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{{Short description|Ancient work on Tamil grammar}}
{{Sangam literature}}
{{use dmy dates|date=February 2016}}
{{use Indian English|date=February 2016}}
{{Sangam literature}}
'''''Tolkāppiyam''''', also romanised as '''''Tholkaappiyam''''' ({{langx|ta|தொல்காப்பியம்}} {{audio|LL-Q5885 (tam)-Sriveenkat-தொல்காப்பியம்.wav|listen}} , ''lit.'' "ancient poem"{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|p=131}}), is the most ancient extant Tamil [[grammar]] text and the oldest extant long work of [[Tamil literature]].{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–133}}{{sfn|David Shulman|2016|p=28}} It is the earliest Tamil text mentioning Gods, perhaps linked to [[Hindu deities]].


There is no firm evidence to assign the authorship of this treatise to any one author. There is a tradition of belief that it was written by a single author named '''Tolkappiyar''', a disciple of Vedic sage [[Agastya]] mentioned in the ''[[Rigveda]]'' (1500–1200 BCE).
The '''''Tolkāppiyam''''' ({{lang-ta|தொல்காப்பியம்}}) is a work on the [[grammar]] of the [[Tamil language]] and the earliest extant work of [[Tamil literature]]<ref>* Zvelebil, Kamil. 1973. The smile of Murugan on Tamil literature of South India. Leiden: Brill. - Zvelebil dates the ''Ur-Tolkappiyam'' to the 1st-2nd BCE</ref>. It is written in the form of ''sootirams''(Skt: ''sutra'') or formulae and comprises of three books - the ''Ezhuttadikaram'', the ''Solladikaram'' and the ''Poruladikaram''. Each of these books is further divided into nine chapters each. While the exact date of the work is not known, based on linguistic and other evidence, it has been dated variously between 901 Bc and 300 BC. There is also no firm evidence to assign the authorship of this treatise to any one author.


The surviving manuscripts of the ''Tolkappiyam'' consists of three books (''atikaram''), each with nine chapters (''iyal''), with a cumulative total of 1,610 (483+463+664) ''[[sutras]]'' in the ''nūṛpā'' meter.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–132 with footnotes}}{{refn|group=note|The palm-leaf manuscripts and commentaries on the text vary slightly in the total number of verse-sutras; they are all about 1,610.{{sfn|Hartmut Scharfe|1977|pp=178–179 with footnote 2}}}} It is a comprehensive text on grammar, and includes ''sutras'' on orthography, phonology, etymology, morphology, semantics, prosody, sentence structure and the significance of context in language.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–132 with footnotes}} [[Vishnu|Mayyon]] as ([[Vishnu]]), [[Murugan|Seyyon]] as ([[Murugan|Skanda]]), [[Indra|Vendhan]] as ([[Indra]]), [[Varuna]] as ([[Varuna]]) and [[Korravai|Kotṟavai]] as (Devi or Bagavathi) are the gods mentioned.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZjoRAAAAYAAJ&q=tolkappiyam+varuna |title=Journal of Tamil Studies, Volume 1 |date=1969 |publisher=International Institute of Tamil Studies |page=131 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171113060321/https://books.google.no/books?id=ZjoRAAAAYAAJ&q=tolkappiyam+varuna&dq=tolkappiyam+varuna&hl=no&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiloMXV6bnXAhXiDZoKHXyuDMAQ6AEILTAB |archive-date=13 November 2017 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all}}</ref>
==Etymology of the name==
{{Expand|date=May 2007}}
The name ''Tolkāppiyam'' derived from the combination of the two words ''Tonmai'' and ''kāppiyam''. ''Tonmai'' means ancient and ''Kappiam'' means literature.


The ''Tolkappiyam'' is difficult to date. Some in the Tamil tradition place the text in the mythical second sangam, variously in 1st millennium BCE or earlier.{{sfn|Takanobu Takahashi|1995|pp=16–17}} Scholars place the text much later and believe the text evolved and expanded over a period of time. According to Nadarajah Devapoopathy the earliest layer of the ''Tolkappiyam'' was likely composed between the 2nd and 1st century BCE,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nadarajah|first=Devapoopathy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IZ7b6msS3kgC&q=info:Q1h0NSIwwIEJ:scholar.google.com/&pg=PR9|title=Love in Sanskrit and Tamil Literature: A Study of Characters and Nature, 200 B.C.-A.D. 500|date=1994|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publ.|isbn=978-81-208-1215-4|language=en}}</ref> and the extant manuscript versions fixed by about the 5th century CE.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes, Quote: "this fact would give us approximately the 5th cent. AD as the earliest date of Porulatikaram, and as the date of the final redaction of the Tolkappiyam."}} The ''Tolkappiyam Ur-text'' likely relied on some unknown even older literature.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–139 with footnotes}} The Tolkappiyam belongs to second Sangam period.
== Overview ==
The ''Tolkappiyam'', deals with [[orthography]], [[phonology]], [[etymology]], [[morphology]], [[semantics]], [[prosody]] and the subject matter of literature. The Tolkāppiyam classifies the Tamil language into "sentamil" and "kotuntamil". The former refers to the classical Tamil used almost exclusively in literary works and the latter refers to the dialectal Tamil, spoken by the people in the various regions of ancient [[Tamilakam]].<ref>According to latter commentators, there were twelve regions (''panniru nilam'') which were the sources of the dialectisms. Zvelebil, Smile of Murugan, p 132.</ref>.


[[Iravatham Mahadevan]] dates the Tolkappiyam to no earlier than the 2nd century CE, as it mentions the ''puḷḷi'' being an integral part of Tamil script. The ''puḷḷi'' (a diacritical mark to distinguish pure consonants from consonants with inherent vowels) only became prevalent in Tamil epigraphs after the 2nd century CE.<ref name="Mahadevan">{{cite book |last=Mahadevan |first = I. |title=Early Tamil Epigraphy - From the Earliest Times to the Sixth century C.E., 2nd Edition |date=2014|pages=271 }}</ref>
The Tolkappiyam classifies the alphabet into consonants and vowels by analysing the syllables. It starts by defining the alphabet for optimal writing, grammatises the use of words and syntaxes and moves into higher modes of language analysis. The Tolkāppiyam formulated thirty characters and three diacritic like symbols for Tamil. The 12 vowels combine with the 18 consonants bringing the total tally of characters to 247.<ref>247 = 12 +18 + (12 &times; 18) + 1</ref>
According to linguist S. Agesthialingam, Tolkappiyam contains many later interpolations, and the language shows many deviations consistent with late old Tamil (similar to [[Cilappatikaram]]), rather than the early Tamil poems of [[Eṭṭuttokai]] and [[Pattuppāṭṭu]].<ref>S. Agesthialingam, A grammar of Old Tamil (with special reference to Patirruppattu), Annamalai University, (1979), pXIV</ref>


The ''Tolkappiyam'' contains aphoristic verses arranged into three books – the ''Eluttatikaram'' ("Eluttu" meaning "letter, phoneme"), the ''Sollatikaram'' ("Sol" meaning "Sound, word") and the ''Porulatikaram'' ("Porul" meaning "subject matter", i.e. prosody, rhetoric, poetics).{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–134 with footnotes, 150}} The ''Tolkappiyam'' includes examples to explain its rules, and these examples provide indirect information about the ancient Tamil culture, sociology, and linguistic geography. It is first mentioned by name in Iraiyanar's ''Akapporul'' – a 7th- or 8th-century text – as an authoritative reference, and the ''Tolkappiyam'' remains the authoritative text on Tamil grammar.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–134 with footnotes}}{{sfn|Hartmut Scharfe|1977|pp=179–180}}{{refn|group=note|According to Thomas Lehmann, the ''Tolkappiyam'' rules are followed and exemplified in Old Tamil (pre-700 CE) literature. The Middle Tamil (700-1600 CE) and Modern Tamil (post-1600 CE) have additional distinct grammatical characteristics.<ref name="Steever2015p75">{{cite book|author=Thomas Lehmann|editor = Sanford B. Steever|title=The Dravidian Languages|year=2015 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=n2DxBwAAQBAJ |publisher= Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-91164-4|pages=75–76}}</ref> Causative stems of verb bases are "lexical in Old Tamil, morphological in Middle Tamil, and syntactic in Modern Tamil", for example, states Lehmann. Nevertheless, many features of Middle and Modern Tamil are anchored in the Old Tamil of ''Tolkappiyam''.<ref name="Steever2015p75"/>}}
==Dating of the Tolkappiyam==
{{main|Date of the Tolkappiyam}}
The dating of the earliest [[Tamil language|Tamil]] grammatical treatise [[Tolkappiyam]] has been debated much<ref name="zvelebil">Zvelebil, Kamil (1973)</ref><ref>''"The date of tolkappiyam has been variously proposed as lying between 5320 BC and 8th century AD"'', Takahashi, Takanobu (1995), p18</ref><ref name="bgls2">The Date of the Tolkappiyam: A Retrospect." Annals of Oriental Research (Madras), Silver Jubilee Volume: 292-317</ref> and has seen wide disagreements amongst scholars in the field.<ref name="bgls2" /> <ref name="takahashi" /><ref name="caldwell" /> It has been dated variously by some between 901 BC and 300 BC and others between 8000 BCE and 10th CE.<ref name="bgls2" /><ref name="takahashi" /><ref name="zvelebil" />


