132 



DESCRIPTIVE REMARKS ON 



and shrine cells cut out of the rock. In this class 

 may be included the Nandagopalpalaiyam with 

 Durga&c., No. 21, the IdaiyanPadal rock shrine 

 No. 56, and perhaps also the smaller niches in 

 the sculptured rocks Nos. 7 and 8 J. 



The Inscriptions. 



The inscriptions at Seven Pagodas noticed are as follows ; 

 the references below being to Dr. Burnell's South Indian 

 Paleography, 2nd Edition, 1878, 



Madras Survey 

 Map No. 



(43). 1. Explanatory labels, mostly over the figures 

 of men with four arms and tall caps on, 

 carved on the wall-panels outside the 

 larger pyramidal Rat ha (No. 43). The 

 language is Sanskrit, and the character 

 what Dr. Burnell calls Eastern Cera, 

 " very near to the Vengi " (S.I.P., PL I, 

 c. fourth century A.D.) and to the "Cera" 

 (S.I.P., PL II, 467 A.D.): and they 

 belong to " the earlier stage of develop- 

 ment "of his " Eastern Cera or Pallava 99 

 alphabet of about 700 A.D., PL XII. He 

 also states that these earliest characters- 

 correspond with the original work, which 

 he attributes to Jains of about the fifth 

 century. We may perhaps therefore con- 

 clude with Mr. Crole that these inscriptions 

 may have been engraved " somewhere 

 about the fifth or sixth century." But 

 they may possibly be older, for " decidedly 

 archaic forms of letters occur/' " which 

 early disappeared in the Calukya and 

 Cera characters " (S.I.P., pp, 38, 39) ; 



