MADURAI: A stone inscription with Grantha script and a sculpture, which is presumed to be over 500 years old, have been discovered near Karuvelampatti in Thiruparankundram union in Madurai district.
A team of archaeologists from the Pandianadu Panpattu Maiyam, including professor T Muneeswaran and professors Lakshmana Moorthy and Aswathaman, had inspected a two-foot-wide and four-foot-long rock on an agriculture land in Karuvelampatti. They got the information from a local man called Surya Prakash. On close inspection, they found that the rock had the 500-year-old Grantha script inscribed on it in four lines. This script is found particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and is said to have originated from the Pallava script. Modern Malayalam is said to be a direct descendant of this script.
The script begins with the line which says son of Gopalakrishnan and ends with the word ‘Thammam’. Muneeswaran said that the word ‘Thammam’ may refer to a donation. They were not able to decipher the other lines which looked weathered, he said.
A relief sculpture, in which the sculpted elements are seen attached to their background is also seen on the rock. The sculpture is 2ft in width and 3ft in length. There is a sculpture of a man with ornaments on his ears and neck. The female figure has a slanted hair bun (kondai) with long bangles on the hand. Faces of both the sculptures have been damaged and features are not visible.
Renowned epigraphist C Santhalingam helped them decipher the inscription, which dates back to the 16th century AD.
