| Grantha |
|
|---|---|
Grantha inscription at Bṛhadīśvara Temple, India |
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| Type | Abugida |
| Languages | Sanskrit, Manipravalam |
| Time period | 6th Century CE to 19th Century CE[1] |
| Parent systems |
Brahmi
|
| Child systems | Malayalam script, Sinhala script, Tulu Script |
| Sister systems | Vatteluttu |
| ISO 15924 | Gran, 343 |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols. | |
Grantha script (Tamil: கிரந்த ௭ழுத்து, Kiranta eḻuttu ?, Malayalam: ഗ്രന്ഥലിപി, Granthalipi ?, Sanskrit: ग्रन्थ लिपि, Grantha lipi ?) is an ancient script that was widely used between the 6th century and the 19th century CE to write classical Sanskrit and Manipravalam by Tamil speakers in Southern India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and is still in restricted use in traditional vedic schools (veda pāṭhaśālā).[1][2] It evolved from the ancient Brāhmī script and is therefore classified under the Brahmic family of scripts. The Ancient Pallava Variant has been used as far as South East Asia, giving rise to the various South-East Asian script [3]
Grantha, is developed from the Southern Variant of Brahmi in Tamil Nadu. South Asian Scripts such as Mon,[4] Lao,[5] Javanese,[6] Khmer[7] and Thai[1][2] are either direct or indirect derivations from the Pallava Variant of Grantha Script. Malayalam Script is a direct descendant of Grantha Script. Tulu Script and Sinhala Script were probably influenced by Grantha Script.
The rising popularity of the Devanagari script for Sanskrit, and the political pressure created by the Tanittamil Iyakkam[8] for its complete replacement by the modern Tamil script led to its gradual disuse and abandonment in Tamil Nadu in the early 20th century.
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In Sanskrit, grantha literally 'a knot'.[9] is a word that was used for books, and the script used to write them. This stems from the practice of binding inscribed palm leaves using a length of thread held by knots. Although Sanskrit is now mostly written in the Devanagari script, the Grantha script was widely used to write Sanskrit in the Tamil-speaking parts of South Asia until the 19th century. Scholars believe that the Grantha script was used when the Vedas were first put into writing around the 5th century CE.[10] In the early 20th century, it began to be replaced by the Devanagari script in religious and scholarly texts, and the normal Tamil script (with the use of diacritics) in popular texts.
The Grantha script was also historically used for writing Tamil–Sanskrit Manipravalam, a blend of Tamil and Sanskrit which was used in the exegesis of Sanskrit texts. This evolved into a fairly complex writing system which required that Tamil words be written in the Tamil vatteluthu and Sanskrit words be written in the Grantha script. By the 15th century, this had evolved to the point that both scripts would be used within the same word – if the root was derived from Sanskrit it would be written in the Grantha script, but any Tamil suffixes which were added to it would be written using the Tamil vatteluthu. This system of writing went out of use when Manipravalam declined in popularity, but it was customary to use the same convention in printed editions of texts originally written in Manipravalam until the middle of the 20th century.
In modern times, the Grantha script is used in certain religious contexts by orthodox Tamil-speaking Hindus. Most notably, they use the script to write a child's name for the first time during the nāmakaraṇa naming ceremony, and to write the Sanskrit portion of wedding invitations and announcements of a person's last rites. It is also used in many religious almanacs to print traditional formulaic summaries of the coming year.
Grantha script may be classified as follows[11]:
Archaic and Ornamental variety of Grantha constitute what is referred as Pallava Grantha. They were used by the Pallava in their Inscriptions. The Ornamental variety was too complex and ornate, hence this form could not have been possibly used in day to day writing and may have used only for Inscriptions. Mamallapuram Inscriptions, Tiruchirapalli Rock Cut Cave Inscriptions, Kailasantha Inscription come under this type.
The Tulu-Malayalam script is called Transitional Grantha. Currently two varieties are used: Brahmanic, or square, and Jain, or round. The Tulu-Malayalam script is a variety of Grantha dating from the 8th or 9th century AD. The modern Tamil script is also derived from Grantha.[1]
This type of Grantha was used by Cholas approximately from 650 CE to 950 CE. Inscription of later Pallavas and Pandiyan Nedunchezhiyan are also examples for this variety of Grantha Script.
Inscriptions of the Imperial Thanjavur Cholas are an example for Medieval Grantha. This variety was in Vogue from 950 CE to 1250 CE.
Grantha in the present form descended from later Pandyas and the Vijayanagara rulers. The Modern form of Grantha is very similar to the Modern Tamil Script.
A Unicode encoding for Grantha does not yet exist. The font used in the following tables is e-Grantamil taken from INDOLIPI.
The below glyps denote the late form of Grantha Script, which can be noticed by its similarity with the Modern Tamil Script.
As with other Abugida scripts Grantha consonant signs have the inherent vowel /a/. Its absence is marked with Virāma:
For other vowels diacritics are used:
Sometimes ligatures of consonants with vowel diacritics may be found, e.g.:
There are also a few special consonant forms with Virāma:
Grantha has two ways of representing consonant clusters. Sometimes, consonants in a cluster may form ligatures.
Ligatures are normally preferred whenever they exist. If no ligatures exist, "stacked" forms of consonants are written, just as in Kannada and Telugu, with the lowest member of the stack being the only "live" consonant and the other members all being vowelless. Note that ligatures may be used as members of stacks also.
Special forms:
⟨ya⟩ when final in a cluster, and ⟨ra⟩ when non-initial become and respectively. These are often called "ya-phalaa" and "ra-vattu" in other Indic scripts.
⟨ra⟩ as initial component of a cluster becomes (called Reph as in other Indic scripts) and is shifted to the end of the cluster but placed before any "ya-phalaa".
The Grantha text of each sample is followed by a transliteration into Latin (ISO 15919) and Devanāgarī scripts.
Example 1: Taken from Kālidāsa's Kumārasambhavam
Example 2: St. John 3:16
Note: As in Devanāgarī ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ in Grantha stand for [eː] and [oː]. Originally also Malayāḷam and Tamiḻ scripts did not distinguish long and short ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩, though both languages have the phonemes /e/ /eː/ and /o/ /oː/. The addition of extra signs for /eː/ and /oː/ is attributed to the Italian missionary Constanzo Beschi (1680–1774).
The Tamiḻ letters ஜ ஶ ஷ ஸ ஹ and the ligature க்ஷ ⟨kṣa⟩ are called "Grantha letters" and not Tamil, as they were introduced from Grantha into the Tamiḻ script to render non-Tamil words(Sanskrit, Pali in early days now it is used to many other languages). The letters ழ ற ன and the corresponding sounds occur only in Dravidian languages.
Tamizh written using Grantha Script is called Grantha Tamizh. This Grantha Tamizh is differnt from Tamizh not just because of the reason that the script is different but also because of the variations found in sentence formation and word formations. Consider these examples.
Today,Most of these sentences are not in use except by few communities of iyers and iyengars of of Tamizh Nadu. If grantha script is in use, Samskrtham names like Pradeep, Varalakshmi, Mahendra, etc will not be read or written as Piratheep, Varaltchumi, Magenthira etc.
Due to the abandonment of language and script usage ,today,very few people have knowledge in the grammatical rules of Grantha Tamizh Lanaguge. Grantha Tamizh has a vast range of language rules derived from both Samskrtham and from Proto-Dravidian Tamizh.
Here is a list of few Grantha Tamizh words which are formed by an admixture of Samskrtham and Proto-Tamizh. Such compound words are also called Sandhigal in grantha Tamizh. Samskrtham word-S, Dravidam word-D
Most of these Grantha Tamil words were then taken into Tamizh. Since tamizh could not accommodate most of the Grantha Tamizh letters, lingusts have found an alternative way of providing the nearest pronunciation to those words particular to grantha tamizh.Such words which are not used in their true form of Grantha Tamizh are called as apabhramsha shabdhamgal which means modified words.
For example,
Inline:
Others:
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