Thirke is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ancient Brāhmī script.

[6][4] Mookonda Kushalappa called this script "thirke" ("temple" in Kodava).

Authored by B. L. Rice in 1914, the two inscriptions were deciphered for him by Narasimhachar and Krishna Shastri.

[6][4][5] Narasimhachar said that the "characters are a jumble of Grantha, Malayalam, Tamil and a few Vatteluttu.

"[6][4][5] Mookonda Kushalappa separated the characters used in the two inscriptions and put together the alphabet used.