188-552: Parimelalhagar ( Tamil : பரிமேலழகர் ) ( c. 13th century CE ), sometimes spelled Parimelazhagar , born Vanduvarai Perumal , was a Tamil poet and scholar known for his commentary on the Thirukkural . He was the last among the canon of ten medieval commentators of the Kural text most highly esteemed by scholars. He was also among the five oldest commentators whose commentaries had been preserved and made available to
376-520: A Vaishnavite Brahmin family and is believed to have lived during the late 13th century CE. He belonged to the lineage of priests of Sri Ulagalandha Perumal temple in his home town. He is also known by various names as Vanduvarai Perumal, Parimelalhagiyaar, Parimelalhagiyan, and Parimelalhagaraiyan. Sivagyana Munivar mentions him as Parimelalhagiyaar in his work. Parimel's time has been deduced by referring to various historical accounts. In his venpa verse named "Valluvar seer", Umapathi Shivachariyar ,
564-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or
752-484: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without
940-759: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and
1128-501: A Tamil poet who is renowned mainly because of his commentary on the Tirukkural. He also states that although there are at least nine other known medieval commentaries, all of which are considered highly scholarly and of high literary value, Parimel's is regarded as the best of the ten. According to P. S. Sundaram , Parimel's commentary on the Kural is praised for his in-depth knowledge of both Sanskrit and Tamil, his acumen in detecting
1316-519: A family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of
1504-433: A focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had
1692-506: A good comprehension of the pan-Indian philosophies and employs them well across his writings. His understanding of the linguistic, literary, philosophical and religious ideas of the extra-Tamil domains can be seen in his elaborations to kurals 141, 501, 693, 890, and 1318. The Sanskrit works that separately deal with the dharma , artha , and kama aspects of the Purushartha are appropriately mentioned across his commentary. For example,
1880-421: A good understanding of Agama , Siddhanta and Vedanta , which are considered vital to unravel the riches of the Tirukkural, which helped him do justice to his commentary. When Parimel chose to write a literary criticism, he analysed in depth the works of the previous nine commentators who lived before his time and eliminated the flaws found in those earlier commentaries. When he completed his writing and perfected
2068-588: A land transaction done by Parimelalhagiya Dhadhan. According to M. Raghava Iyengar , this Parimelalhagiya Dhadhan was none other than Parimel. These serve as evidence to the claim that Parimel lived in Kancheepuram. According to another tradition, Parimel is said to be a native of Kadayam in Tirunelveli district and that his master was Jenana Vira Iyer, who made his pupil a guru to the Nadar sect and gave him
SECTION 10
#17327726696042256-591: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
2444-658: A limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
2632-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
2820-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
3008-607: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil
3196-671: A number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
3384-518: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with
3572-546: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
3760-492: A poet from the late 13th century, lists Parimel's commentary as one of the six greatest works ever in the Tamil language. In the introductory section of his commentary to Book III of the Kural, Parimel mentions King Bhoja (reigned c. 1010–1055 CE) from the Paramara dynasty and his work Shringara-Prakasha , which has been dated to early 11th century. Also scholars assert that Senavarayar precedes Parimel in time. Thus, Parimel
3948-606: A product of his time, citing his male-centered explanations to kurals 61, 69, and 336. The 20th-century Kural commentaries of the Dravidian movement, which criticize Parimel's exegesis, are in turn criticized by scholars for being biased in their approach. For instance, Sami Thiagarajan, in his Thirukkural Urai Vipareetham , points to these Dravidian commentaries as taking a distortive approach and seeking to stigmatise Parimel's commentary as espousing varnashrama dharma and giving importance to Sanskrit works. He further states that in
SECTION 20
#17327726696044136-578: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
4324-538: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
4512-511: A sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes : போக pōka go முடி muṭi accomplish Sanskrit Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
4700-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
4888-647: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of
5076-610: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who
5264-548: A summary form (known as polhippurai ) describing the meaning and moral of a given couplet, later scholars split it in order to simplify it, providing word-by-word meaning. Parimel is known to be a polymath . His expertise spanned across fields such as ethics, linguistics, philosophy, mathematics, poetry, logic, metaphysics, theology, politics, music, and medicine. His knowledge of theology and religion surfaces across his commentary to Book I , examples being his elaboration to couplets 21, 62, 351, 355, 358, 338, and 360. He discusses
