Similarly, the vowel marker for the kuṟṟiyal ukaram, a half-rounded u which occurs at the end of some words and in the medial position in certain compound words, also fell out of use and was replaced by the marker for the simple u. As a result, the use of the puḷḷi to distinguish pure consonants became rare, with pure consonants usually being written as if the inherent vowel were present. The scribe had to be careful not to pierce the leaves with the stylus while writing because a leaf with a hole was more likely to tear and decay faster. The use of palm leaves as the primary medium for writing led to changes in the script.
The Grantha and its parent script influenced the Tamil script notably. Over the next few centuries, the Chola-Pallava script evolved into the modern Tamil script. With the fall of Pallava kingdom, the Chola dynasty pushed the Chola-Pallava script as the de facto script. However, Vaṭṭeḻuttu continued to be used in the southern portion of the Tamil-speaking region, in the Chera and Pandyan kingdoms until the 11th century, when the Pandyan kingdom was conquered by the Cholas. Pallava kingdoms which lay in the north portion of the Tamil-speaking region.
By the 8th century, the new scripts supplanted Vaṭṭeḻuttu in the Chola resp. Parallel to Pallava script a new script (Chola-Pallava script, which evolved to modern Tamil script) again emerged in Chola territory resembling the same glyph development like Pallava script, but it did not evolve from that. In the 4th century, the Pallava dynasty created a new script for Tamil and the Grantha alphabet evolved from it, adding the Vaṭṭeḻuttu alphabet for sounds not found to write Sanskrit. The modern Tamil script does not, however, descend from that script. The Tamil letters thereafter evolved towards a more rounded form and by the 5th or 6th century, they had reached a form called the early vaṭṭeḻuttu. Most notably, they used the puḷḷi to suppress the inherent vowel. Inscriptions from the 2nd century use a later form of Tamil-Brahmi, which is substantially similar to the writing system described in the Tolkāppiyam, an ancient Tamil grammar. In addition, according to Iravatham Mahadevan, early Tamil Brahmi used slightly different vowel markers, had extra characters to represent letters not found in Sanskrit and omitted letters for sounds not present in Tamil such as voiced consonants and aspirates. For example, early Tamil-Brahmi, unlike Ashokan Brahmi, had a system to distinguish between pure consonants ( m, in this example) and consonants with an inherent vowel ( ma, in this example). The script used by such inscriptions is commonly known as the Tamil-Brahmi or "Tamili script" and differs in many ways from standard Ashokan Brahmi. The earliest inscriptions which are accepted examples of Tamil writing date to the Ashokan period. The Tamil script, like the other Brahmic scripts, is thought to have evolved from the original Brahmi script. The Tamil script is written from left to right. In every case, the vowel marker is different from the standalone character for the vowel. Others are written by adding a vowel-specific suffix to the consonant, yet others a prefix and still other vowels require adding both a prefix and a suffix to the consonant. Some vowels require the basic shape of the consonant to be altered in a way that is specific to that vowel. The combinant letters are formed by adding a vowel marker to the consonant. The complete script, therefore, consists of the 31 letters in their independent form and an additional 216 combinant letters, for a total of 247 (12+18+216+1) combinations ( உயிர்மெய்யெழுத்து, uyirmeyyeḻuttu, "soul-body-letters") of a consonant and a vowel, a mute consonant or a vowel alone. However, it is listed at the end of the vowel set. ஃ is called "அக்கு", akku and is classified in Tamil orthography as being neither a consonant nor a vowel. Diverging evolution of Tamil-Brahmi script (center column) into the Vatteluttu alphabet (leftmost column) and the Tamil script (rightmost column)
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