== Etymology ==
While most of the antediluvian datings which stem mostly from a descriptive commentary in an 10th-12th century work called ''Iraiyanar AgapporuL'', about the existence of three Tamil Academies, which have been rejected as being devoid of any evidence<ref name="takahashi" /><ref name="caldwell">Caldwell, Robert (1974)</ref>, the genuine disagreements now center around widely divergent dates lying between the third century [[Before Common Era |BCE]] and sixth century [[Common Era |CE]].<ref name="zvelebil" /><ref name="takahashi" /> As the Tolkappiyam is often claimed as the earliest extant work of Tamil literature, the dating of Tolkappiyam is inherently tied to the dates ascribed to the birth and development of Tamil literature as a whole.
The word ''Tolkāppiyam'' is a attribute-based composite word, with ''tol'' meaning "ancient, old", and ''kappiyam'' meaning "book, text, poem, kavya"; together, the title has been translated as "ancient book",{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–132 with footnote 1}} "ancient poem",<ref name="Ziegenbalg2010p1">{{cite book|author=Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg|title=Tamil Language for Europeans: Ziegenbalg's Grammatica Damulica |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G1HKzGXIUIUC&pg=PA1 |year=2010|publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag|isbn=978-3-447-06236-7|pages=1–2}}</ref> or "old poem".<ref name="ReijenWeststeijn1999p321">{{cite book|author1=Willem van Reijen|author2=Willem G. Weststeijn|title=Subjectivity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8F6_FJmaC20C&pg=PA321|year=1999|publisher=Rodopi|isbn=90-420-0728-1|pages=321–322}}</ref> The word 'kappiyam' is from the [[Sanskrit]] ''Kavya''.<ref>Sir Ralph Lilley Turner - A comparative dictionary to the Indo-Aryan languages, Entry 3110 kāˊvya https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/soas_query.py?qs=kāvikā&searchhws=yes</ref>


According to [[Kamil Zvelebil]] – a Tamil literature and history scholar, Tamil purists tend to reject this Sanskrit-style etymology and offer "curious" alternatives. One of these breaks it into three "tol-kappu-iyanratu", meaning "ancient protection [of language]".{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–132 with footnote 1}} An alternate etymology that has been proposed by a few purists is that the name of the work derives from the author's name Tolkāppiyan, but this is a disputed assumption because neither the author(s) nor centuries in which this masterpiece was composed are known.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–132 with footnote 1}}
==Authorship==
Not much is known about who the author was or when he lived.<ref name="takahashi" /> Traditionally, it was thought that there could have been only one author but given the fairly long time it seems to have taken for the final redaction of the book to become available, it is reasonable to ascribe the work to multiple authors. Zvelebil speculates that the final redaction may even have been the work of a systematised school of grammar than the work of individuals.<ref>Zvelebil, Kamil. 1973. The smile of Murugan on Tamil literature of South India. Leiden: Brill.</ref>
Many authors however, ascribe the work to [[Jainism |Jaina]] traditions and the earliest of the possibly many authors, who has been identified as ''Tolkappiyanaar'' to a heterodox Jaina order. Some authors have also speculated that Tolkappiyanaar might have been a Brahmin belonging to the village of ''kappiya''. Vaiyapuri Pillay has suggested that Tolkappiyanaar may have belonged to a heterodox Jaina grammatical tradition called ''aintiram''(a view which other scholars like Burnell, Takanobu and Zvelebil share) and that he was a native of Tiruvatankotu in present day Southern [[Kerala]].<ref name="zvelebil" />


==Influence of Sanskrit==
== Date ==
The dating of the Tolkappiyam is difficult, much debated, and it remains contested and uncertain.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes}}<ref name="bgls2" /> Proposals range between 5,320 BCE and the 8th century CE.<ref name="bgls2">The Date of the Tolkappiyam: A Retrospect." Annals of Oriental Research (Madras), Silver Jubilee Volume: 292–317</ref>{{sfn|Takanobu Takahashi|1995|pp=16–17, Quote=The date of Tol[kappiyam] has been variously proposed as lying between 5320 B.C. and the 8th Cent. A.D.}}
{{see also|Aindra school of grammar}}
The grammar expounded by the Tolkappiyam owes a great deal to Sanskrit.<ref>Hart, George ''Poems of Ancient Tamil'', ''There can be little question that the grammatical system expounded by the Tolkappiyam owes much to Sanskrit grammar, pp78-79</ref> The influence of various Sanskrit works like ''Manavadharmashastra'', ''Arthashastra'', ''Natyashastra''<ref>Zvelebil, Kamil ''The smile of Murugan'', "...Much more important is the fact that some of the ''nurpas'' seem to have been directly influenced by Sanskrit texts such as Manavadharmashastra and Arthashastra, p143</ref><ref name="takahashi" /> and grammarians like [[Panini]] and [[Patanjali]] is evident in the Tolkappiyam.<ref>Zvelebil, Kamil ''The smile of Murugan'', ''The relationship between Patanjali, an early Skt., grammarian and the Tolk., is well established.</ref> Parts of the Collathikaram are, for instance, almost a translation of the Sanskrit texts.<ref>Zvelebil, Kamil ''The smile of Murugan'', "...Infact, Tolk., Col 419 seems to be almost a translation of Patanjali's Sanskrit text.", p143</ref> The eight feelings mentioned in the Porulathikaram seem to be heavily inspired by the eight ''rasas'' or the ''rasa'' theory of the ''Natyashastra''.<ref>Zvelebil, Kamil ''The smile of Murugan'', ''In Tolk., Porulatikaram, the eight feelings agree with the eight rasas or moods of Bharata's Natyashastra. I am very much convinced that in this point, Tolk., Porulatikaram is indebted to the Sanskrit source. p143</ref><ref name="takahashi">Takahashi, Takanobu. 1995. Tamil love poetry and poetics. Brill's Indological library, v. 9. Leiden: E.J. Brill., p18</ref>


The tradition and some Indian scholars favor an early date for its composition, before the common era, and state that it is the work of one person associated with sage Agastya. Other Indian scholars, and non-Indian scholars such as Kamil Zvelebil, prefer to date it not as a single entity but in parts or layers.<ref name='strata'/> The Tolkappiyam manuscript versions that have survived into the modern age were fixed by about the 5th century CE, according to Zvelebil.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes}}<ref name='strata'>{{cite journal|title=Women and Farm Work in Tamil Folk Songs|journal=Social Scientist|year=1993 |first=Vijaya|last= Ramaswamy| volume=21|issue=9/11|pages=113–129|doi= 10.2307/3520429|jstor=3520429}}</ref>{{sfn|Takanobu Takahashi|1995|pp=16–19}} Scholars reject traditional datings based on three sangams and the myth of great floods because there is no verifiable evidence in its favor, and the available evidence based on linguistics, epigraphy, [[Sangam literature]] and other Indian texts suggest a much later date.<ref name="takahashi" /> The disagreements now center around divergent dates between the 3rd century [[Before Common Era|BCE]] and 8th century CE.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes}}<ref name="takahashi" /><ref name="tiekenbook" />
''Tolkāppiyam '' has also been demonstrated as having been modelled on a post-Paninian system of grammar called Katyantra<ref>Burnell, A. C. (1875)</ref> belonging the 3rd - 4th CE.<ref name="takahashi">takahashi, p26</ref><ref>Vaiyapuri Pillai in Takahashi's book, p26</ref><ref>zvelebil in Takahashi's book, p26</ref> Burnell compared the ''Tolkappiyam'' with the non Paninian ''Katyantra'' grammar and concluded that the Tolkappiyam indeed exhibited a strong influence of the non Paninian school of grammar.<ref name="Trautmann">Trautmann, Thomas R. 2006. Languages and nations: the Dravidian proof in colonial Madras. Berkeley: University of California Press.</ref>This Katyantra system in turn has been linked by Burnell to the non-extant pre-Paninian Aindra school of grammar mentioned in the Ashtadhyayi.<ref>The preface of Ilampuranar's twelfth century commentary of the Tolkappiyam, describes it as ''aindiram nirainda'' ('comprising aindra'). This annotation was interpreted by [[Arthur Coke Burnell]] as alluding to the pre-Paninian ''[[Aindra school of grammar |Aindra school of Sanskrit grammar]]'' mentioned in the ''[[Ashtadhyayi]]''.</ref>