5452-463: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on
5640-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to
5828-474: Is "in singularly clear and chaste Tamil" and adds that "Tiruvalluvar is fortunate in finding a commentator with such a keen perception". According to Mohan and Sokkalingam, the subtlety of the Parimel commentary is such that not a single word can be added or removed from it without tampering with its literary richness and clarity. M. Arunachalam considers the variations in Parimel's explanations as insignificant to
Parimelalhagar - Misplaced Pages Continue
6016-424: Is Valluvar’s innate nature to select the best virtues said in all the known works and present them in a manner that is common and acceptable to everyone." According to Jagannathan, Parimelalhagar believed that Valluvar authored the Kural text with his vast knowledge obtained after extensively studying several works, including numerous Sanskrit works of ancient times. This can be observed from Parimel's introduction to
6204-635: Is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia . It is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil
6392-711: Is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in
6580-464: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
6768-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel
6956-601: Is believed to have been born in the early 13th century. There are accounts of Parimel's living in both the cities of Kancheepuram and Madurai . Verse 41 of the Thondaimandala Sadhagam says that "Parimelalhagar of Kancheepuram served as beacon to the Kural." Additionally, an inscription on a plaque dating back to 1271 CE, which was erected in the 22nd year of the rule of the Telugu Chola King Vijayakanda Gopalan, mentions
7144-510: Is considered by scholars the best of all ancient commentaries on the Kural text and is esteemed on par with the Kural text itself for its literary quality. Scholars attribute the codification of the writings of Valluvar to Parimelalhagar. Parimel was highly successful in reflecting all the poetic nuances found in Valluvar's thought in prosaic form in his commentary. No other commentator so far has matched his style, clarity and High Tamil writing in
7332-647: Is considered the greatest commentator in the history of Tamil literature and has been praised by scholars down the ages. Medieval scholars praise him as the one who had expanded on Valluvar's original thoughts, as revealed from verse 1544 of the Perunthogai . Several medieval verses, including verses 1543 and 1545–1548 of the Perunthogai, verse 41 of the Thondaimandala Sadhagam, a verse by Umapathi Shivachariyar , Chapters 2–4 (verses 51, 52) of
7520-401: Is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages ,
7708-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of
Parimelalhagar - Misplaced Pages Continue
7896-511: Is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela , the Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that
8084-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
8272-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change
8460-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,
8648-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard
8836-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,
9024-539: Is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate
9212-532: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
9400-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
9588-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which
SECTION 50
#17327726696049776-589: Is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of
9964-793: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only
10152-540: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
10340-580: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
10528-613: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
10716-490: The Modern era , the others being Manakkudavar , Pari Perumal , Kaalingar , and Paridhi . Of all the ancient commentaries available of the Kural literature, Parimelalhagar's commentary is considered by scholars as the best both in textual and literary aspects. The codification of the writings of Valluvar is attributed to Parimelalhagar. Parimelalhagar also remains the most reviewed, in terms of both praise and criticism, of all
10904-507: The Nannool . While he extols Sanskrit literature in several places, there are also instances where he criticizes them (e.g., kural 961). In many places, Parimel cites other couplets of the Kural literature itself to explain a given couplet; examples include his explanations for couplets 135, 161, 263, 305, 457, 720, 755, 955, 971, and 972. Parimel cites several works from the Sanskrit literature in his commentary. Like Valluvar, Parimel displays
11092-465: The Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name
11280-673: The Paripaadal to be older than his commentary on the Tirukkural. Scholars such as Gopalakrishnamachariyar claim that the Parimelalhagar commentary on the Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai is written by a different poet of his namesake of a different period in time. Parimel characterizes the poet Kanthiyar, who lived before his time, as Nanthidai Maduttha Kanthi , as she had tampered with and interpolated verses in Paripaadal similar to
