Divisions
106-423: Saiddhantika Non - Saiddhantika The Tevaram ( Tamil : தேவாரம் , Tēvāram ), also spelled Thevaram , denotes the first seven volumes of the twelve-volume collection Tirumurai , a Shaiva narrative of epic and Puranic heroes, as well as a hagiographic account of early Shaiva saints set in devotional poetry. The Tevaram volumes contain the works of the three most prominent Shaiva Tamil saints of
212-468: 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
318-518: A ragam and talam . The traditional manuscripts arrange the hymns according to musical modes, or panmurai . The Tevaram hymns are set to 23 of the 103 pan scale modes of Ancient Tamil music , and they are meant to be sung while accompanied with a stringed musical instrument such as the Tamil yal . Professional singing of the Tevaram hymns at large Shiva temples has been a Tamil tradition since at least
424-432: 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
530-759: 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
636-518: A blind man, he visits many Shiva shrines and sings there. Slowly in stages, he becomes closer to Shiva and recovers his sight. Sundarar with restored eye sight then lives with his two wives. In his later hymns, he presents his spiritual discussions with Shiva on how to achieve both spiritual succor and material wealth in life. He seeks the latter to provide for his family and to pay for the charitable temple kitchen that fed hundreds of Shaiva pilgrims. Shiva becomes his patron king, grants him grain, gold and
742-716: A command to serve Shiva in the Tiruvarur temple. Later he meets dancer Paravai, they marry, and together they serve the Shaiva pilgrims and take care of the temple duties. He goes to visit Tiruvorriyur, meets and is enamoured with Cankali. With the help of Shiva, this leads to Sundarar's second marriage, but only after his wedding vows include never leaving Cankali and Tiruvorriyur. Sundarar misses his first wife Paravai, does not keep his word, and leaves for Tiruvarur. The broken vow causes him to go blind before he reaches Tiruvarur. His suffering thereafter are part of several Tevaram hymns. As
848-421: A current Tamil saying, "My Appar sang of me, Sambandar sang of himself, Sundarar sang of women". The lyrical beauty of the original Tamil verses is often untranslatable into English. Sisir Kumar Das regards this poem by Sambandar as exemplifying the structural and thematic distinctiveness of bhakti poetry: In the temple where he is throned, who bids us not lose heart In the hour when our senses grow confused,
954-465: A devout Shaiva. Appar's hymn are intimately devotional to Shiva, but occasionally include verses where he repents the Jain period of his life. In Tevaram hymn IV.39 and others, he criticizes the Jain monastic practice of not brushing teeth, the lack of body hygiene, their barbaric ascetic practices, the doctrine of pallurai (anekantavada) as self-contradictory relativism, the hypocrisy of running away from
1060-519: 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
1166-894: A few inscriptions in Tamil Shiva temples about patikam singers that can be dated around the 9th century. In the Periya Puranam , Sambandar is said to have been a child prodigy, one who began composing hymns as soon as he started speaking as a baby and who mastered the Vedas by age three. His gifts were attributed to being breastfed by the Shakti goddess Umadevi . As a child poet-saint, he attracted throngs of audiences, travelled through Tamil lands to Shiva temples accompanied by musician Tirunilakantayalppanar, composing melodious hymns in complex meters and rhythms. The hymn III.345 of Tevaram depicts Jain monks persecuting him and trying to burn
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#17327728136131272-510: A flashing sword. This is embedded symbolism to inspire regional kings and wealthy patrons to support the spiritual and charitable works at Shiva temples. Sundarar is the author of 1,026 poems compiled as the Tirumurai' s seventh volume. The Tevaram has 796 hymns. Each hymn contains pathikam ( Tamil : பதிகம் ), also spelled patikam (from Sanskrit padya , verses). Predominantly all hymns of Tevaram contain ten or eleven verses. Each verse
1378-476: A mission to recover the hymns after hearing short excerpts of Tevaram in his court. He sought the help of Nambi Andar Nambi, who was a priest in a temple. It is believed that by divine intervention Nambi found the presence of scripts, in the form of cadijam leaves half eaten by white ants in a chamber inside the second precinct of the Chidambaram Nataraja temple . The brahmanas ( Dikshitars ) in
1484-607: 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
1590-671: 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
1696-518: 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
