53 refers to a fragment of black and red ware flat dish inscribed in Brahmi script excavated at the earliest layer in southern town of Tissamaharama in Sri Lanka.
[3] Other scholars such as Harry Falk, Raj Somadeva and P. Pushparatnam rejected both the reading and interpretations by Mahadevan as well as Ragupathy.
[4][1][5] As a result of these disagreements between the scholars, the reading and interpretation of this legend as a Tamil-Brahmi inscription has become controversial today.
Expressing their views on this, the archeologist and etymologist, Ragupthy and epigraphist Mahadevan both read this inscription as thiraLi muRi - written agreement of the assembly.
But the form of the ra with a forked lower end always starts with a C-bend above (Mahadevan 2003: 221 chart 5B), not with a vertical as our letter da does.
That means that Mahadevan’s reading of a retrograde Tamil text (lirati →tirali + + murī) with its alleged meaning “Written agreement of the assembly”) is excluded as it presupposes too many exceptions: l+u+i hardly stand for li; if ti would have to be read, the letter would have been inscribed retrograde with an -i- hook placed on top of the vertical instead of lower down the vertical as in li, ni and di; ra would have a form which does not yet exist.
[5] Except the Mahadevan and Ragupathy, all others including Somadeva, Falk and Pushparatnam read the total inscription from left to right.