11468-582: The Perunthogai extols Parimel's erudition in both languages. His in-depth knowledge of Tamil can be seen in his usage of more than 230 linguistic and literary examples that he has employed in his commentary to the Kural. In as many as 286 instances, he even lucidly elaborates the meaning of highly literary Tamil words of his time. His grammar notes and linguistic explanations found in his commentary on couplets 2, 6, 11, 15, 16, 17, 22, 29, 36, 39, 41, 43, 48, 49, 66, 141, 147, 148, 167, 171, 177, 178, 180, 261, 378, and 381 are but examples of his extraordinary command of
SECTION 60
#173277266960411656-765: The Ramayana ), moral works of the Eighteen Lesser Texts (including Naladiyar , Nanmanikkatigai , Palamoli Nanuru , and Thirikatukam ), religious scriptures (including Tiruvaymoli and Tirukkovaiyar ), grammar texts (including Purapporul Venbamaalai , Tolkappiyam , and Iraiyanar Akapporul ), Mutthollaayiram , and the mathematical text of Yerambam . Parimel cites Agananuru in his commentary for kural 210; Pathitrupatthu for kural 432; Nattrinai for kural 401; Nanmanikkadigai for kurals 121 and 556; Patthupaattu for kurals 811, 1033, and 1144; Jivakachinthamani for kurals 384, 514, and 771; Periyapuranam for kural 442;
11844-753: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
12032-532: The Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
12220-531: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
12408-466: The Samkhya philosophy in couplet 27 and Arhat in couplet 286. His political acumen can be seen in virtually every chapter of Book II, more so in his explanations to couplets 385, 442, 735, 756, and 767. His musical knowledge is expressed in his commentary for kural 573. His knowledge on medicine can be seen in his commentary for kurals 941, 944, 948, and 950. Parimel is also known for prudently employing
12596-599: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to
12784-411: The dharma -based Sanskrit works are cited in his commentary to couplet 240; artha -based works in couplets 550, 663, 687, and 920; and kama -based works both at the beginning and conclusion of Book III. There are also instances where the works that Parimel cites in his commentary could not be identified or presumed to be lost, such as his explanations to kurals 62, 392, 566, 732, 1058, and 1099. Of all
12972-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
13160-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
13348-491: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak
13536-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
13724-469: The 13th-to-14th-century Tamil Nadu and that Valluvar's text can be interpreted and manoeuvred in other ways. Critics consider Parimel's way of defining aram (virtue) in the earlier parts of his work as flawed and denounce his explanations to couplets 37 and 501, accusing him of imbibing more ideas from the Sanskrit literature. Parimel is also criticized by scholars for the patriarchal opinions found in his commentary. Jagannathan, for instance, considers Parimel
13912-532: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
14100-425: The Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on
14288-475: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
14476-521: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
14664-481: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by
14852-474: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in
15040-476: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
15228-519: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
15416-401: The Kural by earlier commentators had only verbatim explanations and that detailed commentaries were made by those who published those manuscripts. Below his verbatim explanations, he provides lucid explanations in contemporary language, which contain several well-researched notes. He also provides ample examples wherever necessary, employing several literary phrases before his time in prose. Being
15604-628: The Kural came to be called "Parimelalhagiyar Virutthi". He is believed to have written the commentary around 1271–1272 CE as indicated in an inscription at the Varadharaja Perumal Temple at Kanchipuram . This is indicated in the work Sasana Tamil Kavi Saritham by Raghava Iyengar. Parimel has also written a commentary on Paripaadal , one of the work of the Eight Anthologies ( Ettuthogai ). There are several pieces of evidence indicating that Parimelalhagar belonged to
15792-618: The Kural couplets. It is found that there are as many as 120 variations found in the ordering of the Kural couplets by Parimel with respect to the commentary by Manakkudavar. Like all other medieval commentators, Parimel divides the books of the Kural text in his own way. He divides Book I into three parts, namely, invocation or introduction, domestic virtues, and ascetic virtues, while other medieval commentators divided Book I into four portions, namely, introduction, domestic virtues, ascetic virtues, and fate. While other medieval commentators divide Book II into five or even six parts, Parimel divides
