82-532: Saiddhantika Non - Saiddhantika Divisions Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas Tirumurai ( Tamil : திருமுறை, meaning Holy Order) is a twelve-volume compendium of songs or hymns in praise of Shiva in the Tamil language from the 6th to the 11th century CE by various poets in Tamil Nadu . Nambiyandar Nambi compiled
164-468: 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
246-484: 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
328-701: 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
410-607: 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
492-518: 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
574-535: 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) 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
656-506: 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 Gandaraditya Gandaraditha Chola succeeded his father Parantaka I and became the Chola king about 955 CE. He was also a Tamil literary poet in
738-647: 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
820-538: A son called Madhurantaka Uttama Chola . This must have been very late in his life. At the time of Gandaraditya’s death (c. 956 CE), Uttama Chola must have been a young boy, as he was set aside in the order of succession and Arinjaya took over the Chola crown. Sembiyan Madeviyar survived her husband for a long time. She seems to have been a pious lady as she figures in several inscriptions, making donations to various temples. She died c. 1001 CE during Rajaraja’s reign. She
902-610: 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
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#1732773020057984-463: 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
1066-438: 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
1148-410: 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 is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and
1230-513: Is Gandaraditya (950-957 CE), a Chola king who later became a Saivite saint. Tirumandiram by Tirumular unfolds siddantha (attainment) as a fourfold path - virtuous and moral living, temple worship, internal worship and union with Siva. Tirumular worked out an original philosophical system, and the southern school of Saiva siddantha draws its authority from Tirumandiram , a work of 3000 verses. Tirumandiram represents another school of thought detailing agamic traditions, which run parallel to
1312-543: Is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from 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
1394-425: Is another anthology for Tirumurai as a whole, but primarily focuses on Tevaram . It is the first of the works to refer the collection of volumes as Tirumurai . Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia . It
1476-457: 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
1558-563: 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
1640-405: 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
1722-409: 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,
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#17327730200571804-410: 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
1886-771: 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 ,
1968-507: Is one of the first anthologies of Tirumurai . One of the first anthologies of moovars ' hymns called the Tevara Arulmuraitirattu is linked to Tamil Saiva siddhantha philosophy by grouping ninety-nine verses into 10 categories. The category headings are God, soul, bond, grace, guru, methodology, enlightenment, bliss, mantra and liberation - corresponding to Umapthi's work, Tiruvarutpayan . Tirumurai kanda puranam
2050-646: 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 was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has
2132-460: Is possible that Gandaradhitya was without issue for a long time and in attempt to secure the continuation of the Vijayalaya dynasty, Gandharaditya made his brother heir apparent. Gandaraditya had two queens namely Sembiyan Mahadevi, described as the daughter of Mazhavarayar and another called Viranarayaniyar who is described as the daughter of Solamadeviyar. Sembiyan Madeviyar bore him
2214-409: 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
2296-848: 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
2378-490: 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 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
2460-508: The Jain faith and went to the Kannada land in the west of the Chola country with a Jain ascetic named Loka-pala acharya. This claim does not have many supporters amongst historians especially because of his Saivaite background and his wife's and son's continued persuasion of this faith. It has been widely accepted by researchers of Tamil literature and Saiva religious scholars that Gandaraditya
2542-701: 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 the Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though
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2624-645: The Periya Puranam listing the life stories of the sixty-three Shaiva Nayanars , poets of the God Shiva who composed the liturgical poems of the Tirumurai, and was later himself canonised and the work became part of the sacred canon. Sekkizhar was a poet and the chief minister in the court of the Chola King, Kulothunga Chola II . Raja Raja Chola I (985-1013 CE) embarked on a mission to recover
2706-800: The Rashtrakutas and Gandaratitya did not seem to have made any attempt to retrieve it. It is not clear if this is because he was uninterested in war or that he was assimilating his position south of the Paalar River and cutting his losses to keep Eelam (which was fast slipping out of Chola control) and to keep a resurgent Pandya Kingdom at bay. For the time being, the martial Chola power seemed to have been toned down but trade (especially maritime) continued to flourish. There are only very few inscriptions to be found that could be directly attributed to him and this may be because earlier inscriptions were consciously deleted by later Uttama Chola who undertook