The datings proposed by contemporary scholars is based on a combination of evidence such as:
== Commentaries ==
*comparison of grammar taught in ''Tolkappiyam'' versus the grammar found in the oldest known [[Tamil-Brahmi]] and old-Tamil inscriptions{{sfn|Takanobu Takahashi|1995|pp=16–17}}{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes}}
Starting the 11th-12th CE, several commentaries came to light. Of these, the one by Ilampuranar dated to the 11th or 12th CE is considered one of the best and most comprehensive. This was followed by a commentary dateable to 1275 AD by Cenavaraiyar which however, dealt only with the ''Collatikaram''. A commentary by ''Peraciriyar'' which is heavily indebted to the ''[[Nannul]]'' followed. This commentary which can be dated to the 12th or 13th CE, if not later, frequently quotes from the ''Dandiyalankaram'' and ''Yapparunkalam'', the former being a standard medieval rhetorica and the latter being a detailed treatise on Tamil prosody. Naccinarkiniyar's commentary, which can be dated to the 14th if not 15-16th century follows. Naccinarkiniyar, himself being a scholar of both Tamil and Sanskrit quotes from Parimelalakar's works. Teyvaccilaiyar's commentary follows in the 16th or 17th century. Finally, the latest available commentary, that of Kallatar comes to light. Of these commentaries, those of "Ilampooranar", "Deivachilaiyaaar" and "Natchinaarkiniyar" is regarded highly and the triumvarate are also called ''"Urai-asiriyargal"''.<ref>Zvelebil, Kamil , The Smile of Murugan, p134</ref>
*comparison of grammar taught in ''Tolkappiyam'' versus the grammar found in the oldest known Tamil texts (Sangam era);{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes}}{{sfn|Takanobu Takahashi|1995|pp=16–18}} this evidence covers items such as phonemic shapes, palatals, and the evolution in the use of compounds{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=142–146 with footnotes}}
*comparison of grammar taught in ''Tolkappiyam'' versus the grammar taught and found in the oldest known Sanskrit texts;{{sfn|Takanobu Takahashi|1995|pp=16, 18–19}} this includes tracing verses and phrases found in the ''Tolkappiyam'' that borrow, translate or closely paraphrase verses and phrases found in the works of ancient and influential Sanskrit scholars such as Panini, Patanjali, Manu, Kautilya, Bharata and Vatsyayana.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes}}
*comparison of poetry and prose rules taught in ''Tolkappiyam'' versus the actual early Tamil poetry and prose{{sfn|Takanobu Takahashi|1995|pp=16, 20–22}}
*Prakrit and Sanskrit loan words (''vadacol''),{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1991}} and inconsistencies between the sutras of the ''Tolkappiyam''{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes}}


=== Dates proposed ===
==Chapters==
*In his book published in 1925, T. R. Sesha Iyengar – a scholar of Dravidian literature and history, states that the ''Tolkappiyam'' while explaining grammar, uses terms for various forms of marriage in the ''Kalaviyal'' chapter. Elsewhere it mentions terms related to caste. Such ideas about different weddings and caste, states Iyengar, must be the influence of Sanskrit and Indo-Aryan ideologies. He disagrees with those European scholars who refuse to "concede high antiquity to the Dravidian civilization", and as a compromise suggests the Tolkappiyam was composed "before the Christian era".<ref>Sesha Iyengar, T.R. (1925), ''[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.489055 Dravidian India]'', Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, reprinted 1995, pp 155–157</ref>
{{Expand|date=May 2007}}<br>
* In post-Independence India, the Tamil scholar Gift Siromoney states that the Tolkappiyam should be dated based on the chronology of TALBI-P system based inscriptions, which is difficult to date. He suggests that this could be around the time of Ashoka, or centuries later.<ref>Gift Siromoney (1983), ''[https://www.cmi.ac.in/gift/Epigraphy/epig_origin.htm Origin of the Tamil-Brahmi script]'', Seminar on "Origin evolution and reform of the Tamil script", pp. 21–29, The Institute of Traditional Cultures, University Buildings, Madras-600005</ref>
[[Image:TolkaappiyamExcerpt.png|thumb|right|275px|Excerpt from the Tolkāppiyam showing the style of narration]]
* [[Iravatham Mahadevan]] dates the Tolkappiyam to no earlier than the 2nd century CE, as it mentions the ''puḷḷi'' being an integral part of Tamil script. The ''puḷḷi'' a diacritical mark to distinguish pure consonants from consonants with inherent vowels only became prevalent in Tamil epigraphs after the 2nd century CE.<ref name="Mahadevan2">{{cite book |last=Mahadevan |first = I. |title=Early Tamil Epigraphy - From the Earliest Times to the Sixth century C.E., 2nd Edition |date=2014|pages=271 }}</ref>
[[Image:TolkaappiyamExcerptArticulatoryPhonetics.png|thumb|right|275px|Excerpt from the Tolkāppiyam on [[articulatory phonetics]]]]
* V. S. Rajam, a linguist specialised in Old Tamil, in her book ''A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry'' dates it to pre-fifth century CE.<ref>Rajam, V. S. 1992. ''A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry: 150 B.C.–pre-Fifth/Sixth Century A.D.'' Memoirs of the American philosophical society, vol. 199. Philadelphia, Pa: American Philosophical Society, p. 7</ref>
{{seealso |Eluttadikaram|Solladikaram|Poruladikaram}}
* [[Vaiyapuri Pillai]], the author of the Tamil lexicon, dated Tolkappiyam to not earlier than the 5th or 6th century CE.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–146 with footnotes}}<ref name="HTLL">Vaiyapuri Pillai, S. 1956. History of Tamil language and literature; beginning to 1000 A.D.. Madras: New Century Book House.</ref>
* [[Kamil V. Zvelebil]] dates the earliest layer, the core ''Ur-text'' of the Tolkappiyam to 150 BCE or later.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=137 and 147, Quote (p. 137): "As we will see later, Tolkkapiyam, the core of which may be assigned to pre-Christian era, consists perhaps of many layers, some of which may be much earlier than others"; (p. 147): "Thus, the nuclear portions of Tolkappiyam were probably born sometimes in the 2nd or 1st century BC, but hardly before 150 BC."}} In his 1974 review, Zvelebil places Book 1 and 2 of the ''Tolkappiyam'' in the 100 BCE to 250 CE period.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1974|pp=9–10}} Rest of the sections and sutras of the text to centuries between 3rd and 5th century CE. The extant manuscripts of Tolkappiyam are based on the "final redaction" of the 5th century, states Zvelebil.<ref name="kamil">{{harvnb|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=138–147 with footnotes}}</ref>
* [[Takanobu Takahashi]], a Japanese Indologist, states that the Tolkappiyam has several layers with the oldest dating to 1st or 2nd century CE, and the newest and the final redaction dating to the 5th or 6th century CE.<ref name=takahashi>{{cite book|last=Takahashi|first=Takanobu|title=Tamil Love Poetry & Poetics|year=1995|publisher=Brill|location=Leiden; New York; Cologne|isbn=90-04-10042-3|pages=18|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wgCHuVGyZoEC&pg=PA18|chapter=2. Erudite works|quote=These agreements may probably advance the lower limit of the date for Tol[kappiyam], but do not mean more recently than the 5th Cent. A.D., as suggested by some critics such as S. Vaiyapuri Pillai [...]}}</ref>
* [[Arthur Coke Burnell|A C Burnell]], a 19th-century [[Indology|Indologist]] who contributed to the study of Dravidian languages was of the view that the ''Tolkappiyam'' could not be dated to "much later than the eighth century."<ref name="burnell">"It is thus impossible to put the original text much later than the eighth century, for by the tenth century the whole Pāṇḍiya kingdom had fallen under the orthodox Coḷas." {{Cite journal | last=Burnell | first=A. C. | author-link=Arthur Coke Burnell | title=On the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians: Their place in the Sanskrit and Subordinate Literatures | publisher=Basel Mission Book and Tract Depository | place=Mangalore | year=1975 | pages=8–9 }}</ref>
* Herman Tieken, a Dutch scholar, states that the Tolkappiyam dates from the 9th century CE at the earliest. He arrives at this conclusion by treating the Tolkappiyam and the anthologies of [[Sangam literature]] as part of a 9th-century [[Pandyan]] project to raise the prestige of Tamil as a [[classical language]] equal to Sanskrit, and assigning new dates to the traditionally accepted dates for a vast section of divergent literature ([[Sangam literature]], post-Sangam literature and Bhakti literature like [[Tevaram]]).<ref name="tiekenbook">Tieken, Herman Joseph Hugo. 2001. Kāvya in South India: old Tamil Caṅkam poetry. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.</ref> Hermen Tieken's work has, however, been criticised on fundamental, methodological, and other grounds by [[Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi|G.E. Ferro-Luzzi]], George Hart and [[Anne E. Monius|Anne Monius]].<ref>George Hart III. "Review of Tieken's ''Kavya in South India.''" ''Journal of the American Oriental Institute'' ''124'':1. pp. 180–184. 2004.</ref><ref>G.E. Ferro-Luzzi. "Tieken, Herman, ''Kavya in South India'' (Book review). ''Asian Folklore Studies''. June 2001. pp. 373–374</ref><ref>[[Anne E. Monius]], Book review, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Nov., 2002), pp. 1404–1406</ref>