15980-662: The Kural text varies from that of Manakkudavar in about 220 instances, including 84 in Book I , 105 in Book II , and 32 in Book III of the Kural text. With regard to the commentary by Kaalingar, Parimelalhagar's version varies in about 215 places. He has cited other earlier commentators in as many as 133 places within his commentary. He has justified the changes that he has made to the Kural text in about 48 instances. In instances such as his explanations to kurals 41, 100, 114, 235, and 563,
16168-532: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
16356-496: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
16544-478: The Perunkathai, and the work of Abidhana Kosham , praise Parimel and his work. Umapathi Shivachariyar holds Parimel's work on par with Valluvar's. Scholars consider Parimelalhagar's commentary to be highly exquisite that only learned intellectuals can completely grasp the subtleties found in his commentary. This led to several scholars writing more simplified commentaries to Parimel's exegesis in order to bring
16732-522: The Ramayana for kural 773; Tiruvaymoli for kurals 349 and 570; Mutthollayiram for kurals 576; and Tirukkovaiyar for kural 277. He also cites several Ancient Indian parables in places such as kurals 547, 899, 900, and 935. He cites the rules of the Tolkappiam in couplets 3, 402, 899, 960, and 1043. He also applies the Tolkappiam rules in kurals 86, 183, and 457, while in kural 863 he applies the rules of
16920-499: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
17108-638: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
17296-1044: The Tamil grammar can be observed from his commentary to kurals 127, 196, 272, 1029, 1030, 1115, and 1186, where he had given grammar notes explaining different parts of speech. Throughout Book III of the Kural literature, Parimel explains the grammar of the akam (inner feelings or subjective) genre of Tamil literature. In Chapters 77 (Army) and 78 (Valour) of Book II, Parimel explicates the puram (outer actions or objective) genre of Tamil literature, which can be observed especially from his elaborations to kurals 771, 773, and 774. Parimel embellishes his commentary by employing similes (e.g., kurals 100, 144, 343, 360, 399, 404, 416, 422, 425, 448, 571, 693, 741, 797, 900) and adding literary accounts where necessary (e.g., kural 63). He quotes from earlier commentators (e.g., kurals 17, 18, 207, 210, 290, 305, 580, 593, 599, 612, 615, 910, 925, 1028), points out varied inferences, and debunks any incorrect inferences. He also provides Tamil translations of Sanskrit terms used by Valluvar. In several instances, he extols
17484-590: The Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows a relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil)
17672-477: The Tamil language. He has also cited various works of the Tamil literature in his commentary. These include various Sangam texts (including Purananuru , Kaliththokai , Agananuru , Natrinai , Kurunthogai , Pattinappaalai , Paripaadal , Nedunalvaadai , Pathitrupathu , and Porunaraatruppadai ), epics (including Jeevaka Chinthamani , Silappadikaram , Manimekalai , Valayapathi , the Mahabaratha , and
17860-696: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as
18048-705: The Vaishnavite sect. His explanations to Kural couplets 610 and 1103, his reference to the Nalayira Divya Prabandham in various instances, his employment of verses from the Tiruvaymoli in couplets 349 and 370, and his citing Nammalvar 's verses in chapter 39 in the second book of the Kural text all indicate that he was a Vaishnavite. While a staunch devotee of Vishnu , Parimel practiced religious tolerance and treated other religions of his time with equal respect. Parimelalhagar's commentary
18236-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
18424-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
18612-581: The abstract of the respective chapter at the beginning of each chapter. While he appreciates other commentators' appropriateness in their commentaries, he does not hesitate to point out their shortcomings whenever they occur, with proper reasoning. Throughout his commentary, Parimel is also generous in acknowledging the other viewpoints that differ from his own. His explanations to couplets 223, 643, 817, 1069, and 1262 serve as evidence to his sincerity in appreciating others' commentaries. Parimelalhagar had an excellent command of both Tamil and Sanskrit. Verse 1543 of
18800-407: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
18988-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ
19176-517: The best Parimel's commentary ever published. As of 2013, Perimelalhagar's commentary appeared in more than 200 editions by as many as 30 publishers. Parimelalhagar held Valluvar in high regard for upholding virtue incessantly throughout the work of the Kural. Parimel addresses Valluvar as Deiva Pulamai Thiruvalluvar (literally "divine philosopher Thiruvalluvar"). In what is known in the scholarly circle as his most famous quote on Valluvar, Parimel praises Valluvar in his commentary to couplet 322 thus: "It
19364-449: The best explanations for a particular couplet given by earlier commentators. He also includes in his commentaries literary accounts from both Tamil and Sanskrit literature. In several places, he points out the Tamil traditions that are in line with the moral of the couplets. He also includes several historical accounts across his commentary (e.g., couplets 100, 144, 514, 547, 771, 773, 785, 899, 900, 935). Parimelalhagar compulsively elucidates