1802-485: A palm-leaf manuscript of his hymn, but the fire does not burn it. On the request of queen Mangayarkkarasiyar , Sambandar went to Madurai to counter the Jain monks in her husband's court. There the Jain monks allegedly attempt to burn the house he was staying in, but he remains unharmed. Then he is challenged to a debate by the Jain monks with the condition that the losing side convert to the winning side, or commit suicide by impaling themselves to death. Sambandar defeats
1908-481: A prayer for protection to Rama . Stotras are a type of popular devotional literature. Among the early texts with Stotras are by Kuresha, which combine Ramanuja 's Vedantic ideas on qualified monism about Atman and Brahman (ultimate, unchanging reality), with temple practices. Stotra comes from the Sanskrit root √ stu- which means "to praise, eulogize or laud" combined with the ṣṭran suffix . Literally,
2014-581: A reputed oeuvre of 16,000 hymns. His verses were set to tune on yal or lute by Sambandar's constant companion Tiru Nilakanta Yazhpanar (Nilakantaperumanar). Appar, also known as Tirunavukkaracar, was born in the late 6th century or the early 7th century in a Vellala peasant family. From the Shaiva Shudra caste, he was an orphan raised by his sister. He spent his childhood in Tiruvamur village near Atikai by most accounts. His childhood name
2120-467: 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 Strota Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas Stotra (Sanskrit: स्तोत्र )
2226-647: 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
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#17327728136132332-610: 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
2438-430: A touch of humour. In one of the verses, he playfully draws an analogy between Shiva and himself, both having two wives and the needs of nagging wives: Thou art half woman. Thyself Ganga is in thy long hair, Full well canst thou comprehend Burden of woman so fair – Sundarar The hymns provide a window into the types of Shiva temples in the 7th century CE, artwork and the iconography prevalent then. They confirm that
2544-463: 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
2650-438: 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
2756-523: Is a Sanskrit word that means "ode, eulogy or a hymn of praise." It is a literary genre of Indian religious texts designed to be melodically sung, in contrast to a shastra which is composed to be recited. A stotra can be a prayer, a description, or a conversation, but always with a poetic structure. It may be a simple poem expressing praise and personal devotion to a deity for example, or poems with embedded spiritual and philosophical doctrines. A common feature of most stotras other than Nama stotras
2862-455: Is a call for self-independence, militancy or pressing for one's rights, without fearing anyone in Appar compositions: To none are we subject! Death we do not fear! We do not grieve in hell. No tremblings know we, and no illnesses. It's joy for us, joy day by day, for we are His. Forever His, His; who does reign, our Sankara, in bliss. – Appar (Translator: Zvelebil) Sundarar's hymns had
2968-591: Is a four line melodic stanza with an embedded refrain. The hymns of Sambandar and Sundarar also embed a signature or coda in the last verse, where the poet-saint shares some personal information, or the benefits of listening to or singing that hymn, or the context of that hymn. The hymns of Appar too include a signature or coda in the last verse, but they characteristically are linked to the Ramayana through Ravana's mythical devotion before he lost his way and turned evil. The hymns are set to music denoted by panns with
3074-457: 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
3180-476: Is believed to have died around the age of 81 in Tirupugalur. He extolled Shiva in 49,000 stanzas, out of which 3,130 have survived. These are compiled in the fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of the Tirumurai . Sundarar, also known as Nampi Arurar or Cuntaramurtti or Cuntarar, is the third of the Tevaram trio. His Tevaram hymns provide more biographical specifics than the hymns of Sambandar and Appar. Sundarar
3286-457: 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 ,
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3392-563: 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
3498-460: 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
3604-405: 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
3710-409: 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,
3816-410: 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
3922-771: 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 ,
4028-603: Is not antagonistic to the Vedic tradition, it compliments and redirects the devotee to bhakti through songs and music, for the same spiritual pursuit. In their structure and focus, the patikams (praise poem) of the Tevaram are "closely associated with early Sanskrit strotas " of the types found in Bhagavad Gita , the Bharavi , some compositions of Kalidasa and some chapters of the epic Mahabharata , all dated between about
4134-592: 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
