varnam

This inscription perhaps can be dated 10th-11th century CE. There are no Indo-Arabic numerals in this inscription. The picture resolution is not good enough to read the inscription, but what looks like 1355 could be read as ra - r.a - t.a (t.u) - t.a (t.u) in the Tamil script of circa 10th-11th century CE. A tracing of the inscription would help better.

Best regards,
Arvind.

Correction in earlier message:

The date stands to be 10th/11th century CE. I was able to enhance th picture a bit. Th bottom line what looks like 1 is actually right part of the character the sequence in bottom line is ya - l.a - r.a - t.a (t.u) - t.a (t.u) - ne - na.
Tamil ய ள ற �? (�?ு) �? (�?ு) ந�? ந

Best regards,
Arvind.

I agree that it's 10th-11th century and that the "1" is part of the previous character, which I'm fairly sure is a ண (3 dips). I tend to think that the last line is
ய ண ற �?ு �?ு [த�?/ந�?] [த/ந]

The problem is, while I can make sens of the rest of the letters, the double t.u's have me stumped. i can't think of any Tamil words which have those - any clues? Even if I try to insert a word break between them, there are no words that start with t.u.

The possibility of interprating that the "1" is part of the previous character as n.a ண (3 dips) can not be ruled out. Though even in the 10th-11th century the loop formation prevailed for this character (as against the dips were used l.a ள. The last 3 characters form ந�? ந as for த the practice of making bottom loop existed since 6th century CE.

We can see that there are characters on both the sides so basically the inscription is a mid portion of a larger text, availability of the whole text would provide better clues for actual reading, as right now the sequence does not make a sense.

Regards,
Arvind.