19552-590: The book into three parts, namely, kingship (royalty), elements of sovereignty ( angas or limbs of the state) and common duties. While Parimel's division of Book III consists of two parts, namely, Kalavu (secret love) and Karpu (wedded love), other medieval scholiasts have divided the Book of Inbam into three to five portions. Spelling, homophonic , and other minor textual variations between Manakkudavar and Parimelalhagar commentaries are found in several verses such as couplets 139, 256, 317, and 445. Parimel's version of
19740-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
19928-466: The chapters "Kindness of speech," "Self-control," "Not envying," "Not coveting another’s goods," "Not backbiting," and "Not uttering useless words", all of which appear under "Ascetic virtue" in Manakkudavar's version, appear under "Domestic virtue" in Parimel's version. Nevertheless, modern scholars have adopted Parimel's version for chapter ordering and couplet numbering. The following table lists
20116-527: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
20304-437: The commentaries available on the Kural text, the Parimelalhagar commentary was the first to be published by modern printing technology and remains the widely published commentary to date. In his work Tamil Literature , M. S. Purnalingam Pillai attests that copies of Parimel's original commentary were preserved by the 16th-century scholar Thirumeni Rathna Kavirayar and by Thevarpiran Kavirayar of Alwar Tirunagari. The commentary
20492-451: The commentaries on the Kural text. The commentary also remains the primary topic of interest in the discourses held on the topic of the Tirukkural. This also resulted in a resurgence in the publication of old commentaries written on Parimel's exegeses by various publishers. Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] )
20680-486: The contemporary era for interpreting certain verses of the Kural text in a more Brahmanical way. According to Norman Cutler, Parimel interpreted the text in Brahmanical premises and terms in accordance with the cultural values of the commentator. He further says that Parimel's elegantly written interpretations have made his commentary a Tamil classic in itself and reflects both the cultural values and textual values of
20868-520: The content and structural integrity of the Kural literature remained unsullied over the centuries chiefly because of Parimel's commentary to the text. T. P. Meenakshisundaram stated that without the "boat" of Parimel's commentary, the import of the Kural text would not have made it to the modern era "past the dark seas of the intervening centuries". According to M. V. Aravindan, the novel perspectives found in Parimel's work are praiseworthy. In History of Tamil Literature , C. Jesudasan says that Parimel's style
21056-442: The contents of each chapter with an abstract at the beginning of each chapter, and also connects the previous chapter with the current one in a logical manner, justifying his own way of chapter arrangement. He also connects every couplet within a chapter by explaining the flow of thoughts between them. He writes a verbatim explanation to each couplet and clarifies the meaning of difficult words. He also indicates that every manuscript of
21244-559: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
21432-653: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
21620-689: The culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004,
21808-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
21996-952: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of
22184-399: The differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from
22372-471: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
22560-460: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
22748-647: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in
22936-490: The early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in
23124-438: The errors of earlier commentators, and the fullness and brevity of his own commentary. Sundaram also hints that Parimel begins each chapter of the Kural in his commentary by citing a reason for its placement in the sequence by him. Scholars such as M. P. Srinivasan interpret Parimel's commentary to some of the Kural couplets (e.g., kurals 752 and 1045) as being picturesque in nature. Parimel is criticised by some Dravidianists of
23312-460: The ethical connections between seemingly contradictory thoughts laid out in couplets 380 and 620, 481 and 1028, 373 and 396, and 383 and 672. All these made his commentary coming to be known as "Viruddhi Urai" (expandable commentary). Parimel writes commentaries beginning with an introduction to each book and explains the introductory chapters in each of the Kural books. He analyzes and segregates chapters as subdivisions known as iyal s. He summarizes
23500-548: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
23688-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
23876-537: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. — Rigveda 10.71.1–4 Translated by Roger Woodard The Vedic Sanskrit found in
24064-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil
24252-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
24440-415: The history of Tamil literature. The literary quality of Parimel's commentary is so rich that one has to depend on highly learned intellectuals to completely understand the commentary. It is said that Parimel has commented on the grammatical construction for more than 500 couplets of the Kural text, without which it is believed that the import of these couplets could have been easily misconstrued. His command of