4240-409: 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
4346-568: Is the repetition of a line at the end of every verse. For example, the last line of every verse in the Mahiṣāsura Mardinī Stotra ends in "Jaya Jaya Hē Mahiṣāsura-mardini Ramyakapardini śailasute." Many stotra hymns praise aspects of the divine, such as Devi , Shiva , or Vishnu . Relating to word " stuti ", coming from the same Sanskrit root * stu- ("to praise"), and basically both mean "praise". Notable stotras are Shiva Tandava Stotram in praise of Shiva and Rama Raksha Stotra ,
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4452-793: 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
4558-663: The Periya Puranam , the eleventh-century Tamil book on the Nayanars that forms the last volume of the Tirumurai . The first two Saints are mentioned in the third poet Sundarar's Tiruttondartokai ( lit. The List of the Holy Servants) and other poetry which is generally dated to the 8th century. Other Tamil texts such as the Tiruvilaiyatarpuranam provide more extended context for the life stories of
4664-465: 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
4770-534: 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
4876-623: The Tevaram along with the rest of Tirumurai and ending with the Periya Puranam , Tamil Shaivism acquired a canonical set of sacred texts on ritual, philosophy, and theology. This marked its coming of age alongside the expansion and consolidation of Chola imperial power in the 11th century CE. Tevaram contains 796 hymns made up of 8,284 stanzas. These hymns continue to be devotionally sung in contemporary times in many Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu . The word Tēvāram can be interpreted in two ways. First, as "Tēva" and "Āram" which means "the garland of
4982-599: 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
5088-460: The Vedic melodies, on the other, he gently smiles, Matted hair adorned with sweet konrai blossoms on one half of his head, and a woman's curls on the other, he comes. The one the nature of his form, the other of hers, And both are the very essence of his beauty. The nama-stotra is based on chanting a litany of names for a deity. The Sahasranama , a type of nama-stotra, is a litany of
5194-491: 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
5300-527: The 11th century. Several of these poems refer to historic references pointing to the saints own life, voice of devotee persona, using interior language of the mystic. Of the three, Sambandar's life is better interpreted by his verses. According to Zvelebil, the child-prodigy Sambandar's lyrics are characterized by egocentricism, by militancy and great ardour, by a warm feeling for the greatness and beauty of Tamil language with scholarly experimentation in meters showing familiarity with Sanskrit forms. Zvelebil quotes
5406-581: The 2nd century BCE and the 5th century CE, states Peterson. The melodic prosody, structure and genre that the Tevaram exemplifies has roots and illustrations in the Satarudriya of the Yajurveda , an ancient prototypical devotional hymn to Rudra-Shiva. According to Sabaratnam, the Tevaram verses were more oriented towards the folk tradition. It used the Tamil language and thus set aside the primacy of Sanskrit liturgies in religious matters. Tevaram made
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#17327728136135512-615: The 7th and 8th centuries: Sambandar , Appar , and Sundarar . The three saints were not only involved in portraying their personal devotion to Shiva , but also engaged a community of believers through their songs. Their work is an important source for understanding the Shaiva Bhakti movement in the early medieval South India . In the 10th century, during the reign of Rajaraja I of the Chola dynasty , these saints' hymns were collected and arranged by Nambiyandar Nambi . Starting with
5618-517: The 7th to 9th century. They are among the Nayanars (leaders), and considered the "principal saint-leaders" of Tamil Shaivism. Like the ancient Sanskrit texts of India as well as the Vaishnava bhakti tradition, the early Nayanar poetry was largely an oral tradition through the 10th century, with some evidence of these poems being written on palm leaf manuscripts. The actual compilation into Tevaram
5724-481: 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
5830-474: 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
5936-606: The Madras Tamil Lexicon. This equivalence with the ancient Hindu Vedas has been explained by the Tamil Shaiva scholars in that the Tevaram "resembles the Vedic hymns" by being poetry of the "highest order" that also systematically builds the philosophical foundations of Shaivism. It differs from the ancient Vedas in that it focuses on intense bhakti for Shiva. The Tevaram helped structure a devotional tradition with its own authoritative canon, and thereby negated
6042-590: 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)
6148-696: 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
