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168-730: Tamil-Brahmi , also known as Tamili or Damili , was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in Old Tamil . The Tamil-Brahmi script has been paleographically and stratigraphically dated between the third century BCE and the first century CE, and it constitutes the earliest known writing system evidenced in many parts of Tamil Nadu , Kerala , Andhra Pradesh and Sri Lanka . Tamil Brahmi inscriptions have been found on cave entrances, stone beds, potsherds , jar burials , coins , seals, and rings . Tamil Brahmi resembles but differs in several minor ways from

336-519: A "linguistic cohesiveness well before 5th–4th century BCE". According to Falk these supposed inscriptions are not Brahmi letters, but misinterpreted non-linguistic Megalithic graffiti symbols , which were used in South India during the pre-literate era. The origins and chronology of Tamil Brahmi are unclear. Several hypotheses have been proposed, with the views of epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan being generally accepted. According to Mahadevan,

504-457: A "very old culture of writing" along with its oral tradition of composing and transmitting knowledge, because the Vedic literature is too vast, consistent and complex to have been entirely created, memorized, accurately preserved and spread without a written system. Opinions on this point, the possibility that there may not have been any writing scripts including Brahmi during the Vedic age, given

672-764: A Phoenician prototype". Discoveries made since Bühler's proposal, such as of six Mauryan inscriptions in Aramaic, suggest Bühler's proposal about Phoenician as weak. It is more likely that Aramaic, which was virtually certainly the prototype for Kharoṣṭhī, also may have been the basis for Brahmi. However, it is unclear why the ancient Indians would have developed two very different scripts. According to Bühler, Brahmi added symbols for certain sounds not found in Semitic languages, and either deleted or repurposed symbols for Aramaic sounds not found in Prakrit. For example, Aramaic lacks

840-452: A connection without knowing the phonetic values of the Indus script, though he found apparent similarities in patterns of compounding and diacritical modification to be "intriguing". However, he felt that it was premature to explain and evaluate them due to the large chronological gap between the scripts and the thus far indecipherable nature of the Indus script. The main obstacle to this idea

1008-492: A corresponding emphatic stop, p , Brahmi seems to have doubled up for the corresponding aspirate: Brahmi p and ph are graphically very similar, as if taken from the same source in Aramaic p . Bühler saw a systematic derivational principle for the other aspirates ch , jh , ph , bh , and dh , which involved adding a curve or upward hook to the right side of the character (which has been speculated to derive from h , [REDACTED] ), while d and ṭ (not to be confused with

1176-708: A crescent approximately along the borders of Tamil Nadu with northern Kerala and Karnataka, encompassing the Palakkad and Wayanad hills and the Sathyamangalam ranges, extending to the relatively low-lying hills of the Eastern Ghats on the western portion of the Tamil Nadu–Andhra Pradesh border, forming the Tirupati and Annamalai hills . The Deccan plateau is the elevated region bound by

1344-613: A few loan words of north Indian languages written in northern Brahmi with those in Tamil Brahmi is neither abnormal nor exception in the epigraphical evidence discovered in Tamil Nadu. This trend continued in centuries that followed where Tamils inscribed Sanskrit words in the Grantha script . According to Vimala Begley, the recent sherds graffiti discoveries in archaeological sites along the coast of Tamil Nadu such as Arikamedu are

1512-501: A higher HDI as the economy has undergone growth at a faster rate than in most northern states. As of 2011, Literacy rates in the southern states is higher than the national average at approximately 76%. The fertility rate in South India is 1.9, the lowest of all regions in India. "South India" is also known as "Peninsular India" indicating its location in a peninsula surrounded by water on three sides. The term "Deccan", referring to

1680-540: A higher per capita income and lower debt-to-GDP ratio than the national average. According to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network , Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad are amongst the most integrated with the global economy with Bengaluru classified as an alpha- city , Chennai as beta and Hyderabad as beta-. Agriculture is the primary occupation in South India with nearly 5.31 crore people engaged in agriculture and allied activities in 2021. Rice

1848-475: A late date for Kharoṣṭhī. The stronger argument for this position is that we have no specimen of the script before the time of Ashoka, nor any direct evidence of intermediate stages in its development; but of course this does not mean that such earlier forms did not exist, only that, if they did exist, they have not survived, presumably because they were not employed for monumental purposes before Ashoka". Unlike Bühler, Falk does not provide details of which and how

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2016-476: A local rail transit system. As of December 2022, South India has 205.06 km of operational metro lines and 16 systems. In 1915, Tata Sons started a regular airmail service between Karachi and Madras marking the beginning of air transportation in the southern part of India. In March 1930, a discussion initiated by pilot G. Vlasto led to the founding of the Madras Flying Club , which became

2184-571: A long coastline. A total of 67 ports are situated in South India: Tamil Nadu (18), Kerala (14), Andhra Pradesh (13), Karanataka (11), Lakshadweep (10) and Pondicherry (1). Major ports include Visakhapatnam , Chennai , Mangalore , Tuticorin , Ennore and Kochi . The Kerala backwaters are a network of interconnected canals, rivers, lakes, and inlets, a labyrinthine system formed by more than 900 km of waterways. The Eastern Naval Command and Southern Naval Command of

2352-935: A major party in Telangana, Karnataka, and Kerala. The party ruled with minimal opposition for 30 years in Andhra Pradesh, before the formation of the Telugu Desam Party by Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao in 1982. Two prominent coalitions in Kerala are the United Democratic Front , led by the Indian National Congress, and the Left Democratic Front , led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) . For

2520-548: A misunderstanding that the Mauryans were illiterate "based upon the fact that Megasthenes rightly observed that the laws were unwritten and that oral tradition played such an important part in India." Some proponents of the indigenous origin theories question the reliability and interpretation of comments made by Megasthenes (as quoted by Strabo in the Geographica XV.i.53). For one, the observation may only apply in

2688-514: A mix of Tamil Brahmi, northern Brahmi and Ceylon-Brahmi scripts, and they inscribe both Tamil and Prakrit languages of India. This likely suggests that ancient Tamil Nadu served as one of the important trade staging regions for the Indian subcontinent and beyond. A. C. Burnell (1874), attempted the earliest work on South Indian paleography, but it was due to the efforts of K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyar (1924), H. Krishna Sastri and K. K. Pillay that it

2856-466: A mix of ancient Indian languages – mostly in early Tamil in Tamil Brahmi, and some in Prakrit languages in Brahmi. These are dated to about 300 to 200 BCE by archaeo-magnetic analysis. They suggest an economic vibrancy, trade and cultural exchange between ancient Tamil region and other parts of India. A similar mix of Tamil Brahmi and Brahmi script is found in shards, potsherds and rock inscriptions all along

3024-448: A particular individual or dynasty." According to Harry Falk, Rajan's claims are "particularly ill-informed". Some of the earliest supposed inscriptions are not Brahmi letters at all, but merely misinterpreted Megalithic graffiti symbols , which were used in South India for several centuries during the pre-literate era. The stirrups reportedly found with the shreds are suspicious. Falk considers these reports as "regional chauvinism" just like

3192-543: A pioneer in pilot training in South India. On 15 October 1932, Indian aviator J. R. D. Tata flew a Puss Moth aircraft carrying mail from Karachi to Juhu aerodrome , Bombay ; and the aircraft continued to Madras , piloted by Neville Vincent, a former Royal Air Force pilot and friend of Tata. There are 12 international airports , 2 customs airports , 15 domestic airports, 5 state owned/private airports and 15 air bases in South India. Bengaluru , Chennai , Hyderabad , and Kochi international airports are amongst

3360-437: A quarter century before Ashoka , noted "... and this among a people who have no written laws, who are ignorant even of writing, and regulate everything by memory." This has been variously and contentiously interpreted by many authors. Ludo Rocher almost entirely dismisses Megasthenes as unreliable, questioning the wording used by Megasthenes' informant and Megasthenes' interpretation of them. Timmer considers it to reflect