== Author ==
The Tolkāppiyam consists of three books each of which is divided into 9 chapters. The books are called ''atikarams'' (Sanskrit:''adhikara''). The three books are
There is no firm evidence to assign the authorship of this treatise to any one author. ''Tholkapiyam'', some traditionally believe, was written by a single author named Tolkappiyar, a disciple of Vedic sage [[Agastya]] mentioned in the ''[[Rigveda]]'' (1500–1200 BCE). According to the traditional legend, the original grammar was called Agathiam written down by sage Agastya, but it went missing after a great deluge. His student Tolkappiyar was asked to compile Tamil grammar, which is ''Tolkappiyam''.<ref>book titled "Tholkappiyar Kaalam", Madhivanan</ref><ref>Zvelebil, Kamil. 1973. The smile of Murugan on Tamil literature of South India. Leiden: Brill.</ref> In Tamil historical sources such as the 14th-century influential commentary on ''Tolkappiyam'' by [[Nachinarkiniyar|Naccinarkkiniyar]], the author is stated to be Tiranatumakkini (alternate name for Tolkappiyan), the son of a Brahmin ''[[rishi]]'' named Camatakkini.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|p=136}} The earliest mention of Agastya-related Akattiyam legends are found in texts approximately dated to the 8th or 9th century.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=136–137}}


According to Kamil Zvelebil, the earliest ''sutras'' of the ''Tolkappiyam'' were composed by author(s) who lived before the "majority of extant" [[Sangam literature]], who clearly knew [[Pāṇini]] and followed [[Patanjali]] works on Sanskrit grammar because some verses of Tolkappiyam – such as ''T-Col 419'' and''T-Elutt 83'' – seem to be borrowed and exact translation of verses of Patanjali's [[Mahabhashya|''Mahābhāṣya'']] and ideas credited to more ancient Panini. Further, the author(s) lived after Patanjali, because various sections of ''Tolkappiyam'' show the same ideas for grammatically structuring a language and it uses borrowed Indo-European words found in Panini and Patanjali works to explain its ideas.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=142–146 with footnotes}} According to Hartmut Scharfe and other scholars, the phonetic and phonemic sections of the ''Tolkappiyam'' shows considerable influence of Vedic ''[[Pratishakhyas]]'', while its rules for nominal compounds follow those in Patanjali's ''Mahābhāṣya'', though there is also evidence of innovations. The author(s) had access and expertise of the ancient Sanskrit works on grammar and language.{{sfn|Hartmut Scharfe|1977|pp=180–182}}<ref name="Allan2013p253"/>
# Ezhuththathikaaram
# Sollathikaaram
# PoruLathikaaram


According to Zvelebil, another Tamil tradition believes that the earliest layer by its author(s) – Tolkappiyan – may have been a Jaina scholar, who knew ''aintiram'' (pre-Paninian grammatical system) and lived in south Kerala, but "we do not know of any definite data concerning the original author or authors". This traditional belief, according to [[S. Vaiyapuri Pillai|Vaiyapuri Pillai]], is supported by a few Jaina Prakrit words such as ''patimaiyon'' found in the ''Tolkappiyam''.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|p=137}}
=== Ezhuththathikaaram ===
Ezhuththathikaaram is further subdivided into the following 9 sections - ''Nuul Marabu, Mozhi Marabu, PiRappiyal, PuNaRiyal, Thokai Marabu, Urubiyal, Uyir Mayangial, PuLLi Mayangial and the KutriyalukarappunaRiyal.''


==Content==
''Nuul Marabu'' - This section enumerates the characters of the language, organises them into consonants, vowels and diacritic symbols. The vowels are sub classified into short and long vowels based on duration of pronunciation. Similarly, the consonants are sub classified into three categories based on the stress.
The ''Tolkappiyam'' deals with ''ilakkanam'' (grammar) in three books (''atikaram''), each with nine chapters (''iyal'') of different sizes. The text has a cumulative total of 1,610 (Eluttatikaram 483 + Sollatikaram 463 + Porulatikaram 664) ''[[sutras]]'' in the ''nūṛpā'' meter, though some versions of its surviving manuscripts have a few less.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–132 with footnotes}}{{sfn|Hartmut Scharfe|1977|pp=178–179 with footnote 2}} The ''sutra'' format provides a distilled summary of the rules, one that is not easy to read or understand; commentaries are necessary for the proper interpretation and understanding of ''Tolkappiyam''.<ref name="Steever2015p76"/>


;Book 1: ''Eluttatikaram''
''Mozhi Marabu'' - This section defines rules which specify where in a word can a letter not occur and which letter can not come after a particular letter. It also describes [[elision]], which is the reduction in the duration of sound of a [[phoneme]] when preceded by or followed by certain other sounds. The rules are well-defined and unambiguous. They are categorised into 5 classes based on the phoneme which undergoes elision.


"Eluttu" means "sound, letter, phoneme", and this book of the ''Tolkappiyam'' covers the sounds of the [[Tamil language]], how they are produced (phonology).{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1974|p=132}} It includes ''punarcci'' (''lit.'' "joining, copulation") which is combination of sounds, orthography, graphemic and phonetics with sounds as they are produced and listened to.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1974|p=132}} The phonemic inventory it includes consists of 5 long vowels, 5 short vowels, and 17 consonants. The articulatory descriptions in ''Tolkappiyam'' are incomplete, indicative of a proto-language. It does not, for example, distinguish between retroflex and non-retroflex consonants, states Thomas Lehmann.<ref name="Steever2015p76">{{cite book|author=Thomas Lehmann|editor = Sanford B. Steever|title=The Dravidian Languages|year=2015 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=n2DxBwAAQBAJ |publisher= Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-91164-4|pages=76–78}}</ref> The phonetic and phonemic sections of the first book show the influence of Vedic Pratisakhyas, states Hartmut Scharfe, but with some differences. For example, unlike the Pratisakhyas and the later Tamil, the first book of ''Tolkappiyam'' does not treat /ṭ/ and /ṇ/ as retroflex.{{sfn|Hartmut Scharfe|1977|pp=180–181}}
# Kutriyalukaram - the (lip unrounded) vowel sound ''u''
# Kutriyalikaram - the vowel sound ''i''(as the vowel in 'lip')
# Aiykaarakkurukkam - the [[diphthong]] ''ai''
# Oukaarakkurukkam - the diphthong ''au''
# Aaythakkurukkam - the special character (''aaytham'')


;Book 2: ''Sollatikaram''
''PiRappiyal'' - This is a section on [[articulatory phonetics]]. It talks about pronunciation methods of the [[phoneme]]s at the level of [[diaphragm (anatomy)|diaphragm]], [[larynx]], jaws, tongue position, teeth, lips and nose. The visual representation of the letters is also explained.


"Sol" meaning "word", and the second book deals with "etymology, morphology, semantics and syntax", states Zvelebil.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1974|p=132}} The ''sutras'' cover compounds, some semantic and lexical issues. It also mentions the twelve dialectical regions of Tamil speaking people, which suggests the author(s) had a keen sense of observation and inclusiveness for Old Tamil's linguistic geography.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1974|p=132}} According to Peter Scharf, the ''sutras'' here are inspired by the work on Sanskrit grammar by Panini, but it uses Tamil terminology and adds technical innovations.<ref name="Allan2013p253"/> Verb forms and the classification of nominal compounds in the second book show the influence of Patanjali's ''Mahabhasya''.{{sfn|Hartmut Scharfe|1977|pp=180–181}}
''PuNaRiyal'' - This section talks about the changes to words due to the following word i.e. it specifies rules that govern the transformations on the last phonem of a word (''nilaimozhi iiRu'') because of the first phonem of the following word (''varumozhi muthal'') when used in a sentence.


;Book 3: ''Porulatikaram''
''Thokai Marabu''


"Porul" meaning "subject matter", and this book deals with the prosody (''yappu'') and rhetoric (''ani'') of Old Tamil.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1974|p=133}} It is here, that the book covers the two genres found in classical Tamil literature: ''akam'' (love, erotics, interior world) and ''puram'' (war, society, exterior world). The ''akam'' is subdivided into ''kalavu'' (premarital love) and ''karpu'' (marital love).{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1974|p=133}} It also deals with dramaturgy, simile, prosody and tradition. According to Zvelebil, this arrangement suggests that the entire ''Tolkappiyam'' was likely a guide for bardic poets, where the first two books led to this third on how to compose their songs.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1974|p=133}} The third book's linking of literature (''ilakkiyam'') to the grammatical rules of the first and the second book (''ilakkanam'') created a symbiotic relationship between the two.<ref name="Steever2015p76"/> The literary theory of ''Tolkappiyam'', according to Peter Scharf, borrows from Sanskrit literary theory texts.<ref name="Allan2013p253"/>
''Urubiyal'' - This section talks about the word modifiers that are added at the end of nouns and pronouns when they are used as an object as opposed to when they are used as subjects.