24628-486: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
24816-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by
25004-432: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It
25192-421: The last of the medieval commentators, Parimel verily had the opportunity to study the commentaries of all those who lived before his time. In most places he agrees with Manakkudavar and cites his work amply. In places where he is in disagreement with Manakkudavar and other early commentators, Parimel debunks their ideas sincerely with logical explanations. Although the original text of Parimel's commentary appears in
25380-461: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar
25568-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
25756-514: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
25944-649: The main text of Kural's Book I, his commentary to couplets 662 and 1330, and his introduction to Book III of the Kural text. Apart from his work on the Kural, Parimelalhagar has also written commentary on the Sangam works of the Paripaadal of the Eight Anthologies series and Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai of the Ten Idylls series. The old commentary on the Paripaadal is attributed to Parimel by U. V. Swaminatha Iyer , who published it. Scholars consider his commentary on
26132-568: The meanings given by Parimel differ from that of other medieval commentators. Like the other commentators before his time, Parimelalhagar has swapped as many as six chapters in Book I of the Kural text, changing the Kural's original chapter ordering found in Manakkudavar's commentary. The chapters "Shunning meat-eating," "Not stealing," "Not lying," "Refraining from anger," "Ahimsa," and "Non-killing", all of which originally appeared under subsection "Domestic virtues" in Manakkudavar's version, appear under "Ascetic virtues" in Parimel's version. Similarly,
26320-421: The medieval Kural commentators. Praised for its literary richness and clarity, Parimelalhagar's commentary is considered highly complex and exquisite in its own right that it has several scholarly commentaries appearing over the centuries to elucidate it. Along with the Kural text, Parimelalhagar's commentary has been widely published that it is in itself regarded a Tamil classic. Although the chapter ordering, and
26508-511: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
26696-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
26884-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
27072-602: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
27260-431: The most researched, most praised, and most criticized of all the medieval Kural commentators. Parimel is equally praised by modern scholars, including U. V. Swaminatha Iyer , S. Vaiyapuri Pillai , T. P. Meenakshisundaram , and K. Appadurai Pillai . George L. Hart regards Parimel's treatise on yoga asanas as one of the purest literary works in Tamil. Simon Casie Chetty , in his Tamil Plutarch , mentions Parimel as
27448-538: The name "Parimelalhagar" found across the district. These indicate that he must have lived in the Pandya Kingdom, chiefly Madurai. Right from his young age, Parimel was well versed in Sanskrit language's Tharka , Vyakarna , Sankya , and Vedanta and Tamil language's Tolkappiyam and other classic literary works. Despite being a Vaishnavite, Parimel had a great knowledge of the Saivite literature. He had
27636-648: The name Parimelalhagar. Verses 1547 and 1548 of the Perunthirattu indicate that he was a political figure in the town of Okkur near Madurai in the Pandya Kingdom , for which he was known as "Okkai Kavalan" (lit. "protector of Okkur"). The word usage that he employed in his Kural commentary (as in couplet 650) appears to be the colloquial version of the language spoken in Tirunelveli district even today. Incidentally, there are also several tombs indicating
27824-423: The name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having the connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this
28012-597: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
28200-537: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows
28388-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
28576-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
28764-504: The overall esteem of his commentary. E. Sundaramoorthy, former vice chancellor of the Tamil University , says that there is no avoiding Parimel because even those who disagree with Parimel require studying his commentary. According to K. Appadurai Pillai, no critiques of Parimel's work ever acted as a chisel that shaped the form of the rock (the "rock" here denoting Parimel's commentary for the Kural literature) but only remained as
28952-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
29140-407: The prevailing culture and linguistic usage of his time. The following table depicts the variations among the early commentators' ordering of, for example, the first ten verses of the Tirukkural. Note that the ordering of the verses and chapters as set by Parimel, which had been followed unanimously by both scholars and critics for centuries ever since, has now been accepted as the standard ordering of
29328-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
29516-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