3528-429: A radiometric date of about 520–490 BCE, which state Rajan and Yatheeskumar implies that the inscriptions too are from the same period. Based on Carbon-14 dating by an American laboratory, Rajan suggests Tamil Brahmi had been invented by 490 BCE, and states, "it is almost clear now that Ashoka did not developed (sic) the Brahmi script. The origin or evolution of a script is a social process and it could not be associated with

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3696-598: A scholar of Brahmi and other ancient Indian scripts. First, states Falk, the Coningham team has admitted later that they did not use the carbon dating correction necessary for the Southern hemisphere and used the calibration curves for north Pakistan. Second, the Sri Lankan teams also erred when they deployed a "mathematical trick" whereby they conflated the contested date of lower strata that lacked inscribed shreds with

3864-574: A script for writing the Tamil language is found in the Jaina work Samavayanga Sutta and Pannavana Sutta where a script called Damili is mentioned as the seventeenth of eighteen Lipi (scripts) in use in India. Similarly, the tenth chapter of the Lalitavistara , named Lipisala samdarshana parivarta , lists Dravida-lipi and Dakshinya-lipi as two of sixty four scripts that Siddhartha (later

4032-422: A separate sovereign state. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 reorganized the states based on linguistic lines resulting in the creation of the new states of Andhra Pradesh , Karnataka , Kerala and Tamil Nadu . As a result of this act, Madras State retained its name with Kanyakumari district added to from Travancore-Cochin . The state was subsequently renamed Tamil Nadu in 1968. Andhra Pradesh

4200-408: A significant source for Brahmi. On this point particularly, Salomon disagrees with Falk, and after presenting evidence of very different methodology between Greek and Brahmi notation of vowel quantity, he states "it is doubtful whether Brahmi derived even the basic concept from a Greek prototype". Further, adds Salomon, in a "limited sense Brahmi can be said to be derived from Kharosthi, but in terms of

4368-470: A while before it died out in the third century. According to Salomon, evidence of the use of Kharoṣṭhī is found primarily in Buddhist records and those of Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian, and Kushana dynasty era. Justeson and Stephens proposed that this inherent vowel system in Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī developed by transmission of a Semitic abjad through the recitation of its letter values. The idea

4536-482: Is a later alteration that appeared as it diffused away from the Persian sphere of influence. Persian dipi itself is thought to be an Elamite loanword. Falk's 1993 book Schrift im Alten Indien is a study on writing in ancient India, and has a section on the origins of Brahmi. It features an extensive review of the literature up to that time. Falk sees the basic writing system of Brahmi as being derived from

4704-413: Is able to form a government. As per the 2011 census of India , the estimated population of South India was 252 million, around one fifth of the total population of the country. The region's total fertility rate (TFR) was less than the population replacement level of 2.1 for all states, with Kerala and Tamil Nadu having the lowest TFRs in India at 1.7. As a result, from 1981 to 2011 the proportion of

4872-471: Is about 60% of the country's total. As of 2019–20, the total gross domestic product of the region is ₹67 trillion (US$ 946 billion). Tamil Nadu has the second -highest GDP and is the second-most industrialised state in the country after Maharashtra . With the presence of two major ports, an international airport, and a converging road and rail networks, Chennai is referred to as the "Gateway of South India". South India contributes 30% of India's GDP with

5040-542: Is also not totally clear in the original Greek as the term " συντάξῃ " (source of the English word " syntax ") can be read as a generic "composition" or "arrangement", rather than a written composition in particular. Nearchus , a contemporary of Megasthenes , noted, a few decades prior, the use of cotton fabric for writing in Northern India. Indologists have variously speculated that this might have been Kharoṣṭhī or

5208-472: Is an abugida and uses a system of diacritical marks to associate vowels with consonant symbols. The writing system only went through relatively minor evolutionary changes from the Mauryan period (3rd century BCE) down to the early Gupta period (4th century CE), and it is thought that as late as the 4th century CE, a literate person could still read and understand Mauryan inscriptions. Sometime thereafter,

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5376-637: Is dated from the 3rd or 2nd century BCE to 1st century BCE. The later stage is dated from the 1st to 2nd century CE. The third stage is dated from the 2nd century CE to the 3rd or 4th century CE. According to Gift Siromony, the types of Tamil Brahmi writings do not follow a very clear chronology and can lead to confusion in dating. According to K. Rajan, the Ashokan Brahmi corresponds with the Stage II of Tamil Brahmi per Mahadevan’s classification. Hence according to him, Stage I may have to be reassessed from

5544-1045: Is home to one of the largest populations of endangered Bengal tigers and Indian elephants in India, being home to one-third of the tiger population and more than half of the elephant population, with 14 Project Tiger reserves and 11 Project Elephant reserves. Elephant populations are found in eight fragmented sites in the region: in northern Karnataka, along the Western Ghats, in Bhadra – Malnad , in Brahmagiri – Nilgiris – Eastern Ghats , in Nilambur – Silent Valley – Coimbatore , in Anamalai – Parambikulam , in Periyar – Srivilliputhur , and in Agasthyamalai Other threatened and endangered species found in

5712-528: Is mentioned in the ancient Indian texts of the three major Dharmic religions : Hinduism , Jainism , and Buddhism , as well as their Chinese translations . For example, the 10th chapter of the Lalitavistara Sūtra (c. 200–300 CE), titled the Lipisala samdarshana parivarta, lists 64 lipi (scripts), with the Brahmi script starting the list. The Lalitavistara Sūtra states that young Siddhartha,

5880-861: Is more ancient and gave rise to Tamil Brahmi and Ashokan Brahmi, rather it is "regional chauvinism", states Falk. The graffiti and Brahmi found at sites in Sri Lanka are related, but not considered to be examples of Tamil-Brahmi. Archaeological teams sponsored by the government of Tamil Nadu have also been actively unearthing sites and reporting their results in local media that they have found shreds and items with Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. Between 2011 and 2013, for example, Rajan and Yatheeskumar published their findings from excavations at Porunthal and Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu, where numerous graffiti and inscription fragments on archaeological pieces have been unearthed. The radiocarbon dates of paddy grains and charcoal samples found along with potsherds with inscriptions provided

6048-518: Is no evidence to support this conjecture. The chart below shows the close resemblance that Brahmi has with the first four letters of Semitic script, the first column representing the Phoenician alphabet . According to the Semitic hypothesis as laid out by Bühler in 1898, the oldest Brahmi inscriptions were derived from a Phoenician prototype. Salomon states Bühler's arguments are "weak historical, geographical, and chronological justifications for

6216-488: Is not consistent. It appears to have existed in three different versions between the 2nd century BCE and 3rd century CE. The third version, assumed to be the basis for early Tolkāppiyam , evolved into the modern Tamil script. The Bhattiprolu script is related to the Tamil-Brahmi, and is found in nine early inscriptions on stupa relic caskets discovered at Bhattiprolu ( Andhra Pradesh ). According to Richard Salomon,

6384-453: Is not suitable for agriculture. The southwest monsoon from June to September accounts for most of the rainfall in the region. The Arabian Sea branch of the southwest monsoon hits the Western Ghats along the coastal state of Kerala and moves northward along the Konkan coast , with precipitation on coastal areas west of the Western Ghats. The lofty Western Ghats prevent the winds from reaching

6552-510: Is spoken by about 1.5 million people in coastal Kerala and Karnataka; Konkani , an Indo-Aryan language, is spoken by around 0.8 million people in the Konkan coast (Canara) and Kerala; Kodava Takk is spoken by more than half a million people in Kodagu, Mysore, and Bangalore. English is also widely spoken in urban areas of South India. Deccani Urdu a regional dialect of Urdu is spoken by

6720-491: Is supported by some Western and Indian scholars and writers. The theory that there are similarities to the Indus script was suggested by early European scholars such as the archaeologist John Marshall and the Assyriologist Stephen Langdon . G. R. Hunter in his book The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its Connection with Other Scripts (1934) proposed a derivation of the Brahmi alphabets from

6888-474: Is that learners of the source alphabet recite the sounds by combining the consonant with an unmarked vowel, e.g. /kə/, /kʰə/, /gə/ , and in the process of borrowing into another language, these syllables are taken to be the sound values of the symbols. They also accepted the idea that Brahmi was based on a North Semitic model. Many scholars link the origin of Brahmi to Semitic script models, particularly Aramaic. The explanation of how this might have happened,