Epigraphical studies, such as those by Mahadevan, show that ancient [[Tamil-Brahmi]] inscriptions found in South India and dated to between 3rd century BCE and 4th century CE had three different grammatical form. Only one of them is assumed in the ''Tolkappiyam''.<ref name="Steever2015p76"/> The language of the [[Sangam literature]] is same as the one described in ''Tolkappiyam'', except in some minor respects.<ref name="Allan2013p253"/>
''Uyir Mayangial''


=== Commentaries ===
''PuLLi'' - Pulli concept is one of the distinguishing feature among the tamil characters. Although it is not unique and brahmi also has pulli. It is distinguished by placement . According to tolkappiam which talks about pulli and its position, that is on top of the alphabet instead of side as in Brahmi. This is also one of the characteristics of tamil brahmi according to Mr. Mahadevan. The first inscription of this type of pulli is in vallam by pallvas dated 7-8th century AD by Mahendra varman pallava.
The ''Tolkappiyam'' is a collection of aphoristic verses in the ''nūṛpā'' meter.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=131–132 with footnotes}} It is unintelligible without a commentary.<ref name="Steever2015p76"/> Tamil scholars have written commentaries on it, over the centuries:
''KutriyalukarappunaRiyal''
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Commentaries on ''Tolkappiyam''
|-
! Author<ref name="Allan2013p253">{{cite book|author=Peter Scharf|editor=Keith Allan|title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OE5oAgAAQBAJ |year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-164343-9|pages=253–254}}</ref>
! Date<ref name="Allan2013p253"/>
! Notes
|-
| Ilampuranar
| 10th to 12th century
| Full: all verses{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}}
|-
| Cenavaraiyar
| 13th or 14th century
| Partial: 2nd book{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}}
|-
| Peraciriyar
| 13th century
| Partial: 1st and 2nd book{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}}
|-
| Naccinarkkiniyar
| 14th century
| Partial: 1st, 2nd and part 3rd book{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}}
|-
| Tayvaccilaiyar
| 16th century
| Partial: 2nd book{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}}
|-
| Kallatanar
| 15th to 17th century<ref name="Allan2013p253"/>{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}}
| Partial: 2nd book{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}}
|}


The commentary by Ilampuranar dated to the 11th or 12th century CE is the most comprehensive and probably the best, states Zvelebil.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|p=134}} The commentary by Senavaraiyar deals only with the second book ''Sollathikaram''.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}} The commentary by Perasiriyar, which is heavily indebted to the ''[[Nannūl]]'', frequently quotes from the ''Dandiyalankaram'' and ''Yapparunkalam'', the former being a standard medieval rhetorica and the latter being a detailed treatise on Tamil prosody. Naccinarkiniyar's commentary, being a scholar of both Tamil and Sanskrit, quotes from Parimelalakar's works.{{sfn|Kamil Zvelebil|1973|pp=134–136}}
=== Sollathikaaram ===
Sollathikaaram deals with words and [[parts of speech]]. It classifies Tamil words into four categories - ''iyar chol''(Words in common usage, ''thiri chol''(words used in Tamil literature), ''vata chol''(words borrowed from Sanskrit), ''thisai chol''(words borrowed from other languages. There are certain rules to be adhered to in borrowing words from Sanskrit. The borrowed words need to strictly conform to the Tamil phonetic system and be written in the Tamil script.


== Reception ==
The chapter Sollathikaaram is sub divided into the following 9 sections - ''KiLaviyaakkam, VEtRumaiyiyal, VEtrumaimayangial, ViLimaRabu, Peyariyal, Vinaiyiyal, Idaiyiyal, Uriyiyal and the Echchaviyal.


[[Alexander Dubyanskiy]], veteran Tamil scholar from [[Moscow State University]] stated, "I am sure that Tolkappiyam is a work which demanded not only vast knowledge and a lot of thinking but a considerable creative skill from its composer." Dubyanskiy also said that the authority of the text was undeniable: "It is a literary and cultural monument of great importance."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/tolkappiyam-is-not-dependent-on-sanskrit-sources-tamil-scholar/article489121.ece|title=Tolkappiyam is not dependent on Sanskrit sources: Tamil scholar|author=Karthik Madhavan|work=The Hindu|date=27 June 2010 }}</ref>
''KiLaviyaakkam''- KiLaviyaakkam literally translates to ''word formation''. This section deals with [[gender]], [[number]], [[person]] etc.
''VEtRumaiyiyal''


== See also ==
''VEtrumaimayangial''
* [[Tamil grammar]]
* [[P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri]] – who was the first to translate Tolkāppiyam into English.


== Notes ==
''ViLimaRabu''
{{reflist|group=note}}


== References ==
''Peyariyal'' - This section deals with [[noun]]s.
{{reflist|2}}


=== Bibliography===
''Vinaiyiyal'' - This section deals with [[verb]]s.
{{ref begin|30em}}

* Albert. 1985. Tolkāppiyam phonology and morphology : an English translation. Madras : International Institute of Tamil Studies.
''Idaiyiyal''
* Burnell, Arthur Coke (1875). On the Aindra school of Sanskrit Grammarians: their place in the Sanskrit and subordinate literatures. Mangalore: Basel Mission Book and Tract Depository, 8-20.

''Uriyiyal'' - This literally translates to ''the nature or science of qualifiers'' and deals with [[adjective]]s and [[adverb]]s.

''Echchaviyal''

=== PoruLathikaaram ===
The Tolkāppiyam is possibly the only book on grammar that describes a ''grammar for [[life]]''. PoruLathikaaram gives the classification of land types, and seasons and defines modes of life for each of the combinations of land types and seasons for different kinds of people. This chapter is subdivided into the following 9 sections - ''AkaththiNaiyiyal, PuRaththiNaiyiyal, KaLaviyal, KaRpiyal, PoruLiyal, Meyppaattiyal, Uvamayiyal, SeyyuLiyal'' and the ''Marabiyal.''

''AkaththiNaiyiyal - This section defines the modes of personal life i.e. life of couples.

''PuRaththiNaiyiyal - This section defines the modes of one's public life.

''KaLaviyal'' -

''KaRpiyal''

''PoruLiyal''

''Meyppaattiyal''

''Uvamayiyal'' - The name ''Uvamayiyal'' literally translates to ''the nature or science of [[metaphor]]s''.

''SeyyuLiyal'' - This section deals with a grammar for classical [[Tamil Poetry]] based on principles of [[prosody]].

''Marabiyal

==See also==
* [[Date of the Tolkappiyam]]
* [[Aindra school of grammar |Aindra school of Sanskrit grammar]]

== Footnote ==
{{reflist |2}}

==References==
* Zvelebil, Kamil. 1973. The smile of Murugan on Tamil literature of South India. Leiden: Brill.
* Takahashi, Takanobu. 1995. Tamil love poetry and poetics. Brill's Indological library, v. 9. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
* Hart, George L. 1975. The poems of ancient Tamil, their milieu and their Sanskrit counterparts. Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Hart, George L. 1975. The poems of ancient Tamil, their milieu and their Sanskrit counterparts. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*{{cite book|author1=V Murugan|author2=G. John Samuel|title=Tolkāppiyam in English: translation, with the Tamil text, transliteration in the roman script, introduction, glossary, and illustrations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HohkAAAAMAAJ |year=2001|publisher=Institute of Asian Studies |isbn=978-81-87892-05-2 | oclc= 48857533}}
* {{cite book|title=The archaeology of seafaring in ancient South Asia|last=Ray|first=Himanshu Prabha |year=2003|publisher=Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge|location=Cambridge|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=iHHzP4uVpn4C |isbn=9780521011099}}
*{{cite book|author1=Tolkāppiyar|author2=P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri|title=Tolkāppiyam: Poruḷatikāram|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lodkAAAAMAAJ |year=1999|publisher=Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute|isbn=978-81-85170-27-5}}
*{{cite book|author=Hartmut Scharfe|title=Grammatical Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2_VbnWkZ-SYC |year=1977|publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag|isbn=978-3-447-01706-0}}
* Selby, Martha Ann (2011) Tamil Love Poetry: The Five Hundred Short Poems of the Aiṅkuṟunūṟu, an Early Third-Century Anthology. Columbia University Press, {{ISBN|9780231150651}}
* {{cite book|author=David Shulman|title=Tamil: A Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fG8NDQAAQBAJ |year=2016|publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-97465-4}}
*{{citation|author=Takanobu Takahashi|title=Tamil Love Poetry and Poetics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wgCHuVGyZoEC|year=1995|publisher=BRILL Academic|isbn=90-04-10042-3}}
*{{cite book| author=Eva Maria Wilden|title=Manuscript, Print and Memory: Relics of the Cankam in Tamilnadu|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=KuPmBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA75|year=2014|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-035276-4}}
* {{citation|author=Kamil Zvelebil|title=The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=degUAAAAIAAJ|year=1973|publisher=BRILL|isbn=90-04-03591-5}}
* {{citation | title=A History of Indian literature Vol.10 (Tamil Literature)| author=Kamil Zvelebil |author-link=Kamil Zvelebil| year=1974| publisher=Otto Harrasowitz|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OQ33i496MsIC |isbn = 3-447-01582-9}}
* {{cite journal|author= Kamil Zvelebil| title = Comments on the Tolkappiyam Theory of Literature| journal= Archiv Orientální | volume= 59| year=1991| pages= 345–359}}
* {{cite book|title=Companion studies to the history of Tamil literature|author=Kamil Zvelebil | author-link=Kamil Zvelebil|year=1992|pages=73|publisher=BRILL|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qAPtq49DZfoC&pg=PA73|isbn=90-04-09365-6}}
{{refend}}


