Grantha Alphabet

Grantha Alphabet

The Grantha script (Tamil: கிரந்த ௭ழுத்து - giranda eḻuttu) was widely used between the 6th century and the 19th century CE by Tamil speakers in Southern India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, to write Sanskrit and classical Manipravalam, and is still in restricted use in traditional vedic schools (veda pāṭhaśālā). 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

Grantha is developed from the Southern Variant of Brahmi in Tamil Nadu. South Asian Scripts such as Mon, Lao, Javanese, Khmer and Thai 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 for its complete replacement by the modern Tamil script led to its gradual disuse and abandonment in Tamil Nadu in the early 20th century.