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7056-615: Is that there was an indigenous common source (proto-Vatteluttu) script from which both northern and southern Brahmi script emerged, which he respectively terms as Brahmi and Damili scripts. Richard Salomon favors the Mahadevan theory. According to Kamil Zvelebil's chronology proposal of 1973, the earliest Tamil Brahmi inscriptions such as the Netunceliyan rock inscriptions at the Mangulam site were derived from Ashokan Brahmi that

7224-545: Is the tropical monsoon climate characterized by moderate to high year-round temperatures and seasonally heavy rainfall above 2,000 mm (79 in) per year. The tropical climate is experienced in a strip of south-western lowlands abutting the Malabar Coast , the Western Ghats and the Lakshadweep islands. A tropical wet and dry climate , drier than areas with a tropical monsoon climate, prevails over most of

7392-646: Is the highest peak in South India. The Eastern Ghats run parallel to the Bay of Bengal along the eastern coast and the strip of land between them forms the Coromandel region. They are a discontinuous range of mountains, which have been eroded and quadrisected by the four major rivers of southern India, the Godavari , Mahanadi , Krishna , and Kaveri . Both mountain ranges meet at the Nilgiri mountains which run in

7560-479: Is the lack of evidence for writing during the millennium and a half between the collapse of the Indus Valley civilisation around 1500 BCE and the first widely accepted appearance of Brahmi in the 3rd or 4th centuries BCE. Iravathan Mahadevan makes the point that even if one takes the latest dates of 1500 BCE for the Indus script and earliest claimed dates of Brahmi around 500 BCE, a thousand years still separates

7728-473: Is the staple food and major crop in the region. South India is a major producer of spices with black pepper , cardamom , clove and nutmeg grown exclusively in the region. Some of the main crops cultivated in South India include sugarcane , chilli , banana , cotton , turmeric , millets and pulses. Other plantation crops include cashew , coffee , tea , rubber , betel , areca nut , coconut , bamboo and cocoa . The region accounts for 92% of

7896-460: Is used for both ā and short a in Tamil-Brahmi. This is unique to Tamil-Brahmi and Bhattiprolu among the early Indian scripts. Tamil-Brahmi does not, however, share the odd forms of letters such as gh in Bhattiprolu. This appears to be an adaptation to Dravidian phonotactics, where words commonly end in consonants, as opposed to Prakrit, where this never occurs. According to Mahadevan, in

8064-683: The 1937 elections to the Indian National Congress, and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari became the Chief Minister of the Madras Presidency. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Self-Respect Movement , spearheaded by Theagaroya Chetty and E. V. Ramaswamy (commonly known as Periyar), emerged in the Madras Presidency. In 1944, Periyar transformed the party into a social organisation, renaming the party Dravidar Kazhagam , and withdrew from electoral politics. The initial aim

8232-509: The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation , Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation , Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation , Telangana State Road Transport Corporation , Kerala State Road Transport Corporation , and Puducherry Road Transport Corporation . In 1832, the proposal to construct the first railway line in India at Madras was made. In 1835, a railway track

8400-619: The Kupgal petroglyphs of eastern Karnataka, at Stone Age sites. Hinduism is the major religion today in South India, with about 84% of the population adhering to it, which is often regarded as the oldest religion in the world, tracing its roots to prehistoric times in India. Its spiritual traditions include both the Shaivite and Vaishnavite branches of Hinduism, although Buddhist and Jain philosophies were influential several centuries earlier. Ayyavazhi has spread significantly across

8568-767: The Madras States Agency (composed of Travancore , Cochin , Jeypore , and a number of other minor princely states ). The region played a major role in the Indian independence movement . Of the 72 delegates who participated in the first session of the Indian National Congress at Bombay in December 1885, 22 hailed from South India. After Indian Independence in 1947, the region was organized into four states Madras State , Mysore State , Hyderabad State and Travancore-Cochin . Dravida Nadu

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8736-698: The Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations and expected to be achieved by 2015, Kerala and Tamil Nadu achieved the goals related to improvement of maternal health and of reducing infant mortality and child mortality by 2009. Languages of South India ( 2011 census ) The largest linguistic group in South India is the Dravidian family of languages , of approximately 73 languages. The major languages spoken include Telugu , Tamil , Kannada , and Malayalam . Tulu

8904-724: The Muslims . Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu, and konkani are listed among the 22 official languages of India . Tamil was the first language to be granted classical language status by the Government of India in 2004. Later Telugu (2008), Kannada (2008) and Malayalam (2013) were also declared as classical languages. These four languages combined have literary outputs larger than other literary languages of India. Religion in South India (2011) Evidence of prehistoric religion in South India comes from scattered Mesolithic rock paintings depicting dances and rituals, such as

9072-949: The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in the Nilgiri Hills , the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve in the Agastya Mala - Cardamom Hills and Gulf of Mannar coral reefs. The Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve covers an area of 10,500 km (4,100 sq mi) of ocean, islands and the adjoining coastline including coral reefs , salt marshes and mangroves. It is home to endangered aquatic species, including dolphins , dugongs , whales and sea cucumbers . Bird sanctuaries including Thattekad , Kadalundi , Vedanthangal , Ranganathittu , Kumarakom , Neelapattu , and Pulicat are home to numerous migratory and local birds. South India

9240-567: The Old Persian dipi , in turn derived from Sumerian dup . To describe his own Edicts, Ashoka used the word Lipī , now generally simply translated as "writing" or "inscription". It is thought the word "lipi", which is also orthographed "dipi" in the two Kharosthi -version of the rock edicts, comes from an Old Persian prototype dipî also meaning "inscription", which is used for example by Darius I in his Behistun inscription , suggesting borrowing and diffusion. Scharfe adds that

9408-747: The Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta , the Chalukyas of Badami , the Hoysalas of Belur , and the Kakatiyas of Orugallu ruled over the region from the 6th century BCE to the 14th century CE. In the 15th century, Vijayanagara empire was the last kingdom to conquer all of Southern India. After repeated invasions from the Sultanate of Delhi , the Vijayanagara empire fell in 1646 and the region

9576-1015: The Sangam period (c. 3rd century BCE to c. 4th century CE). The region was part of the ancient Silk Road connecting the East with the West . Several dynasties such as the Cheras of Karuvur , the Pandyas of Madurai , the Cholas of Thanjavur , the Zamorins of Kozhikode , the Satavahanas of Amaravati , the Pallavas of Kanchi , the Kadambas of Banavasi , the Western Gangas of Kolar ,

9744-410: The Sanskrit language, it is a feminine word meaning literally "of Brahma" or "the female energy of the Brahman ". In popular Hindu texts such as the Mahabharata , it appears in the sense of a goddess, particularly for Saraswati as the goddess of speech and elsewhere as "personified Shakti (energy) of Brahma , the god of Hindu scriptures Veda and creation". Later Chinese Buddhist account of

9912-407: The coffee and 85% of the natural rubber production in the country. Other major agricultural products include poultry and silk . Being a peninsular region, aquaculture is a major contributor to the economy. As of 2017–18, the region produced 53.68 lakh tonnes fish contributing to nearly 43% of total fish production in India. Like most of the Indian subcontinent, agriculture in the region

10080-551: The largest urban areas in the region. The majority of the people in South India speak at least one of the four major Dravidian languages : Telugu , Tamil , Kannada and Malayalam . During its history , a number of dynastic kingdoms ruled over parts of South India, and shaped the culture in those regions. Major dynasties that were established in South India include the Cheras , Cholas , Pandyas , Pallavas , Satavahanas , Chalukyas , Hoysalas , Rashtrakutas and Vijayanagara . European countries entered India through Kerala and

10248-664: The phonetic retroflex feature that appears among Prakrit dental stops, such as ḍ , and in Brahmi the symbols of the retroflex and non-retroflex consonants are graphically very similar, as if both had been derived from a single prototype. (See Tibetan alphabet for a similar later development.) Aramaic did not have Brahmi's aspirated consonants ( kh , th , etc.), whereas Brahmi did not have Aramaic's emphatic consonants ( q, ṭ, ṣ ), and it appears that these unneeded emphatic letters filled in for some of Brahmi's aspirates: Aramaic q for Brahmi kh, Aramaic ṭ (Θ) for Brahmi th ( ʘ ), etc. And just where Aramaic did not have