==External links==
== External links ==
* {{URL|https://archive.org/details/dli.jZY9lup2kZl6TuXGlZQdjZU3kZly.TVA_BOK_0006660|Tolkāppiyam in English}} at [[archive.org]]
{{Wikisource|Translation:Tolkappiyam}}


{{Tamil language}}
* [http://www.tamil.net/projectmadurai/pub/pm0100/tolkap.pdf Tolkāppiyam Complete]
* [http://arutkural.tripod.com/tolcampus/akam.htm Tolkāppiyam PoruLatikaaram]
* [http://www.araichchi.com/Learn/eng-tolkaapiyam.htm Tolkāppiyam partial list]
* [http://tamilnation.org/literature/grammar/tolkappiyam.htm Tolkāppiyar's Literary Theory] - Research paper (1996)


{{DEFAULTSORT:Tolkappiyam}}
[[Category:Tamil language]]
[[Category:Tamil literature]]
[[Category:History of linguistics]]
[[Category:History of linguistics]]
[[Category:Sangam literature]]

[[Category:Grammar books]]
[[simple:Tolkāppiyam]]
[[Category:Ancient Indian grammar works]]
[[sv:Tolkāppiyam]]
[[ta:தொல்காப்பியம்]]

Latest revision as of 05:31, 4 December 2024

Topics in Sangam literature
Sangam literature
Agattiyam Tolkāppiyam
Eighteen Greater Texts
Eight Anthologies
Aiṅkurunūṟu Akanāṉūṟu
Puṟanāṉūṟu Kalittokai
Kuṟuntokai Natṟiṇai
Paripāṭal Patiṟṟuppattu
Ten Idylls
Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai Kuṟiñcippāṭṭu
Malaipaṭukaṭām Maturaikkāñci
Mullaippāṭṭu Neṭunalvāṭai
Paṭṭiṉappālai Perumpāṇāṟṟuppaṭai
Poruṇarāṟṟuppaṭai Ciṟupāṇāṟṟuppaṭai
Related topics
Sangam Sangam landscape
Tamil history from Sangam literature Ancient Tamil music
Eighteen Lesser Texts
Nālaṭiyār Nāṉmaṇikkaṭikai
Iṉṉā Nāṟpatu Iṉiyavai Nāṟpatu
Kār Nāṟpatu Kaḷavaḻi Nāṟpatu
Aintiṇai Aimpatu Tiṉaimoḻi Aimpatu
Aintinai Eḻupatu Tiṇaimālai Nūṟṟaimpatu
Tirukkuṟaḷ Tirikaṭukam
Ācārakkōvai Paḻamoḻi Nāṉūṟu
Ciṟupañcamūlam Mutumoḻikkānci
Elāti Kainnilai
Bhakti Literature
Naalayira Divya Prabandham Ramavataram
Tevaram Tirumuṟai
edit

Tolkāppiyam, also romanised as Tholkaappiyam (Tamil: தொல்காப்பியம் listenⓘ , lit. "ancient poem"[1]), is the most ancient extant Tamil grammar text and the oldest extant long work of Tamil literature.[2][3] It is the earliest Tamil text mentioning Gods, perhaps linked to Hindu deities.

There is no firm evidence to assign the authorship of this treatise to any one author. There is a tradition of belief that it was written by a single author named Tolkappiyar, a disciple of Vedic sage Agastya mentioned in the Rigveda (1500–1200 BCE).

The surviving manuscripts of the Tolkappiyam consists of three books (atikaram), each with nine chapters (iyal), with a cumulative total of 1,610 (483+463+664) sutras in the nūṛpā meter.[4][note 1] It is a comprehensive text on grammar, and includes sutras on orthography, phonology, etymology, morphology, semantics, prosody, sentence structure and the significance of context in language.[4] Mayyon as (Vishnu), Seyyon as (Skanda), Vendhan as (Indra), Varuna as (Varuna) and Kotṟavai as (Devi or Bagavathi) are the gods mentioned.[6]

The Tolkappiyam is difficult to date. Some in the Tamil tradition place the text in the mythical second sangam, variously in 1st millennium BCE or earlier.[7] Scholars place the text much later and believe the text evolved and expanded over a period of time. According to Nadarajah Devapoopathy the earliest layer of the Tolkappiyam was likely composed between the 2nd and 1st century BCE,[8] and the extant manuscript versions fixed by about the 5th century CE.[9] The Tolkappiyam Ur-text likely relied on some unknown even older literature.[10] The Tolkappiyam belongs to second Sangam period.

Iravatham Mahadevan dates the Tolkappiyam to no earlier than the 2nd century CE, as it mentions the puḷḷi being an integral part of Tamil script. The puḷḷi (a diacritical mark to distinguish pure consonants from consonants with inherent vowels) only became prevalent in Tamil epigraphs after the 2nd century CE.[11] According to linguist S. Agesthialingam, Tolkappiyam contains many later interpolations, and the language shows many deviations consistent with late old Tamil (similar to Cilappatikaram), rather than the early Tamil poems of Eṭṭuttokai and Pattuppāṭṭu.[12]

The Tolkappiyam contains aphoristic verses arranged into three books – the Eluttatikaram ("Eluttu" meaning "letter, phoneme"), the Sollatikaram ("Sol" meaning "Sound, word") and the Porulatikaram ("Porul" meaning "subject matter", i.e. prosody, rhetoric, poetics).[13] The Tolkappiyam includes examples to explain its rules, and these examples provide indirect information about the ancient Tamil culture, sociology, and linguistic geography. It is first mentioned by name in Iraiyanar's Akapporul – a 7th- or 8th-century text – as an authoritative reference, and the Tolkappiyam remains the authoritative text on Tamil grammar.[14][15][note 2]

Etymology

[edit]

The word Tolkāppiyam is a attribute-based composite word, with tol meaning "ancient, old", and kappiyam meaning "book, text, poem, kavya"; together, the title has been translated as "ancient book",[17] "ancient poem",[18] or "old poem".[19] The word 'kappiyam' is from the Sanskrit Kavya.[20]

According to Kamil Zvelebil – a Tamil literature and history scholar, Tamil purists tend to reject this Sanskrit-style etymology and offer "curious" alternatives. One of these breaks it into three "tol-kappu-iyanratu", meaning "ancient protection [of language]".[17] An alternate etymology that has been proposed by a few purists is that the name of the work derives from the author's name Tolkāppiyan, but this is a disputed assumption because neither the author(s) nor centuries in which this masterpiece was composed are known.[17]

Date

[edit]

The dating of the Tolkappiyam is difficult, much debated, and it remains contested and uncertain.[21][22] Proposals range between 5,320 BCE and the 8th century CE.[22][23]

The tradition and some Indian scholars favor an early date for its composition, before the common era, and state that it is the work of one person associated with sage Agastya. Other Indian scholars, and non-Indian scholars such as Kamil Zvelebil, prefer to date it not as a single entity but in parts or layers.[24] The Tolkappiyam manuscript versions that have survived into the modern age were fixed by about the 5th century CE, according to Zvelebil.[21][24][25] Scholars reject traditional datings based on three sangams and the myth of great floods because there is no verifiable evidence in its favor, and the available evidence based on linguistics, epigraphy, Sangam literature and other Indian texts suggest a much later date.[26] The disagreements now center around divergent dates between the 3rd century BCE and 8th century CE.[21][26][27]

The datings proposed by contemporary scholars is based on a combination of evidence such as:

  • comparison of grammar taught in Tolkappiyam versus the grammar found in the oldest known Tamil-Brahmi and old-Tamil inscriptions[7][21]
  • comparison of grammar taught in Tolkappiyam versus the grammar found in the oldest known Tamil texts (Sangam era);[21][28] this evidence covers items such as phonemic shapes, palatals, and the evolution in the use of compounds[29]
  • comparison of grammar taught in Tolkappiyam versus the grammar taught and found in the oldest known Sanskrit texts;[30] this includes tracing verses and phrases found in the Tolkappiyam that borrow, translate or closely paraphrase verses and phrases found in the works of ancient and influential Sanskrit scholars such as Panini, Patanjali, Manu, Kautilya, Bharata and Vatsyayana.[21]
  • comparison of poetry and prose rules taught in Tolkappiyam versus the actual early Tamil poetry and prose[31]
  • Prakrit and Sanskrit loan words (vadacol),[32] and inconsistencies between the sutras of the Tolkappiyam[21]

