugu reason as I said earlier! So own language own lipi, long inscriptions, continuity in literature matching with other similar background cultures adjacent to Tamil who had regular touch all support, 7-9th century for sangam within a century Bhakti and Kambar.. Or else why there is a 1000 year gap between Sangam and Bhakti, Kambar? How logical is it to say, Tamils after having sangam in early 200 BC slept and woke up only after 800 CE! I can list so many such inconsistencies That’s why I ask you to read Herman and answer him bro