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10416-611: The union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry , occupying 19.31% of India's area (635,780 km or 245,480 sq mi) and 20% of India's population. It is bound by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. The geography of the region is diverse, with two mountain ranges, the Western and Eastern Ghats , bordering the plateau heartland. The Godavari , Krishna , Kaveri , Penna , Tungabhadra and Vaigai rivers are important non- perennial sources of water. Chennai , Bangalore , Hyderabad , Coimbatore and Kochi are

10584-400: The 10 busiest in the country. Chennai International Airport serves as the Southern Regional Headquarters of the Airports Authority of India , the Southern Region comprising the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, and the union territories of Puducherry and Lakshadweep. Four of the ten busiest airports in India are in South India. The region comes under

10752-414: The 1880s when Albert Étienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie , based on an observation by Gabriel Devéria , associated it with the Brahmi script, the first in a list of scripts mentioned in the Lalitavistara Sūtra . Thence the name was adopted in the influential work of Georg Bühler , albeit in the variant form "Brahma". The Gupta script of the 5th century is sometimes called "Late Brahmi". From

10920-443: The 1895 date of his opus on the subject, he could identify no fewer than five competing theories of the origin, one positing an indigenous origin and the others deriving it from various Semitic models. The most disputed point about the origin of the Brahmi script has long been whether it was a purely indigenous development or was borrowed or derived from scripts that originated outside India. Goyal (1979) noted that most proponents of

11088-417: The 1990s, pre-Ashokan dates have been proposed based on excavations and discoveries of graphite covered ancient remains in Sri Lanka. These include those found in Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, some of which have been dated to the 4th century BCE. The findings of Coningham et al based on the carbon dating of excavated potsherds led to the proposal that the Sri Lankan Brahmi developed before Ashokan era, at least by

11256-420: The 2011 census, the HDI in the southern states is high, and the economy has grown at a faster rate than those of most northern states. As per the 2011 census, the average literacy rate in South India is approximately 80%, considerably higher than the Indian national average of 74%, with Kerala having the highest literacy rate of 93.91%. South India has the highest sex ratio with Kerala and Tamil Nadu being

11424-430: The 22 North Semitic characters, though clearly, as Bühler himself recognized, some are more confident than others. He tended to place much weight on phonetic congruence as a guideline, for example connecting c [REDACTED] to tsade 𐤑 rather than kaph 𐤊, as preferred by many of his predecessors. One of the key problems with a Phoenician derivation is the lack of evidence for historical contact with Phoenicians in

11592-433: The 5th to 4th century BCE, from where it came to Tamil region evolving into the Tamil Brahmi, and thereafter spread across South Asia due to trade networks. Sri Lankan nationalists have used this and other fragments of Black-and-Red Ware and Red Ware with Brahmi characters to state that Brahmi was invented on the island and from there it migrated north into the Indian subcontinent. This theory has been criticized by Harry Falk –

11760-485: The 6th century CE also supports its creation to the god Brahma , though Monier Monier-Williams , Sylvain Lévi and others thought it was more likely to have been given the name because it was moulded by the Brahmins . South India South India , also known as Southern India or Peninsular India , is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh , Karnataka , Kerala , Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as

11928-428: The 6th century onward, the Brahmi script diversified into numerous local variants, grouped as the Brahmic family of scripts . Dozens of modern scripts used across South and South East Asia have descended from Brahmi, making it one of the world's most influential writing traditions. One survey found 198 scripts that ultimately derive from it. Among the inscriptions of Ashoka ( c.  3rd century BCE ) written in

12096-859: The Aramaic alphabet. Salomon regards the evidence from Greek sources to be inconclusive. Strabo himself notes this inconsistency regarding reports on the use of writing in India (XV.i.67). Kenneth Norman (2005) suggests that Brahmi was devised over a longer period of time predating Ashoka's rule: Support for this idea of pre-Ashokan development has been given very recently by the discovery of sherds at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka , inscribed with small numbers of characters which seem to be Brāhmī. These sherds have been dated, by both Carbon 14 and Thermo-luminescence dating , to pre-Ashokan times, perhaps as much as two centuries before Ashoka. However, these finds are controversial, see Tamil Brahmi § Conflicting theories about origin since 1990s . He also notes that

12264-557: The Aramaic script being the prototype for Brahmi has been the more preferred hypothesis because of its geographic proximity to the Indian subcontinent, and its influence likely arising because Aramaic was the bureaucratic language of the Achaemenid empire. However, this hypothesis does not explain the mystery of why two very different scripts, Kharoṣṭhī and Brahmi, developed from the same Aramaic. A possible explanation might be that Ashoka created an imperial script for his edicts, but there

12432-416: The Bhattiprolu script reflects innovations in a Dravidian language context, rather than Indo-Aryan languages. Both the Bhattiprolu and Tamil Brahmi share common modifications to represent Dravidian languages. The Bhattiprolu was likely a provincial offshoot of early southern Brahmi script, states Salomon. According to Iravatham Mahathevan there are three stages in the development of the script. The early stage

12600-486: The Brahmi did include numerals that are decimal place value, and constitute the earliest existing material examples of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system , now in use throughout the world. The underlying system of numeration, however, was older, as the earliest attested orally transmitted example dates to the middle of the 3rd century CE in a Sanskrit prose adaptation of a lost Greek work on astrology . The Brahmi script

12768-633: The Brahmi inscriptions found elsewhere on the Indian subcontinent such as the Edicts of Ashoka found in Andhra Pradesh . It adds diacritics to several letters for sounds not found in Prakrit , producing ṉ ṟ ṛ ḷ . Secondly, in many of the inscriptions the inherent vowel has been discarded: A consonant written without diacritics represents the consonant alone, whereas the Ashokan diacritic for long ā

12936-402: The Brahmi script a few numerals were found, which have come to be called the Brahmi numerals . The numerals are additive and multiplicative and, therefore, not place value ; it is not known if their underlying system of numeration has a connection to the Brahmi script. But in the second half of the 1st millennium CE, some inscriptions in India and Southeast Asia written in scripts derived from

13104-410: The Brahmi script from North India arrived via the southern inscriptions of Ashoka, and evolved into the Tamil Brahmi. This theory presupposes that the Brahmi script itself was either originated within the imperial courts of Mauryan kingdom or evolved from a more ancient foreign script and it was dispersed to South India and Sri Lanka after the 3rd century BCE. The alternate theory proposed by Nagaswamy

13272-462: The Brahmi script in both the graphic form and the structure has been extensive. It is also widely accepted that theories about the grammar of the Vedic language probably had a strong influence on this development. Some authors – both Western and Indian – suggest that Brahmi was borrowed or inspired by a Semitic script, invented in a short few years during the reign of Ashoka, and then used widely for Ashokan inscriptions. In contrast, some authors reject

13440-662: The Brahmi script with the Indus script , but they remain unproven, and particularly suffer from the fact that the Indus script is as yet undeciphered. The mainstream view is that Brahmi has an origin in Semitic scripts (usually Aramaic). This is accepted by the vast majority of script scholars since the publications by Albrecht Weber (1856) and Georg Bühler 's On the origin of the Indian Brahma alphabet (1895). Bühler's ideas have been particularly influential, though even by

13608-651: The Buddhist lists. While the contemporary Kharoṣṭhī script is widely accepted to be a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet , the genesis of the Brahmi script is less straightforward. Salomon reviewed existing theories in 1998, while Falk provided an overview in 1993. Early theories proposed a pictographic - acrophonic origin for the Brahmi script, on the model of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script. These ideas however have lost credence, as they are "purely imaginative and speculative". Similar ideas have tried to connect