Dates proposed

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  • In his book published in 1925, T. R. Sesha Iyengar – a scholar of Dravidian literature and history, states that the Tolkappiyam while explaining grammar, uses terms for various forms of marriage in the Kalaviyal chapter. Elsewhere it mentions terms related to caste. Such ideas about different weddings and caste, states Iyengar, must be the influence of Sanskrit and Indo-Aryan ideologies. He disagrees with those European scholars who refuse to "concede high antiquity to the Dravidian civilization", and as a compromise suggests the Tolkappiyam was composed "before the Christian era".[33]
  • In post-Independence India, the Tamil scholar Gift Siromoney states that the Tolkappiyam should be dated based on the chronology of TALBI-P system based inscriptions, which is difficult to date. He suggests that this could be around the time of Ashoka, or centuries later.[34]
  • Iravatham Mahadevan dates the Tolkappiyam to no earlier than the 2nd century CE, as it mentions the puḷḷi being an integral part of Tamil script. The puḷḷi a diacritical mark to distinguish pure consonants from consonants with inherent vowels only became prevalent in Tamil epigraphs after the 2nd century CE.[35]
  • V. S. Rajam, a linguist specialised in Old Tamil, in her book A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry dates it to pre-fifth century CE.[36]
  • Vaiyapuri Pillai, the author of the Tamil lexicon, dated Tolkappiyam to not earlier than the 5th or 6th century CE.[21][37]
  • Kamil V. Zvelebil dates the earliest layer, the core Ur-text of the Tolkappiyam to 150 BCE or later.[38] In his 1974 review, Zvelebil places Book 1 and 2 of the Tolkappiyam in the 100 BCE to 250 CE period.[39] Rest of the sections and sutras of the text to centuries between 3rd and 5th century CE. The extant manuscripts of Tolkappiyam are based on the "final redaction" of the 5th century, states Zvelebil.[40]
  • Takanobu Takahashi, a Japanese Indologist, states that the Tolkappiyam has several layers with the oldest dating to 1st or 2nd century CE, and the newest and the final redaction dating to the 5th or 6th century CE.[26]
  • A C Burnell, a 19th-century Indologist who contributed to the study of Dravidian languages was of the view that the Tolkappiyam could not be dated to "much later than the eighth century."[41]
  • Herman Tieken, a Dutch scholar, states that the Tolkappiyam dates from the 9th century CE at the earliest. He arrives at this conclusion by treating the Tolkappiyam and the anthologies of Sangam literature as part of a 9th-century Pandyan project to raise the prestige of Tamil as a classical language equal to Sanskrit, and assigning new dates to the traditionally accepted dates for a vast section of divergent literature (Sangam literature, post-Sangam literature and Bhakti literature like Tevaram).[27] Hermen Tieken's work has, however, been criticised on fundamental, methodological, and other grounds by G.E. Ferro-Luzzi, George Hart and Anne Monius.[42][43][44]

Author

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There is no firm evidence to assign the authorship of this treatise to any one author. Tholkapiyam, some traditionally believe, was written by a single author named Tolkappiyar, a disciple of Vedic sage Agastya mentioned in the Rigveda (1500–1200 BCE). According to the traditional legend, the original grammar was called Agathiam written down by sage Agastya, but it went missing after a great deluge. His student Tolkappiyar was asked to compile Tamil grammar, which is Tolkappiyam.[45][46] In Tamil historical sources such as the 14th-century influential commentary on Tolkappiyam by Naccinarkkiniyar, the author is stated to be Tiranatumakkini (alternate name for Tolkappiyan), the son of a Brahmin rishi named Camatakkini.[47] The earliest mention of Agastya-related Akattiyam legends are found in texts approximately dated to the 8th or 9th century.[48]

According to Kamil Zvelebil, the earliest sutras of the Tolkappiyam were composed by author(s) who lived before the "majority of extant" Sangam literature, who clearly knew Pāṇini and followed Patanjali works on Sanskrit grammar because some verses of Tolkappiyam – such as T-Col 419 andT-Elutt 83 – seem to be borrowed and exact translation of verses of Patanjali's Mahābhāṣya and ideas credited to more ancient Panini. Further, the author(s) lived after Patanjali, because various sections of Tolkappiyam show the same ideas for grammatically structuring a language and it uses borrowed Indo-European words found in Panini and Patanjali works to explain its ideas.[29] According to Hartmut Scharfe and other scholars, the phonetic and phonemic sections of the Tolkappiyam shows considerable influence of Vedic Pratishakhyas, while its rules for nominal compounds follow those in Patanjali's Mahābhāṣya, though there is also evidence of innovations. The author(s) had access and expertise of the ancient Sanskrit works on grammar and language.[49][50]

According to Zvelebil, another Tamil tradition believes that the earliest layer by its author(s) – Tolkappiyan – may have been a Jaina scholar, who knew aintiram (pre-Paninian grammatical system) and lived in south Kerala, but "we do not know of any definite data concerning the original author or authors". This traditional belief, according to Vaiyapuri Pillai, is supported by a few Jaina Prakrit words such as patimaiyon found in the Tolkappiyam.[51]

Content

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The Tolkappiyam deals with ilakkanam (grammar) in three books (atikaram), each with nine chapters (iyal) of different sizes. The text has a cumulative total of 1,610 (Eluttatikaram 483 + Sollatikaram 463 + Porulatikaram 664) sutras in the nūṛpā meter, though some versions of its surviving manuscripts have a few less.[4][5] The sutra format provides a distilled summary of the rules, one that is not easy to read or understand; commentaries are necessary for the proper interpretation and understanding of Tolkappiyam.[52]

Book 1
Eluttatikaram

"Eluttu" means "sound, letter, phoneme", and this book of the Tolkappiyam covers the sounds of the Tamil language, how they are produced (phonology).[53] It includes punarcci (lit. "joining, copulation") which is combination of sounds, orthography, graphemic and phonetics with sounds as they are produced and listened to.[53] The phonemic inventory it includes consists of 5 long vowels, 5 short vowels, and 17 consonants. The articulatory descriptions in Tolkappiyam are incomplete, indicative of a proto-language. It does not, for example, distinguish between retroflex and non-retroflex consonants, states Thomas Lehmann.[52] The phonetic and phonemic sections of the first book show the influence of Vedic Pratisakhyas, states Hartmut Scharfe, but with some differences. For example, unlike the Pratisakhyas and the later Tamil, the first book of Tolkappiyam does not treat /ṭ/ and /ṇ/ as retroflex.[54]

Book 2
Sollatikaram

"Sol" meaning "word", and the second book deals with "etymology, morphology, semantics and syntax", states Zvelebil.[53] The sutras cover compounds, some semantic and lexical issues. It also mentions the twelve dialectical regions of Tamil speaking people, which suggests the author(s) had a keen sense of observation and inclusiveness for Old Tamil's linguistic geography.[53] According to Peter Scharf, the sutras here are inspired by the work on Sanskrit grammar by Panini, but it uses Tamil terminology and adds technical innovations.[50] Verb forms and the classification of nominal compounds in the second book show the influence of Patanjali's Mahabhasya.[54]

Book 3
Porulatikaram

"Porul" meaning "subject matter", and this book deals with the prosody (yappu) and rhetoric (ani) of Old Tamil.[55] It is here, that the book covers the two genres found in classical Tamil literature: akam (love, erotics, interior world) and puram (war, society, exterior world). The akam is subdivided into kalavu (premarital love) and karpu (marital love).[55] It also deals with dramaturgy, simile, prosody and tradition. According to Zvelebil, this arrangement suggests that the entire Tolkappiyam was likely a guide for bardic poets, where the first two books led to this third on how to compose their songs.[55] The third book's linking of literature (ilakkiyam) to the grammatical rules of the first and the second book (ilakkanam) created a symbiotic relationship between the two.[52] The literary theory of Tolkappiyam, according to Peter Scharf, borrows from Sanskrit literary theory texts.[50]

Epigraphical studies, such as those by Mahadevan, show that ancient Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions found in South India and dated to between 3rd century BCE and 4th century CE had three different grammatical form. Only one of them is assumed in the Tolkappiyam.[52] The language of the Sangam literature is same as the one described in Tolkappiyam, except in some minor respects.[50]

Commentaries

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The Tolkappiyam is a collection of aphoristic verses in the nūṛpā meter.[4] It is unintelligible without a commentary.[52] Tamil scholars have written commentaries on it, over the centuries:

