India, due to its glorious past, is fortunate enough to have a good number of inscriptions and manuscripts. They are valuable from the historical, literary and academic points of view. In addition, they become much more important when considering the fact that they represent the cultural heritage of our country. Most of the inscriptions and manuscripts are in ancient scripts and hence are unable to be read and understood by many. The researchers require direct access to the source materials for which the knowledge of such ancient scripts is highly essential. Due to various reasons, there are also many others who are interested in learning the ancient scripts. As it stands now, the avenues for the same are very limited. It will be helpful to all those who are interested in learning the ancient scripts if suitable learning materials are made available to them. It is with this intention, the author has published her earlier work 'Nandinagari Script. The present work 'The Grantha Script' is also a humble attempt towards that direction.

The knowledge of Grantha Script is essential for understanding the Sanskrit works, both literary and technical, written by many of the South Indian authors. There exist a lot of manuscripts and inscriptions in Grantha Script. The learning of this script is very useful for the study of political and cultural history of India in general and of South India in particular. Some of the points discussed in this work in 'part 1- Introduction' are given in brief in the introduction to the Nandinagari Script Except Northern Brahmi, all other topics covered there are discussed more elaborately in this book.

I could complete this work only due to the insistence and encouragement of Dr. V.I. Subramoniam (Former Pro-Chancellor, Dravidian University & Ex-Vice-Chancellor, Tanjavoor University) for which I am very much indebted to him. Dr. N. P. Unni, Ex-Vice-Chancellor, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady has long experience in the field of Manuscriptology and has close acquaintance with the Grantha Script due to his association with ORI & Mss. Library, Trivandrum as its Curator and also by publishing many ancient Sanskrit works. Because of his keen interest in the subject, he has gone through the draft of this work very carefully and has given me valuable suggestions. His illuminating Foreword is an asset to this work and I express my gratitude and sincere thanks for the invaluable help rendered to me in the preparation of this work.

The origin and development of scripts pose a vexed problem for which no conclusive solution can be offered. It is often held that knowledge was transmitted by oral tradition and that is why Vedas, the oldest literature of the mankind is termed as 'sruti'-that which is heard. This presupposes the writing down of the texts was a later development which necessitated the origin of scripts. Though there is no clear mention of writing in the Vedas, Brahmanas and Upanisads, it could not be taken as conclusive evidence to the absence of scripts to represent the alphabets. One of the earliest specimens of inscriptions, viz., the Asokan inscriptions presuppose a well-developed system of writing down the literature. Among the scripts used in the Asokan edicts the important one was Brahmi, the origin of which again is a moot point, some tracing it to Harappan times. It is held that similarities between Brahmi and some early North Semitic scripts are more striking. The Buddhist author Amara Simha significantly refers to Sanskrit or languages in general using the term 'Brahmi in his Namalinganusasana (1.6.1 Sabdavarga). "Brahmi tu bharati bhasa gir vag văni sarasvati". Here the origin of the language is ascribed to Brahma- the Creator.

Dealing with scripts, A.L. Basham (The Wonder that was India, Delhi, 1987, p.400) notes that in Central India, a script evolved in the 5 and 6" centuries mostly having a square shape whereas the one that was evolved in the South was more angular in form. Referring to the Grantha Script he has stated that "the Tamils on the other hand, evolved an angular script known as Grantha, which is still sometimes used in the Tamil country for writing Sanskrit, and from which the modern Tamil alphabet is derived. Scholars of the present day may not agree to the latter part of the statement though they may perfectly agree to the first part. The Pallava connection to the Grantha Script also is strongly advocated by the modern researchers.

The present monograph by Dr. P. Visalakshy is a sequel to her illuminating work on similar lines, viz., Nandinagari Script (published by Dravidian Linguistics Association, Trivandrum, 2003). Here she deals exclusively with the origin, development and details of alphabets like vowels and consonants (as represented in manuscripts and printed versions). The work is divided into three parts, viz., Introduction, Grantha Letters and Lessons for practical training. Thus the book forms a good manual with a thorough historical perspective. It is of great use to those who are interested in editing ancient manuscripts. The considerable experience of the writer in the editions of the texts of the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series has proved beneficial to the successful planning and execution of the work under reference. As far as the Grantha Script is concerned, this forms the exclusive treatment. I am sure that it will serve as a beacon shedding much light on the textual problems of the students of Indological research.

The transient nature of human language necessitated the invention of writing. Language, the oral communication system, relies on speech sounds for its transmission. In the absence of any special device, the speech sounds are incapable of to be displaced either in time or in space. Thus language, the most valuable possession of human beings, has an inherent limitation of being heard and understood only when the speaker, the sender of the message, transmits the same through linguistic codes and the hearer, the receiver of the message, should be in the vicinity so as the sound sequences uttered by the speaker are to be clearly heard and recognized by the hearer. The origin of writing is the man's effort to overcome this problem and make the language to be more permanent. Generally speaking, writing is the graphic representation of language. The units of writing are visual symbols representing sounds, syllables or words. The Indian concept of 'lipi' (script) is as visual forms of syllables and it is evidenced by the statement given in the tenth chapter of Lalitavistara "lipimaksara dṛsyarupam". These graphic visual symbols of language constitute a system named 'script'. This system is used to represent units of speech sounds such as phones, phonemes, syllables or words. Ideographs, letters of alphabets and the like representing the above said speech units constitute a script. Thus writing, more precisely, is the graphic representation of a language based on a script specially invented for the same. The duality property of language, i.e. the sound aspect and the meaning aspect, is retained in the written language in the sense that the sound aspect characterized by the graphic symbols can be reconverted into speech sounds through (loud) reading and the meaning aspect is reflected from the permissible sequences of letters. Every normal human being is able to speak at least one language, the mastery of which is attained automatically by living in a linguistic society. But all the speakers of a language need not know how to write. It is because of the fact that unlike speech, writing is not acquired automatically by one's living amidst the speakers of a language, even if all the other members are proficient in writing, but is to be separately learned and got trained.

In any case, it is to be admitted that the acquisition of the technique of writing is one of the greatest strides towards human civilization. The contribution of writing to humanity is so great that one cannot describe it through any number of words. The recognition of the powers of writing prompted the ancient societies all over the world to consider it as a gift of God. The ancient Indians were also not an exception to this and it is evidenced from the verses found in some of the ancient literatures of our country. The lines in Naradasmṛti, a work on ancient Hindu law, considered to be of fifth century A.D. stand testimony to it.