13776-542: The Damili script in his publications. Artifacts such as inscribed potsherds , coins or others are found in Tamil Nadu archaeological sites have graffiti and inscriptions . The potsherds recovered from Kodumanal , for example, have markings that on the basis of stratigraphical analysis appear to be from the 4th century BCE. According to K. Rajan, the "large number of graffiti marks and subsequent Tamil Brahmi script" unearthed in Tamil Nadu and Kerala suggest that this region had

13944-472: The Deccan Plateau; hence, the leeward region (the region deprived of winds) receives very little rainfall. The Bay of Bengal branch of the southwest monsoon heads toward northeast India, picking up moisture from the Bay of Bengal. The Coramandel coast does not receive much rainfall from the southwest monsoon, due to the shape of the land. Tamil Nadu and southeast Andhra Pradesh receive rains from

14112-513: The Deccan were laid down in the massive Deccan Traps eruption, which occurred towards the end of the Cretaceous period, between 67 and 66 million years ago. Layer after layer was formed by the volcanic activity that lasted many years and when the volcanoes became extinct, they left a region of highlands with typically vast stretches of flat areas on top like a table. The plateau is watered by

14280-694: The Gautam Buddha) learnt as a child from his gurus in Vedic schools, a list that is found in both Indian Buddhist texts and its ancient Chinese translations. These relationship of early Tamil scripts to these lipi mentioned in Jaina and Buddhist literature relationship is unclear. The pre-1974 work of Mahadevan had established 76 rock inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi from about 21 sites in Tamil Nadu, which states Kamil Zvelebil "establish obvious correlations" with what has been found in early Tamil bardic poems. Nagaswamy treats Tamil-Brahmi script to be synonymous with

14448-426: The Government of India operates the railway system. Currently, operational metro systems are there in four cities Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi. Chennai Suburban founded in 1928 is one of the oldest and largest urban networks in the country. Opened in 1995, Chennai MRTS was the first elevated urban railway in India. Hyderabad MMTS was opened in 2003, becoming the second city in South India to have

14616-564: The Indian Navy are headquartered at Visakhapatnam and Kochi respectively. In the region, the Indian Navy has its major operational bases at Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Kochi, Karwar, and Kavaratti. Kochi Water Metro is the first water metro service in India launched in 2023. After independence, the economy of South India conformed to a socialist framework, with strict governmental control over private sector participation, foreign trade , and foreign direct investment . From 1960 to 1990,

14784-468: The Indus script, the match being considerably higher than that of Aramaic in his estimation. British archaeologist Raymond Allchin stated that there is a powerful argument against the idea that the Brahmi script has Semitic borrowing because the whole structure and conception is quite different. He at one time suggested that the origin may have been purely indigenous with the Indus script as its predecessor. However, Allchin and Erdosy later in 1995 expressed

14952-552: The Indus valley and adjacent areas in the third millennium B.C. The number of different signs suggest a syllabic script, but all attempts at decipherment have been unsuccessful so far. Attempts by some Indian scholars to connect this undeciphered script with the Indian scripts in vogue from the third century B.C. onward are total failures." Megasthenes , a Greek ambassador to the Mauryan court in Northeastern India only

15120-459: The Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts are "much greater than their similarities", and "the overall differences between the two render a direct linear development connection unlikely", states Richard Salomon. Virtually all authors accept that regardless of the origins, the differences between the Indian script and those proposed to have influenced it are significant. The degree of Indian development of

15288-531: The Kharoṣṭhī script, itself a derivative of Aramaic. At the time of his writing, the Ashoka edicts were the oldest confidently dateable examples of Brahmi, and he perceives in them "a clear development in language from a faulty linguistic style to a well honed one" over time, which he takes to indicate that the script had been recently developed. Falk deviates from the mainstream of opinion in seeing Greek as also being

15456-589: The Madras Presidency began in 1859 and the 80 miles (130 km) link from Trichinopoly to Negapatam and a link from Tirur to the Port of Beypore at Kozhikode on the Malabar Coast , which eventually got expanded into the Mangalore - Chennai line via Palakkad Gap were opened in 1861. The Carnatic Railway Company was founded in 1864 and opened a Madras– Arakkonam – Conjeevaram –Katpadi junction line in 1865. These two companies subsequently merged in 1874 to form

15624-686: The Madras State, the districts of Belgaum , Bijapur , North Canara and Dharwad from Bombay State , the Kannada-majority districts of Bidar , Raichur and Gulbarga from Hyderabad State and the province of Coorg . Mysore State was renamed as Karnataka in 1973. The Union Territory of Puducherry was created in 1954 comprising the previous French enclaves of Pondichéry , Karaikal , Yanam and Mahé . The Laccadive Islands which were divided between South Canara and Malabar districts of Madras State were united and organized into

15792-539: The Prakrit/Sanskrit word for writing itself, lipi is similar to the Old Persian word dipi , suggesting a probable borrowing. A few of the Ashoka edicts from the region nearest the Persian empire use dipi as the Prakrit word for writing, which appears as lipi elsewhere, and this geographic distribution has long been taken, at least back to Bühler's time, as an indication that the standard lipi form

15960-416: The Semitic emphatic ṭ ) were derived by back formation from dh and ṭh . The attached table lists the correspondences between Brahmi and North Semitic scripts. Bühler states that both Phoenician and Brahmi had three voiceless sibilants , but because the alphabetical ordering was lost, the correspondences among them are not clear. Bühler was able to suggest Brahmi derivatives corresponding to all of

16128-557: The Semitic hypothesis are similar to Gnanadesikan's trans-cultural diffusion view of the development of Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī, in which the idea of alphabetic sound representation was learned from the Aramaic-speaking Persians, but much of the writing system was a novel development tailored to the phonology of Prakrit. Further evidence cited in favor of Persian influence has been the Hultzsch proposal in 1925 that

16296-811: The South Indian Railway Company. In 1880, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway , established by the British , built a railway network radiating from Madras . In 1879, the Madras Railway constructed a line from Royapuram to Bangalore; and the Maharaja of Mysore established the Mysore State Railway to build an extension from Bangalore to Mysore . The Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway

16464-520: The South Indian economies experienced mixed economic growth. In the 1960s, Kerala achieved above-average growth while Andhra Pradesh's economy declined. Kerala experienced an economic decline in the 1970s while the economies of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh consistently exceeded national average growth rates, due to reform-oriented economic policies. As of March 2015, there are 109 operational Special Economic Zones in South India, which

16632-510: The Sri Lankan claims of their island being the origin of a Brahmi script from which the Tamil-Brahmi developed. Linguist David Shulman concurs that there are reasons to be skeptical of pre-Ashokan dates for Tamil-Brahmi, but recommends that one should keep an open mind. Tamil-Brahmi had notable peculiarities when compared to the Standard Brahmi. It had four different characters to represent Dravidian language phonemes not represented in

16800-520: The Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions found in rock caves of Tamil Nadu are related to Jainism . The Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are also found in secular context such as coins, potsherds and others. According to Zvelebil, its origins likely were with the Jains and the Buddhists, but it was soon understood and used by kings, chiefs, potters and other common people from a variety of backgrounds. This is evidenced by

16968-401: The Vedic hymns may well have been achieved orally, but that the development of Panini's grammar presupposes writing (consistent with a development of Indian writing in c. the 4th century BCE). Several divergent accounts of the origin of the name "Brahmi" (ब्राह्मी) appear in history. The term Brahmi (बाम्भी in original) appears in Indian texts in different contexts. According to the rules of

17136-546: The Western Ghats while tropical dry forests and scrub lands are common in the interior Deccan plateau. The southern Western Ghats have rain forests located at high altitudes called the South Western Ghats montane rain forests , and the Malabar Coast moist forests are found on the coastal plains. The Western Ghats is one of the eight hottest biodiversity hotspots in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Important ecological regions of South India are

17304-549: The ability to read the original Brahmi script was lost. The earliest (indisputably dated) and best-known Brahmi inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dating to 250–232 BCE. The decipherment of Brahmi became the focus of European scholarly attention in the early 19th-century during East India Company rule in India , in particular in the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta . Brahmi