6254-410: The Tevaram are broadly grouped in four stages. First, his cancelled arranged marriage through the intervention of Shiva in the form of a mad petitioner and his conversion into a Shaiva devotee. Second, his double marriage to temple dancers Paravai and Cankali with their stay together in Tiruvarur. Third, his blindness and then return of his sight. Finally, his reflections on wealth and material goods. In
6360-527: The Tevaram include Nallur, Tinkalur, Tiruvarur, Tiruvavatuturai where he described the Tiruvatirai festival, Maraikkatu, Vaymur, Tiruvaiyaru, and mount Kailash in the Himalayan north. This was also a period of resurrection of the smaller Shiva temples. Appar sanctified all these temples with his verses and was also involved in cleaning of the dilapidated temples in a ritual known as uzhavaarappani . Appar
6466-672: The Tevaram trio and other poet-saints. All these texts including the Periya Puranam were finalized a few centuries later. The texts about the Tevaram trio are hagiographies full of mythistory where devotion leads to miracles, objects float upstream in a river, cruel Jains of the Chola kingdom repeatedly scheme to hurt and kill peaceful Shaiva saints in the Pandya kingdom, the Shiva devotees survive and thrive through divine interventions, magic cures people's diseases, stone statues spring to life to help
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#17327728136136572-554: The Tevaram trio, then these were adopted in temple rituals and festivals by patikam singers, and thereafter came a conscious 11th-century structuring of these poems into a canonized text. The last stage was assisted by the pontiffs of the mathas (monasteries) who incorporated the hymns into the Shaiva Siddhanta canon in the 13th century. Tevaram text has been called as a Shaiva "Tamil-vētam" (a Tamil Veda) in Volume 4 of
6678-442: 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
6784-674: The centuries, confirm that this became a lasting historic practice by at least the 8th century CE. For example, states Dorai Rangaswamy, the Nandivarman II (Pallavamalla) inscription of the 8th century confirms Tevaram hymns singing at a Shiva temple. Another inscription attributed to Vijayanandi Vikramavarma from the 9th century makes provision for singers of Patiyams in the temple. Similarly, two 10th-century donor inscription of Uttama Cola, who preceded Rajaraja, mentions Shaiva hymn singers. The Tevaram hymns incorporate names of Shiva temple pilgrimage sites. The poems also involved glorifying
6890-689: 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,
6996-952: 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
7102-399: 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
7208-405: The direct devotion to Shiva more easily accessible to the people. The first three volumes of Tevaram are by Sambandar , the next three by Appar , and the seventh by Sundarar . Appar and Sambandar lived around the 7th century, while Sundarar lived in the 8th century. It is likely that the lives of Appar and Sambandar overlapped sometime between 570 and 670 CE, while Sundarar lived in late 7th or
7314-647: 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
7420-745: The early 8th century. All three are among the 63 Nayanars ( lit. ' hounds of Siva ' ) who are revered poet-saints of Shaivism. During the Pallava period these three travelled extensively around Tamil Nadu , pioneering the tradition of an emotional devotion to Shiva through ritual singing in temples and public places. This was an era where Hindus, Jains and Buddhists were rivals in seeking patronage and influence in royal and urban circles of South India. The Tevaram includes 383 or 384 hymns composed by Sambandar over volumes I–III, 313 hymns by Appar over volumes IV–VI, and 100 hymns by Sundarar in volume VII. Information about Tevaram Trio comes mainly from
7526-440: The eleventh book. The first seven books were later called as Tevaram , and the whole Shaiva canon, which came to include Sekkizhar 's Periya Puranam (1135 CE) as the twelfth volume, is wholly known as Tirumurai , "the holy book". Thus Shaiva literature which covers about 600 years of religious, philosophical and literary development. Nambi was also involved in setting musical modes for Tevaram . He accomplished this by visiting
7632-405: The feat of Shiva in the particular location. These hymns helped create a sacred geography of Tamil Shaivism, interconnecting this regional Shaiva community within and to the broader Shaivism across the Indian subcontinent. The poems do not represent social space as a contested space, rather they were spaces for sharing of religious ideas, movement and social service to pilgrims. According to Prentiss,
7738-404: The first part of his life, the arranged marriage of Sundarar is cancelled after a mad old man mysteriously appears and produces a palm leaf document. The document stated that Sundarar was bonded to serve him, his master. A court of elders then reviews the document and finds it authentic, demands Sundarar to serve the petitioner, who then mysteriously vanishes into Shiva shrine. Sundarar views this as