29704-496: The process of injecting rationalistic egalitarianism into interpretations of the Kural thoughts, these Dravidian renditions "wrenched [the Kural text] out of its rich cultural, philosophical and spiritual underpinnings." According to him, this trend began in as early as the 1920s, although Pulavar Kulandhai 's 1949 work is considered the first 'rationalist' Tirukkural commentary. All these criticisms notwithstanding, Parimel's work remains an esteemed one to this day. Scholars opine that
29892-437: The process, he both adopted many of the thoughts and eliminated some of them which he felt did not make sense. He adopts Manakkudavar's style of reordering the couplets within the chapter in order to keep together the couplets that closely resembled in meaning, besides imparting new perspectives. While Kaalingar gives an abstract of the forthcoming chapter after the final verse in every chapter, Parimel adopts this method and writes
30080-609: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
30268-497: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
30456-562: The role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with
30644-496: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
30832-556: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
31020-615: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
31208-470: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but
31396-593: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
31584-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
31772-512: The variations between ordering of chapters in Book I by Manakkudavar (the oldest of the Medieval commentators) and that by Parimelalhagar (the latest). Being the last of the Ten medieval commentators, Parimel had the unique opportunity to study in depth all the previous commentaries and imbibe the ideas in them. This enabled him to come up with a better commentary than all the earlier commentaries. In
31960-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
32148-483: The verse ordering within each chapter, of the Tirukkural as set by Parimelalhagar varies greatly from the original work of Valluvar , the scholars and publishers of the modern era primarily follow Parimelalhagar's ordering. Thus, it is Parimelalhagar's ordering that is used to number the Kural chapters and couplets today. Parimelalhagar was born Vanduvarai Perumal in Kancheepuram in the erstwhile Tondai state in
32336-445: The waves that strike against the unshakeable bedrock. In the words of Chinnasamy Rajendiran, author of one of the simplified commentaries on Parimel's exegesis, while the Tirukkural is an "awe-inspiring mountain", Parimelalhagar is "a kindly guide who offers his hand to seekers to help them scale its peaks". Parimelalhagar remains the most studied commentator in the history of Tamil literature, and his commentary remains widely read among
32524-479: The way she did in Jivaka Chinthamani , which were later removed by Parimel when he annotated the poem. Take any couplet from the Kural literature at random and, after a month-long analysis, write a detailed commentary on it. Now look at Parimelalhagar's exegesis on said couplet. You're sure to find something in it that you've heretofore not imagined. — U. V. Swaminatha Iyer Parimelalhagar
32712-526: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in
32900-485: The work to the general audience. Some of these "commentaries to the Commentary" include Nunporulmaalai by Thirumeni Rathna Kavirayar ; the works of Saravanaperumal Iyer , Murugesa Mudaliyar, and Ramanuja Kavirayar ; and the explanatory notes by K. Vadivelu Chettiar (1919), Arasan Shanmuganar, Krishnampettai K. Kuppusamy Mudaliar (1924), V. M. Gopala Krishnamacharya, and Chinnasamy Rajendiran (2018). Parimel remains
33088-551: The work, he decided to stage it in the court of the Pandya ruler. Legend has it that the King wanted Parimel to stage his work seated on a bronze horse mounted in his court. When Parimel did so, the bronze horse moved, serving as evidence to his scholarly stature. Thus he came to be known as Parimelalhagar (meaning "the handsome equestrian"). The name is sometimes indicated as "Parimelalhagiyar" and "Parimelalhagaraiyyan". His commentary on
33276-502: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
33464-534: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,
33652-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
33840-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
34028-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
34216-738: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
34404-435: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are
34592-419: Was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of
34780-417: Was first analyzed, annotated and published by Ramanuja Kavirayar and came to print in 1840. This was followed by another commentary by Tirutthanigai Saravanaperumal Aiyar , which was based on Parimel's original commentary. Murugesa Mudhaliyar published Parimel's commentary with explanations in 1885. The annotated Parimel's commentary by Arumuka Navalar , whose work came out in several editions, remains one of
34968-504: Was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has a well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil
35156-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined
35344-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
#603396