17472-452: The actual forms of the characters, the differences between the two Indian scripts are much greater than the similarities". Falk also dated the origin of Kharoṣṭhī to no earlier than 325 BCE, based on a proposed connection to the Greek conquest. Salomon questions Falk's arguments as to the date of Kharoṣṭhī and writes that it is "speculative at best and hardly constitutes firm grounds for

17640-425: The appearance of the Brahmi and scripts up into the third century CE. These graffiti usually appear singly, though on occasion may be found in groups of two or three, and are thought to have been family, clan, or religious symbols. In 1935, C. L. Fábri proposed that symbols found on Mauryan punch-marked coins were remnants of the Indus script that had survived the collapse of the Indus civilization. Another form of

17808-586: The area covered by the Deccan Plateau that covers most of peninsular India excluding the coastal areas, is an anglicised form of the Prakrit word dakkhiṇa derived from the Sanskrit word dakshiṇa meaning south. Carnatic , derived from "Karnāḍ" or "Karunāḍ" meaning high country , has also been associated with South India. Carbon dating shows that ash mounds associated with Neolithic cultures in South India date back to 8000 BCE. Towards

17976-539: The beginning of 1000 BCE, iron technology spread through the region; however, there does not appear to be a fully developed Bronze Age preceding the Iron Age in South India. The region was in the middle of a trade route that extended from Muziris to Arikamedu linking the Mediterranean to East Asia . Trade with Phoenicians , Romans , Greeks , Arabs , Syrians , Jews , and Chinese began during

18144-568: The best evidence is that no script was used or ever known in India, aside from the Persian-dominated Northwest where Aramaic was used, before around 300 BCE because Indian tradition "at every occasion stresses the orality of the cultural and literary heritage", yet Scharfe in the same book admits that "a script has been discovered in the excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization that flourished in

18312-607: The coast of the Bay of Bengal, from Salihundam in northeast Andhra Pradesh to ancient near-coast settlements of Tamil Nadu such as those near Vaddamanu, Amaravati, Arikamedu, Kanchipuram, Vallam, Alagankulam and Korkai. Discoveries at Kodumanal near Coimbatore have unearthed potsherds with Tamil Brahmi inscriptions dated 300 to 200 BCE. These include names mostly in Tamil language (Kannan Atan, Pannan), as well as some in Sanskrit (Varuni, Visaki). According to Mahadevan, this admixture of

18480-547: The context of the kingdom of "Sandrakottos" (Chandragupta). Elsewhere in Strabo (Strab. XV.i.39), Megasthenes is said to have noted that it was a regular custom in India for the "philosopher" caste (presumably Brahmins) to submit "anything useful which they have committed to writing" to kings, but this detail does not appear in parallel extracts of Megasthenes found in Arrian and Diodorus Siculus . The implication of writing per se

18648-402: The decades immediately after the independence of India, the economies of South Indian states have, over the past three decades, registered growth higher than the national average. While South Indian states have improved in some of the socio-economic metrics, poverty continues to affect the region as it does the rest of the country, although it has considerably decreased over the years. Based on

18816-575: The depression between the Vindhya and Satpura ranges, which define the northern spur of the Deccan plateau . The low-lying coral islands of Lakshadweep are situated off the southwestern coast of India and the Andaman and Nicobar islands lie far off the eastern coast. The Palk Strait and the chain of low sandbars and islands known as Rama's Bridge separate the region from Sri Lanka , which lies off

18984-458: The earliest indigenous origin proponents, suggests that, in his time, the indigenous origin was a preference of British scholars in opposition to the "unknown Western" origin preferred by continental scholars. Cunningham in the seminal Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum of 1877 speculated that Brahmi characters were derived from, among other things, a pictographic principle based on the human body, but Bühler noted that, by 1891, Cunningham considered

19152-431: The earliest stages of the script the inherent vowel was either abandoned, as above, or the bare consonant was ambiguous as to whether it implied a short a or not. Later stages of Tamil Brahmi returned to the inherent vowel that was the norm in ancient India. According to Kamil Zvelebil , Tamil-Brahmi script was the parent script that ultimately evolved into the later Vatteluttu and Tamil scripts . An early mention of

19320-907: The east-flowing Godavari , Krishna , Kaveri , Penna , Tungabhadra , Vaigai rivers and their tributaries. Other prominent features include the Gulf of Mannar , the Palk Strait , which separates India from Sri Lanka; the Ten Degree Channel , which separates the Andamans from the Nicobar Islands; and the Eight Degree Channel, which separates the Laccadive and Amindivi Islands from the Minicoy Island to

19488-731: The end of the Vellore Mutiny in 1806, the British consolidated their power over much of present-day South India, with the exception of French Pondichéry . The British Empire took control of the region from the British East India Company in 1857. During the British colonial rule, the region was divided into the Madras Presidency (later, the Madras Province), Hyderabad State , Mysore , and

19656-635: The future Gautama Buddha (~500 BCE), mastered philology, Brahmi and other scripts from the Brahmin Lipikāra and Deva Vidyāsiṃha at a school. A list of eighteen ancient scripts is found in the early Jaina texts , such as the Paṇṇavaṇā Sūtra (2nd century BCE) and the Samavāyāṅga Sūtra (3rd century BCE). These Jain script lists include Brahmi at number 1 and Kharoṣṭhi at number 4, but also Javanaliya (probably Greek ) and others not found in

19824-415: The idea of an indigenous origin or connection to the much older and as yet undeciphered Indus script but the evidence is insufficient at best. Brahmi was at one time referred to in English as the "pin-man" script, likening the characters to stick figures . It was known by a variety of other names, including "lath", "Laṭ", "Southern Aśokan", "Indian Pali" or "Mauryan" ( Salomon 1998 , p. 17), until

19992-461: The idea of foreign influence. Bruce Trigger states that Brahmi likely emerged from the Aramaic script (with extensive local development), but there is no evidence of a direct common source. According to Trigger, Brahmi was in use before the Ashoka pillars, at least by the 4th or 5th century BCE in Sri Lanka and India, while Kharoṣṭhī was used only in northwest South Asia (eastern parts of modern Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan) for

20160-496: The indigenous origin theory is that Brahmi was invented ex nihilo , entirely independently from either Semitic models or the Indus script, though Salomon found these theories to be wholly speculative in nature. Pāṇini (6th to 4th century BCE) mentions lipi , the Indian word for writing scripts in his definitive work on Sanskrit grammar, the Ashtadhyayi . According to Scharfe, the words lipi and libi are borrowed from

20328-426: The indigenous view are fringe Indian scholars, whereas the theory of Semitic origin is held by "nearly all" Western scholars, and Salomon agrees with Goyal that there has been "nationalist bias" and "imperialist bias" on the two respective sides of the debate. In spite of this, the view of indigenous development had been prevalent among British scholars writing prior to Bühler: a passage by Alexander Cunningham , one of

20496-434: The inland peninsular region except for a semi-arid rain shadow east of the Western Ghats. Winter and early summer are long dry periods with temperatures averaging above 18 °C (64 °F); summer is exceedingly hot with temperatures in low-lying areas exceeding 50 °C (122 °F); and the rainy season lasts from June to September, with annual rainfall averaging between 750 and 1,500 mm (30 and 59 in) across

20664-455: The interaction between the Indic and the Semitic worlds before the rise of the Semitic scripts might imply a reverse process. However, the chronology thus presented and the notion of an unbroken tradition of literacy is opposed by a majority of academics who support an indigenous origin. Evidence for a continuity between Indus and Brahmi has also been seen in graphic similarities between Brahmi and

20832-417: The late Indus script, where the ten most common ligatures correspond with the form of one of the ten most common glyphs in Brahmi. There is also corresponding evidence of continuity in the use of numerals. Further support for this continuity comes from statistical analysis of the relationship carried out by Das. Salomon considered simple graphic similarities between characters to be insufficient evidence for

21000-412: The mountain ranges. The plateau rises to 100 metres (330 ft) in the north and to more than 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) in the south, forming a raised triangle within the downward-pointing triangle of the Indian subcontinent 's coastline. It also slopes gently from West to East resulting in major rivers arising in the Western Ghats and flowing east into the Bay of Bengal. The volcanic basalt beds of