7844-715: The head of the Jain monastery in Tiruppatirippuliyur. After a while, afflicted by a painful stomach illness, Dharmasena returned home. His sister gave him Tirunuru (sacred ash) and the five syllable mantra "namaccivaya" (Namah Shivaya). Then together they went together to a Shiva temple in Atikai, where he spontaneously composed his first hymn of Tevaram. As he sang the second verse, he was miraculously cured of his stomach illness. Thereafter, he came to be known as Navukkaracar (from Skt: Vagisa, "king of speech") or more popularly just Appar. He had thus left Jainism, and become
7950-699: 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
8056-469: The hymns of three saints Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar as the first seven books, Manikkavacakar 's Tirukovayar and Tiruvacakam as the eighth book, the 28 hymns of nine other saints as the ninth book, the Tirumandiram of Tirumular as the tenth book, and 40 hymns by 12 other saints, Tirutotanar Tiruvanthathi –the sacred anthathi of the labours of the 63 Nayanar saints–and Nambi's own hymns as
8162-488: The hymns show that the hymnists were free to wander and to offer their praise of Shiva. The emotional intensity of the hymns represent spontaneous expression of thought as an emotional responses to God. The Paadal Petra Sthalams are 275 temples that are revered in the verses of Tevaram and are amongst the greatest Shiva temples of the continent , while the Vaippu Sthalam are places that are mentioned casually in
8268-406: The hymns. The focus of the hymns suggests darshan (seeing and being seen by God) within the puja (worship) offering. Both human structures and natural places find a mention in Tevaram : in addition to temples, the hymnists make classificatory lists of places like katu (forest), turai (port or refuge), kulam (water tank) and kalam (field). Raja Raja Chola I (985-1013 CE) embarked on
8374-416: The iconography of Nataraja – the dancing form of Shiva, and the Shiva linga, were already well established by the time of Sambandar, complementing each other in large Shiva temples. These hymns also provide evidence of the Shaiva poet-saints cherishing the Vedic heritage. His house is resplendent with five walls, with gleaming gopuras in each direction to the number of the Vedas, with five halls, which are
8480-432: 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
8586-449: The kind and gentle Shaiva people suffering persecution, gigantic forms of living animals such as cruel elephants become small peaceful stone statues, and other such events happen in the context of loving and intense devotion to Shiva. This myth-filled context has created much controversy and speculations on their reliability, even the centuries in which these saints lived. Thirugnana Sambandar, sometimes spelled as Campantar or Ñāṉacampantar,
8692-461: 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
8798-478: The lord [Shiva]". Second, as "Tē" and "Vāram" which means "create love towards the lord". Tevaram has also been interpreted as "private ritual worship", with the term varam appearing in temple inscriptions with the sense of "lord's shrine". The Tevaram is attributed to three Tamil Shaiva poet–saints, sometimes referred to as the "Tevaram trio" (Mūvar). They lived between the 6th and 8th century CE, state Peterson and Prentiss, while Champakalakshmi dates them in
8904-554: The monks in debate, the Pandya king and some Jains convert to Shaivism. Other Jain monks die in Madurai of impalement in the aftermath. Sambandar died around 655 CE at the age of 16, on the day of his wedding when Shiva met him and took his relatives and him to his abode. The first three volumes of the Tirumurai contain 383 poems (some editions 384), composed of 4,181 stanzas, attributed to Sambandar, which are all that survive out of
9010-423: 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
9116-497: The native village of Tiru Nilakanta Yazhpanar , where he met a woman of the Tamil Panar caste who learned the mode of divine revelation. She returned to Chidambaram with Nambi, where she sang and danced for Shiva. Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by
9222-537: 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
9328-553: The primacy of Vedic orthodoxy and Smartha tradition, states Champakalakshmi. Yet they extend rather than reject the Vedic tradition. The hymns, states Peterson, directly praise the four Vedas and Sanskrit, adding that devotion to Shiva is same as these. For example, in Appar VI.301.1, the Tevaram states "See him who is Sanskrit of the North, and southern Tamil, and the four Vedas". Such themes appear repeatedly in this text. Thus, Tevaram
