Noted Indologist Asko Parpola on Monday delivered the ‘Gift Siromoney Endowment Lecture Series”'organised by Roja Muthiah Research Library, trying to read the old Tamil ‘taaL leg' in the context of the newly deciphered sign depicting “a hoofed animal hind leg.” He was talking on ‘The Indus Script, Harappan Dravidian and the Wild Ass.'
He said “Old Tamil ‘taaL leg' had a Toda cognate meaning ‘thigh of animal's hind leg' and denotes a star in PuRam 395.” The ‘hind leg' sign once precedes a sign that depicts the wild ass. Besides pointing to various physiological features of the animal, which lived in the desert and could survive even after losing 30 per cent of the water of its body, he narrated many stories associated with the wild ass.
Noted epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan said more young researchers should enter the field of epigraphy, continuing his work and that of Professor Parpola. He pointed out that he had already reached 81 and Parpola was only 10 years younger to him. Gift Siromoney was a professor at the Madras Christian College. Though a mathematics student, he had prepared many field reports, including the fauna of Tambaram area and Thirukkural written in different scripts of the last 2,000 years. Rani Siromoney, wife of Siromoney, also spoke.
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