21168-579: The names of ancient kings, heroes, and places. This has served as an important and a more reliable means to date Tamil literature and history from about the 3rd century BCE and thereafter. A significant archaeological source of Tamil Brahmi inscriptions has been the region between Palghat gap and Coimbatore along the Kaveri river and to its delta. The excavations here revealed nearly two hundred inscribed potsherds along with items relating to iron-smelting and jewelry manufacturing. These inscribed potsherds contain

21336-408: The national parties usually aligning as junior partners to the major Dravidian parties, AIADMK and DMK. Indian National Congress dominated the political scene in Tamil Nadu in the 1950s and 1960s under the leadership of K. Kamaraj , who led the party after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru and ensured the selection of Prime Ministers Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi . Congress continues to be

21504-515: The northeast monsoon. The northeast monsoon takes place from November to early March, when the surface high-pressure system is strongest. The North Indian Ocean tropical cyclones occur throughout the year in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, bringing devastating winds and heavy rainfall. There is a wide diversity of plants and animals in South India, resulting from its varied climates and geography. Deciduous forests are found along

21672-417: The opinion that there was as yet insufficient evidence to resolve the question. Today the indigenous origin hypothesis is more commonly promoted by non-specialists, such as the computer scientist Subhash Kak , the spiritual teachers David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein , and the social anthropologist Jack Goody . Subhash Kak disagrees with the proposed Semitic origins of the script, instead stating that

21840-460: The origins of the script uncertain. Most scholars believe that Brahmi was likely derived from or influenced by a Semitic script model, with Aramaic being a leading candidate. However, the issue is not settled due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhī, and Brahmi. Though Brahmi and the Kharoṣṭhī script share some general features, the differences between

22008-472: The particular Semitic script, and the chronology of the derivation have been the subject of much debate. Bühler followed Max Weber in connecting it particularly to Phoenician, and proposed an early 8th century BCE date for the borrowing. A link to the South Semitic scripts , a less prominent branch of the Semitic script family, has occasionally been proposed, but has not gained much acceptance. Finally,

22176-491: The past fifty years, these two coalitions have been alternately in power; and E. M. S. Namboodiripad , the first elected chief minister of Kerala in 1957, is credited as the leader of the first democratically elected communist government in the world. The Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal (Secular) are significant parties in Karnataka. C. Rajagopalachari, the first Indian Governor General of India post independence,

22344-505: The phonemic analysis of the Sanskrit language achieved by the Vedic scholars is much closer to the Brahmi script than the Greek alphabet". As of 2018, Harry Falk refined his view by affirming that Brahmi was developed from scratch in a rational way at the time of Ashoka , by consciously combining the advantages of the pre-existing Greek script and northern Kharosthi script. Greek-style letter types were selected for their "broad, upright and symmetrical form", and writing from left to right

22512-475: The population of South India to India's total population has declined. Scheduled Castes and Tribes form 18% of the population of the region. Agriculture is the major employer in the region, with 47.5% of the population being involved in agrarian activities. About 60% of the population lives in permanent housing structures. 67.8% of South India has access to tap water, with wells and springs being major sources of water supply. After experiencing fluctuations in

22680-549: The presumptive prototypes may have been mapped to the individual characters of Brahmi. Further, states Salomon, Falk accepts there are anomalies in phonetic value and diacritics in Brahmi script that are not found in the presumed Kharoṣṭhī script source. Falk attempts to explain these anomalies by reviving the Greek influence hypothesis, a hypothesis that had previously fallen out of favor. Hartmut Scharfe, in his 2002 review of Kharoṣṭī and Brāhmī scripts, concurs with Salomon's questioning of Falk's proposal, and states, "the pattern of

22848-767: The proposed time line. From the 5th century CE onwards Tamil is written in Vatteluttu in the Chera and Pandya country and Grantha or Tamil script in the Chola and Pallava country. Tamil Brahmi inscriptions in cave beds and coins have provided historians with identifying some kings and chiefs mentioned in the Sangam Tamil corpus as well as related Ashokan pillar inscriptions. The Tamil Brahmi script inscriptions are predominantly found with ancient Tamil Jaina and Buddhist sites, states Zvelebil. According to Ranjan, all

23016-747: The purview of the Southern Air Command of the Indian Air Force headquartered at Thiruvananthapuram . In addition, the National Training Command is headquartered at Bengaluru . The Air Force operates nine air bases in Southern India. In the region, the Indian Navy operates airbases at Kochi , Arakkonam , Uchipuli , Vizag and Chennai. The region is covered by water on three sides and has

23184-400: The quantity and quality of the Vedic literature, are divided. While Falk (1993) disagrees with Goody, while Walter Ong and John Hartley (2012) concur, not so much based on the difficulty of orally preserving the Vedic hymns, but on the basis that it is highly unlikely that Panini's grammar was composed. Johannes Bronkhorst (2002) takes the intermediate position that the oral transmission of

23352-408: The region include the grizzled giant squirrel , grey slender loris , sloth bear , Nilgiri tahr , Nilgiri langur , lion-tailed macaque , and the Indian leopard . Politics in South India is characterized by a mix of regional and national political parties. The Justice Party and Swaraj Party were the two major parties in the erstwhile Madras Presidency. The Justice Party eventually lost

23520-467: The region was colonized by Britain , Portugal and France . After experiencing fluctuations in the decades immediately after Indian independence , the economies of South Indian states have registered a sustained higher-than-national-average growth over the past three decades. South India has the largest combined largest gross domestic product compared to other regions in India. The South Indian states lead in some socio-economic metrics of India with

23688-848: The region. Once the dry northeast monsoon begins in September, most precipitation in India falls in Tamil Nadu, leaving other states comparatively dry. A hot semi-arid climate predominates in the land east of the Western Ghats and the Cardamom Hills . The region – which includes Karnataka, inland Tamil Nadu and western Andhra Pradesh – gets between 400 and 750 millimetres (15.7 and 29.5 in) of rainfall annually, with hot summers and dry winters with temperatures around 20–24 °C (68–75 °F). The months between March and May are hot and dry, with mean monthly temperatures hovering around 32 °C (90 °F), with 320 millimetres (13 in) precipitation. Without artificial irrigation, this region

23856-527: The relevant period. Bühler explained this by proposing that the initial borrowing of Brahmi characters dates back considerably earlier than the earliest known evidence, as far back as 800 BCE, contemporary with the Phoenician glyph forms that he mainly compared. Bühler cited a near-modern practice of writing Brahmic scripts informally without vowel diacritics as a possible continuation of this earlier abjad-like stage in development. The weakest forms of

24024-515: The south. Laccadive Sea is a smaller sea. There are coral reefs located in the Gulf of Mannar and Lakshadweep islands. Large lakes include Vembanad Lake and Pulicat Lake . The region has a tropical climate and depends on monsoons for rainfall. According to the Köppen climate classification , it has a non- arid climate with minimum mean temperatures of 18 °C (64 °F). The most humid

24192-642: The southeastern coast. The southernmost tip of mainland India is at Kanyakumari where the Indian Ocean meets the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghats runs south along the western coast from south of the Tapti River to Kanyakumari and forms a narrow strip of land with the Arabian sea called Konkan region. Anai Mudi in the Anaimalai Hills 2,695 m (8,842 ft)

24360-465: The southern parts of South India. Shaiva Siddhanta philosophy is prominent among many communities. Islam was introduced to South India in the early 7th century by Arab traders on the Malabar Coast, and spread during the rule of the Deccan Sultanates, from the 17th to 18th centuries. About 11% of the population In South India follow Islam . Muslims of Arab descent in Kerala are called Jonaka Mappila . About 4% follow Christianity . Christianity

24528-489: The standard northern-based Brahmi used to write Prakrit languages . The closest resemblance to Tamil-Brahmi is to its neighboring Sinhala-Brahmi. Both seem to use similar letters to indicate phonemes that are unique to Dravidian languages although Sinhala-Brahmi was used to write an Indo-Aryan Prakrit used in the island of Sri Lanka possibly from ongoing maritime relationship with Gujarat and other parts of India. The Tamil Brahmi script found in ancient Tamil inscriptions