9434-605: The sheaths of the Brahman, food and the others with the holy waters, and with the shrines of the Blessed Mulasthana, Devi, Visnu, Elephant-faced Vinayaka and Skanda, Him who constantly performs His dance, there is Sheath of Bliss, Whose foot is curved, I worship. – Sambandar (Translator: Smith) The Tevaram hymns celebrate charitable giving ( danam ), food to pilgrims ( anna ), devotional singing at temples. The inscriptions found in stone temples of Shiva over
9540-470: 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
9646-458: The temple opposed the mission, but Rajaraja intervened by consecrating the images of the saints through the streets of Chidambaram. Rajaraja thus became known as Tirumurai Kanda Cholan meaning "one who saved the Tirumurai ". Thus far Shiva temples only had images of god forms, but after the advent of Rajaraja, the images of the Nayanar saints were also placed inside the temple. Nambi arranged
9752-535: The term refers to "poems of praise". The earliest trace of stotras are Vedic, particularly in the Samaveda . The following is a Peterson translation of a Stotra by the Tamil poet Appar for Ardhanarishvara , the Hindu concept of a god who incorporates both the masculine and the feminine as inseparable halves. An earring of bright new gold one ear, a coiled conch shell sways on the other, On one side he chants
9858-430: The verse. The quote below is a popular song of Appar glorifying Shiva in simple diction: மாசில் வீணையும் மாலை மதியமும் வீசு தென்றலும் வீங்கிள வேனிலும் மூசு வண்டறை பொய்கையும் போன்றதே ஈசன் எந்தை இணையடி நீழலே like the sweet-sounding Veena and cool night's moon, like the gently breeze and the young spring like a bee-humming lake are my lord's twin feet's shadow – Appar Like Sambandar, there
9964-446: The way grows dim, Our wisdom fails, and mucus chokes our struggling breath, In Tiruvaiyar, where the girls dance around, and the drumbeats sound, The monkeys fear the rain, run up the trees, and scan the clouds. – Sambandar Appar's poems are emotional, very personal form of Shiva worship. The metaphors used in the poems have deep agrarian influence that is considered one of the striking chords for common people to get accustomed to
10070-526: 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
10176-481: The world and work yet begging for food in that same world, and others. The Tamil hagiographies allege that Jain monks approached the Pallava king Mahendravarman to take revenge on Appar for his desertion. Appar is summoned to the court and allegedly tortured. Appar remains in good spirit despite the persecution. Thus, Appar persuaded Mahendravarman of the folly in Jainism, and converted the king to Shaivism. Appar
10282-501: Was Marunikkiyar (Marulneekiar). Zvelebil dates his birth to between 570–596 CE. Details of Appar's life are found in his own hymns and in Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam . His sister Thilagavathiar was betrothed to a military commander who died in war. She devoted herself to Shaivism. Unlike his sister, Appar turned to Jainism. He left home, joined a Jain monastery, where he was renamed Dharmasena (Tarumacenar). He studied Jainism and became
10388-534: 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,
10494-409: Was a dedicated pilgrim, who travelled to distant Shiva shrines. Of particular note are Shiva temples sites that were important turning points to his life and these remain important to contemporary Tamil Shaivas. These include Tunkanaimatam, Chidambaram, Sirkazhi where he met the child poet-saint Sambandar who lovingly called him Appar ( transl. father ). Other Appar destinations mentioned in
10600-538: Was born in Tirunavalur in a Shaiva Brahmin family to Sadaiya Nayanar and Isaignaniyar towards the end of the 7th century. He was adopted by the Pallava feudatory family of Naracinka Munaiyaraiyar, an adoption that gave him a luxurious childhood and the last name "Arurar" after Shiva in Tiruvarur. As he grew into an adult in Tiruvarur, he was called "Sundarar" meaning "the handsome lord". His life and his hymns in
10706-530: Was born into a family of Shaiva Brahmins in Sirkazhi near Chidambaram. Little is known with any certainty about Sambandar actual life. The last hymns of Tevaram volume III provide some information. The Periya Puranam and Sundarar's Tiruttondartokai are additional early records and provide a comprehensive hagiography on him. Other sources are the Nambiyandar Nambi 's Tiru Tondar Tiruvandadi and
10812-600: 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
10918-410: Was completed in the 11th century, starting around 1000 CE. The Tevaram trio themselves credit an older tradition and "speak of saints who lived before them", which states Peterson suggests that parts of the Tevaram poetry may have more ancient roots than the 6th century. According to Champakalakshmi, there were at least three stages in the evolution of Tevaram : first was the composition of the hymns by
11024-540: 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
11130-504: 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
11236-451: 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
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