Commentaries on Tolkappiyam
Author[50] Date[50] Notes
Ilampuranar 10th to 12th century Full: all verses[56]
Cenavaraiyar 13th or 14th century Partial: 2nd book[56]
Peraciriyar 13th century Partial: 1st and 2nd book[56]
Naccinarkkiniyar 14th century Partial: 1st, 2nd and part 3rd book[56]
Tayvaccilaiyar 16th century Partial: 2nd book[56]
Kallatanar 15th to 17th century[50][56] Partial: 2nd book[56]

The commentary by Ilampuranar dated to the 11th or 12th century CE is the most comprehensive and probably the best, states Zvelebil.[57] The commentary by Senavaraiyar deals only with the second book Sollathikaram.[56] The commentary by Perasiriyar, which is heavily indebted to the Nannūl, frequently quotes from the Dandiyalankaram and Yapparunkalam, the former being a standard medieval rhetorica and the latter being a detailed treatise on Tamil prosody. Naccinarkiniyar's commentary, being a scholar of both Tamil and Sanskrit, quotes from Parimelalakar's works.[56]

Reception

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Alexander Dubyanskiy, veteran Tamil scholar from Moscow State University stated, "I am sure that Tolkappiyam is a work which demanded not only vast knowledge and a lot of thinking but a considerable creative skill from its composer." Dubyanskiy also said that the authority of the text was undeniable: "It is a literary and cultural monument of great importance."[58]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ The palm-leaf manuscripts and commentaries on the text vary slightly in the total number of verse-sutras; they are all about 1,610.[5]
  2. ^ According to Thomas Lehmann, the Tolkappiyam rules are followed and exemplified in Old Tamil (pre-700 CE) literature. The Middle Tamil (700-1600 CE) and Modern Tamil (post-1600 CE) have additional distinct grammatical characteristics.[16] Causative stems of verb bases are "lexical in Old Tamil, morphological in Middle Tamil, and syntactic in Modern Tamil", for example, states Lehmann. Nevertheless, many features of Middle and Modern Tamil are anchored in the Old Tamil of Tolkappiyam.[16]

References

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  1. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, p. 131.
  2. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 131–133.
  3. ^ David Shulman 2016, p. 28.
  4. ^ a b c d Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 131–132 with footnotes.
  5. ^ a b Hartmut Scharfe 1977, pp. 178–179 with footnote 2.
  6. ^ Journal of Tamil Studies, Volume 1. International Institute of Tamil Studies. 1969. p. 131. Archived from the original on 13 November 2017.
  7. ^ a b Takanobu Takahashi 1995, pp. 16–17.
  8. ^ Nadarajah, Devapoopathy (1994). Love in Sanskrit and Tamil Literature: A Study of Characters and Nature, 200 B.C.-A.D. 500. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. ISBN 978-81-208-1215-4.
  9. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 138–146 with footnotes, Quote: "this fact would give us approximately the 5th cent. AD as the earliest date of Porulatikaram, and as the date of the final redaction of the Tolkappiyam.".
  10. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 138–139 with footnotes.
  11. ^ Mahadevan, I. (2014). Early Tamil Epigraphy - From the Earliest Times to the Sixth century C.E., 2nd Edition. p. 271.
  12. ^ S. Agesthialingam, A grammar of Old Tamil (with special reference to Patirruppattu), Annamalai University, (1979), pXIV
  13. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 131–134 with footnotes, 150.
  14. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 131–134 with footnotes.
  15. ^ Hartmut Scharfe 1977, pp. 179–180.
  16. ^ a b Thomas Lehmann (2015). Sanford B. Steever (ed.). The Dravidian Languages. Routledge. pp. 75–76. ISBN 978-1-136-91164-4.
  17. ^ a b c Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 131–132 with footnote 1.
  18. ^ Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg (2010). Tamil Language for Europeans: Ziegenbalg's Grammatica Damulica. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-3-447-06236-7.
  19. ^ Willem van Reijen; Willem G. Weststeijn (1999). Subjectivity. Rodopi. pp. 321–322. ISBN 90-420-0728-1.
  20. ^ Sir Ralph Lilley Turner - A comparative dictionary to the Indo-Aryan languages, Entry 3110 kāˊvya https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/soas_query.py?qs=kāvikā&searchhws=yes
  21. ^ a b c d e f g h Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 138–146 with footnotes.
  22. ^ a b The Date of the Tolkappiyam: A Retrospect." Annals of Oriental Research (Madras), Silver Jubilee Volume: 292–317
  23. ^ Takanobu Takahashi 1995, pp. 16–17, Quote=The date of Tol[kappiyam] has been variously proposed as lying between 5320 B.C. and the 8th Cent. A.D..
  24. ^ a b Ramaswamy, Vijaya (1993). "Women and Farm Work in Tamil Folk Songs". Social Scientist. 21 (9/11): 113–129. doi:10.2307/3520429. JSTOR 3520429.
  25. ^ Takanobu Takahashi 1995, pp. 16–19.
  26. ^ a b c Takahashi, Takanobu (1995). "2. Erudite works". Tamil Love Poetry & Poetics. Leiden; New York; Cologne: Brill. p. 18. ISBN 90-04-10042-3. These agreements may probably advance the lower limit of the date for Tol[kappiyam], but do not mean more recently than the 5th Cent. A.D., as suggested by some critics such as S. Vaiyapuri Pillai [...]
  27. ^ a b Tieken, Herman Joseph Hugo. 2001. Kāvya in South India: old Tamil Caṅkam poetry. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.
  28. ^ Takanobu Takahashi 1995, pp. 16–18.
  29. ^ a b Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 142–146 with footnotes.
  30. ^ Takanobu Takahashi 1995, pp. 16, 18–19.
  31. ^ Takanobu Takahashi 1995, pp. 16, 20–22.
  32. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1991.
  33. ^ Sesha Iyengar, T.R. (1925), Dravidian India, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, reprinted 1995, pp 155–157
  34. ^ Gift Siromoney (1983), Origin of the Tamil-Brahmi script, Seminar on "Origin evolution and reform of the Tamil script", pp. 21–29, The Institute of Traditional Cultures, University Buildings, Madras-600005
  35. ^ Mahadevan, I. (2014). Early Tamil Epigraphy - From the Earliest Times to the Sixth century C.E., 2nd Edition. p. 271.
  36. ^ Rajam, V. S. 1992. A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry: 150 B.C.–pre-Fifth/Sixth Century A.D. Memoirs of the American philosophical society, vol. 199. Philadelphia, Pa: American Philosophical Society, p. 7
  37. ^ Vaiyapuri Pillai, S. 1956. History of Tamil language and literature; beginning to 1000 A.D.. Madras: New Century Book House.
  38. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 137 and 147, Quote (p. 137): "As we will see later, Tolkkapiyam, the core of which may be assigned to pre-Christian era, consists perhaps of many layers, some of which may be much earlier than others", (p. 147): "Thus, the nuclear portions of Tolkappiyam were probably born sometimes in the 2nd or 1st century BC, but hardly before 150 BC.".
  39. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1974, pp. 9–10.
  40. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 138–147 with footnotes
  41. ^ "It is thus impossible to put the original text much later than the eighth century, for by the tenth century the whole Pāṇḍiya kingdom had fallen under the orthodox Coḷas." Burnell, A. C. (1975). "On the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians: Their place in the Sanskrit and Subordinate Literatures". Mangalore: Basel Mission Book and Tract Depository: 8–9. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  42. ^ George Hart III. "Review of Tieken's Kavya in South India." Journal of the American Oriental Institute 124:1. pp. 180–184. 2004.
  43. ^ G.E. Ferro-Luzzi. "Tieken, Herman, Kavya in South India (Book review). Asian Folklore Studies. June 2001. pp. 373–374
  44. ^ Anne E. Monius, Book review, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Nov., 2002), pp. 1404–1406
  45. ^ book titled "Tholkappiyar Kaalam", Madhivanan
  46. ^ Zvelebil, Kamil. 1973. The smile of Murugan on Tamil literature of South India. Leiden: Brill.
  47. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, p. 136.
  48. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 136–137.
  49. ^ Hartmut Scharfe 1977, pp. 180–182.
  50. ^ a b c d e f g Peter Scharf (2013). Keith Allan (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. pp. 253–254. ISBN 978-0-19-164343-9.
  51. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, p. 137.
  52. ^ a b c d e Thomas Lehmann (2015). Sanford B. Steever (ed.). The Dravidian Languages. Routledge. pp. 76–78. ISBN 978-1-136-91164-4.
  53. ^ a b c d Kamil Zvelebil 1974, p. 132.
  54. ^ a b Hartmut Scharfe 1977, pp. 180–181.
  55. ^ a b c Kamil Zvelebil 1974, p. 133.
  56. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 134–136.
  57. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, p. 134.
  58. ^ Karthik Madhavan (27 June 2010). "Tolkappiyam is not dependent on Sanskrit sources: Tamil scholar". The Hindu.

Bibliography

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