24696-427: The state government. Each state or territory is further divided into districts , which are further subdivided into revenue divisions and taluk s / Mandal s or tehsil s. Local bodies govern respective cities, towns, and villages, along with an elected mayor , municipal chairman , or panchayat chairman , respectively. South India elects 132 members to the Lok Sabha , accounting for roughly one-fourth of

24864-432: The top two states. The South Indian states rank amongst the top 10 in economic freedom, life expectancy ., access to drinking water , house ownership , and TV ownership The poverty rate is at 19% while that in the other Indian states is at 38%. The per capita income is ₹ 19,531 (US$ 230), which is more than double of the other Indian states ( ₹ 8,951 (US$ 110)). Of the three demographically related targets of

25032-542: The total strength. The region is allocated 58 seats in the Rajya Sabha , out of the total of 245. The state legislatures of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry are unicameral , while Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana have bicameral legislatures. States with bicameral legislatures have an upper house ( Legislative Council ) with members not more than one-third the size of the Assembly. State legislatures elect members for terms of five years. Governors may suspend or dissolve assemblies and can administer when no party

25200-405: The two. Furthermore, there is no accepted decipherment of the Indus script, which makes theories based on claimed decipherments tenuous. A promising possible link between the Indus script and later writing traditions may be in the megalithic graffiti symbols of the South Indian megalithic culture, which may have some overlap with the Indus symbol inventory and persisted in use up at least through

25368-404: The union territories of Puducherry, and Lakshadweep. Puducherry and the five states each have an elected state government, while Lakshadweep is centrally administered by the president of India . Each state is headed by a Governor who is appointed by the President of India and who names the leader of the state legislature's ruling party or coalition as chief minister , who is the head of

25536-430: The union territory of Lakshadweep . Telangana was created on June 2, 2014, by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh and comprises ten districts in northwestern Andhra Pradesh. South India is a peninsula in the shape of an inverted triangle bound by Indian Ocean in the South, Arabian Sea in the west, by Bay of Bengal in the east and the Vindhya and Satpura ranges in the north. The Narmada river flows westwards in

25704-404: The upper strata where the shreds with Brahmi script were found. According to Falk, a critical study of the feature differences between Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) Brahmi, Tamil Brahmi and Ashokan Brahmi suggest that "all the differences can only be explained once the Ashokan script is taken as primary and the two others as derivations". It is not scholarship that is behind the claims that Ceylonese Brahmi

25872-682: The use of a fused Tamil and Prakrit languages in the secular inscriptions. According to Rajan, certain graffiti marks may imply that the script was used for funerary and other purposes. The language used in most of the religious inscriptions show Prakrit elements and influence. Cave and rock bed Tamil Brahmi inscriptions, as well as those found near Madurai , are typically donatory and dedicated resting places and resources for monks. Other major usages of Tamil Brahmi inscriptions are similar to those found in Andhra Pradesh, such as in coins and those that mention merchants and traders of gold, sugar, iron, salt and textiles. Some Tamil Brahmi inscriptions mention

26040-420: The variations seen in the Asokan edicts would be unlikely to have emerged so quickly if Brahmi had a single origin in the chancelleries of the Mauryan Empire. He suggests a date of not later than the end of the 4th century for the development of Brahmi script in the form represented in the inscriptions, with earlier possible antecedents. Jack Goody (1987) had similarly suggested that ancient India likely had

26208-403: Was a proposal for a separate sovereign state for the speakers of the Dravidian languages in South India. Initially, the demand of Dravida Nadu proponents was limited to Tamil -speaking regions, but it was later expanded to include other Indian states with a majority of Dravidian-speakers in the region. The States Reorganisation Act 1956, which created linguistic States, weakened the demand for

26376-406: Was also adopted for its convenience. On the other hand, the Kharosthi treatment of vowels was retained, with its inherent vowel "a", derived from Aramaic , and stroke additions to represent other vowel signs. In addition, a new system of combining consonants vertically to represent complex sounds was also developed. The possibility of an indigenous origin such as a connection to the Indus script

26544-427: Was constructed between Red Hills and Chintadripet in Madras and became operational in 1837. The Madras Railway was established in 1845. The Great Southern of India Railway Company was founded in England in 1853 and registered in 1859. The construction on the first main line in the South between Royapuram in Madras and Arcot started in 1853, which became operational on 1 July 1856. Construction of track in

26712-428: Was created on 1 April 2003. Most of the region is covered by the three zones, with small portions of the coasts covered by East Coast Railway and Konkan Railway . In 2019, a new South Coast Railway zone was announced but is yet to become operational as of 2023. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway of Southern Railway is a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Indian Railways under the ownership of the Ministry of Railways of

26880-447: Was created with the merger of Andhra State with the Telugu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State in 1956. Kerala was created with the merger of Malabar district and the Kasaragod taluk of South Canara districts of Madras State with Travancore-Cochin . Mysore State was re-organized with the addition of districts of Bellary and South Canara (excluding Kasaragod taluk) and the Kollegal taluk of Coimbatore district from

27048-484: Was deciphered by James Prinsep , the secretary of the Society, in a series of scholarly articles in the Society's journal in the 1830s. His breakthroughs built on the epigraphic work of Christian Lassen , Edwin Norris , H. H. Wilson and Alexander Cunningham , among others. The origin of the script is still much debated, with most scholars stating that Brahmi was derived from or at least influenced by one or more contemporary Semitic scripts . Some scholars favour

27216-419: Was founded on 1 January 1908 by merging the Madras Railway and the Southern Mahratta Railway . On 14 April 1951, the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway, and the Mysore State Railway were merged to form the Southern Railway , the first zone of Indian Railways . The South Central zone was created on 2 October 1966 as the ninth zone of Indian Railways and the South Western zone

27384-431: Was from South India. The region has produced six Indian presidents, namely, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , V. V. Giri , Neelam Sanjiva Reddy , R. Venkataraman , K. R. Narayanan , and APJ Abdul Kalam . Prime ministers P. V. Narasimha Rao and H. D. Deve Gowda were from the region. South India consists of the five southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, as well as

27552-741: Was introduced to South India by Thomas the Apostle , who visited Muziris in Kerala in 52 CE and proselytized natives, who are called Nazrani Mappila . Kerala is also home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, who are supposed to have arrived on the Malabar coast during the reign of King Solomon . The major metropolitan areas in south India are as follows: South India has an extensive road network with 20,573 km (12,783 mi) of National Highways and 46,813 km (29,088 mi) of State Highways . The Golden Quadrilateral connecting Chennai with Mumbai and Kolkata traverses Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Bus services are provided by state-run transport corporations, namely

27720-428: Was introduced to the Tamil region around 250 BCE. It was adapted for the Tamil language by 220 BCE and led to the standardization of the Tamil language and literary norms of Maturai between 200 and 50 BCE. These developments transformed the oral bardic Tamil literary culture to the written Sangam literature in the centuries that followed. The use of Tamil Brahmi continued through the 6th century CE, states Zvelebil. Since

27888-411: Was ruled by various Deccan Sultanates , polygars and Nayak governors of the erstwhile Vijayanagara empire who declared independence. The Europeans arrived in the 15th century; and by the middle of the 18th century, the French and the British were involved in a protracted struggle for military control over South India. After the defeat of Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799 and

28056-545: Was the secession of Dravida Nadu from the rest of India upon Indian independence. After independence, C. N. Annadurai , a follower of Periyar, formed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1948. The Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu led to the rise of Dravidian parties that formed Tamil Nadu's first government, in 1967. In 1972, a split in the DMK resulted in the formation of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) led by M. G. Ramachandran . Dravidian parties continue to dominate Tamil Nadu electoral politics,

28224-515: Was understood to be written in an early form of Tamil, not Prakrit. The early attempts assumed more Prakrit loan words than what was actually used, hence the decipherment was not entirely successful. Iravatham Mahadevan identified the writings as mostly consisting of Tamil words in the late 1960s and published them in seminars and proceedings. This was further expanded by T. V. Mahalingam (1967), R. Nagaswamy (1972), R. Panneerselvam (1972) and M. S. Venkataswamy (1981). Brahmi script Brahmi

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