Orthographical evidence against Tamil-Brahmi deriving from Ashokan-Brahmi
Turning this discussion into a post as requested.
The old simplified narrative that Tamil-brahmi emerged after the time of Ashoka Maurya's reign (268 BCE to 232 BCE), mediated by Shravanabelagola Jain monks is increasingly coming under question with the recent archaeological discoveries from the early 2000s.
Now we know that the vast majority of Tamil-brahmi occurs on personal pots and its a common occurrence across archeological sites in TN, which itself is a unique phenomena that does not occur in North India, where most early inscriptions are official declarations like that of Ashoka.
Even if we set aside this broader context, one finds the old thesis that Tamil-Brahmi came from Ashokan Brahmi to be untenable due to the way Tamil-Brahmi has developed.
Conjoined Consonants vs Pulli (dot markers)
Take how Tamil-Brahmi and Ashokan brahmi represent pure consonants. Ashokan Brahmi uses conjointed consonants while early Tamil Brahmi simply does not differentiate them. Its only in later Tamil-Brahmi where a pulli (dot) marker is adopted to clearly distinguish them.
Examples
- Ashoka's Girnar Inscription:
Notice how the 3rd letter from the left is "Sva", and S has no vowel .They show it by conjuncating S with the next letter va, to get Sva. This is the system still used by Devanagari today.
- Madurai Tamil-Brahmi inscription
Tha-n-thai (lit. father), is written as Thaa-na-thai. Notice how the n is unconjugated with thai.
If Tamil-Brahmi descended from Ashokan brahmi why would it have dropped the functioning system in Ashokan brahmi adding ambiguity to readings, only to reinnovate dots much later? Its more logical to assume that both evolved out of an older form of brahmi that didnt have a way to denote pure consonants, just like early Tamil Brahmi.
This is all very contrary to the Ashokan-brahmi system, which almost pops out fully formed as opposed to the step-by-step development of Tamil-brahmi in the archeological record:
Indeed, in early Tamil-brahmi letters did not have an inherent "a" vowel, unlike with the purely abugida Indic script systems we have today. It also used vowel letters to lengthen long voweled consonant-vowel characters, like maa with ma + a, like with the last letter above. This might imply that it is from a transitional period from an abjad-like system to an abugida one, perhaps a lingering relic from the scripts Phoenician or Semitic ancestor.
Sidenote:
Such anomalies can also be spotted in the Bhattiprolu Buddhist relic casket inscriptions.
Back in 1998, Richard Salomon assumes that the script used in the Bhattiprolu inscriptions must have come from Ashokan-brahmi but for some reason it must have dropped in inherent vowel. This of course makes little sense, given the wider context with Tamil-brahmi.
Whats more likely, is that Tamil-Brahmi, Bhattiprolu script and Ashokan-Brahmi represent branches that descended from from a common ancestor that lacked inherent vowels and did not distinguish pure consonants.
Posted Feb 28, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC