Pallava script
| Pallava script | |
|---|---|
'Pallava' in Pallava script | |
| Script type | |
Period | 4th century CE to Present |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| Languages | Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Old Khmer, Old Malay, Burmese, Thai, Sinhala, Lao, Mon, Balinese, etc. |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Child systems | Tamil, Grantha, Mon-Burmese, Khmer, Cham, Kawi |
Sister systems | Vattezhuthu, Kolezhuthu |
| Brahmic scripts |
|---|
| The Brahmi script and its descendants |
The Pallava script, or Pallava Grantha, named after the Pallava dynasty of Southern India (Tamilakam) and is attested to since the 4th century CE. The Pallava script evolved from Tamil-Brahmi. It was used to originally write Tamil and Sanskrit texts – the court languages of Pallavas, thus, it features glyphs to render the sounds of both languages. Both the Tamil script via the intermediate script/step called Chozha-Pallava-Script and Grantha script have originated from the Pallava script.
Pallava also spread to Southeast Asia and evolved into scripts such as Balinese, Baybayin, Javanese, Kawi, Khmer, Lanna, Lao, Mon–Burmese, New Tai Lue, Sundanese, and Thai. This script is the sister of the Vatteluttu script which was also used to write Tamil and Malayalam in the past.
Epigrapher Arlo Griffiths argues that the name of the script is misleading as not all of the relevant scripts referred to have a connection with the Pallava dynasty. He instead advocates that these scripts be called Late Southern Brāhmī scripts.