2788-599: 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
2870-507: The bhakthi movement. It does not glorify temples or deities as in the case of other Tirumurais . The eleventh Tirumurai was composed by Karaikkal Ammaiyar , Cheraman Perumal, Pattinattu p-pillaiyar, Nakkiratevar, Kapilateva, Tiruvalavaiyudaiyar, Nampiyantarnampi , Iyyadigal katavarkon, Kalladateva, Paranateva, Ellamperuman Adigal and Athirava Adigal. Nambi's Tirutottanar Tiruvanthathi followed an exclusive style of mincing Tamil and Sanskrit verses in anthati meter similar to Tevaram of
2952-401: The great purana or epic, sometimes also called Tiruttontarpuranam (read as "Tiru-Thondar-Puranam") (the purana of the holy devotees) is a Tamil poetic mythistory depicting the legendary lives of the sixty-three Nayanars , the canonical poets of Tamil Shaivism. It was compiled during the 12th century by Sekkizhar . It provides evidence of trade with West Asia. Sekkizhar compiled and wrote
3034-491: 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
3116-492: The Chola throne. One was that there were internal feuds among the different members of the royal family. The other is that the effects of the Rashtrakuta invasion, under Krishna III and his brother-in-law Ganga Butuga, and the defeat of the Chola army at Takkolam resulting in the death of heir-apparent Rajaditya Chola (the first in line to the throne - " aanai mael thunjiya devar ") must have brought large-scale disorder in
3198-481: 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
3280-474: 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
3362-484: 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 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
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3444-696: 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
3526-544: The Thiruvisaippa Palandu. He had a son named Madurantaka Chola also known as Uttama Chola , who became Chola emperor after his cousin Sundara Chola . From the death of Parantaka I, to the accession of Rajaraja I in 985 CE, Chola history is obscure. During this period of 30 years there were five princes who must have occupied the throne. There are several theories surrounding the rapid ascension to
3608-442: 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
3690-942: 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, 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
3772-413: 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 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
3854-952: 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
3936-647: 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
4018-406: The eighth Tirumurai and is full of visionary experience, divine love and urgent striving for truth. Manickavasagar was the king's prime minister and renounced his post in search of divinity. The ninth Tirumurai has been composed by Tirumalikaittever, Sundarar, Karuvurttevar, Nambiyaandar Nambi, Gandaraditya, Venattatikal, Tiruvaliyamutanar, Purutottama Nambi and Cetirayar. Among these the notable
4100-537: The eldest son of Parantaka I, prince Rajaditya lost his life in the Battle of Takkolam (c. 949 CE). Takkalom is identified with the area around present day Arakonam in the North Arcot district. Parantaka I must have made his second son Gandaraditya as heir apparent. Gandaraditya was a reluctant monarch and focussed more on religious work and not on empire building. The Tondaimandalam continued to be occupied by
4182-435: The famous Siddhar . The eleventh is compiled by Karaikal Ammaiyar , Cheraman Perumal and others. The contemporary Chola king was impressed by the work of Nambi and included Nambi's work in the eleventh Tirumurai . Sekkilar's Periya Puranam , composed a century later, contains the life depiction of all the 63 Nayanmars . The response for the work was so tremendous among Shaiva scholars and Kulothunga Chola II that it
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#17327730200574264-442: The first seven volumes by Appar , Sambandar , and Sundarar as Tevaram during the 12th century. During the course of time, a strong necessity was felt by scholars to compile Shaiva literature to accommodate other works. Tiruvasakam and Tirukovayar by Manickavasagar are included as the eighth, nine parts are compiled as the ninth Tirumurai out of which most are unknown, and the tenth as Tirumandiram by Tirumular ,
4346-433: The head of a Jain monastery over time, but then returned to Shaivism. Tirumurai contains 313 hymns of Appar over volumes 4-7. His hymns are highly devotional, with some containing criticism of Jainism as he experienced it. Sundarar (alias Sundaramurthi) was born towards the end of the 7th century. He is the author of 100 hymns compiled as the 7th Tirumurai . Manikkavasagar 's Tiruvasakam and Tirukovayar are compiled as
4428-699: 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
4510-486: 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 in Thillai Nataraja Temple, Chidambaram . The brahmanas ( Dikshitars ) in the temple informed
4592-692: The hymns of the three great Shaivite saints, Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar. These hymns were the best musical compositions of their age. The first three Tirumurais (meaning parts) of Tevaram are composed by Sambanthar, the next three by Appar and the seventh one is composed by Sundarar. Appar and Sambanthar lived around the 7th century, while Sundarar lived in the 8th century. During the Pallava period these three travelled extensively around Tamil Nadu offering discourses and songs characterised by an emotional devotion to Shiva. Their hymns include allegations against Jain monks and criticism of Jainism. Sambanthar
4674-536: The images of the Nayanar saints were also placed inside the temple. Nambi arranged the hymns of three saint poets Sampantar, Appar and Sundarar as the first seven books, Manickavasagar 's Tirukovayar and Tiruvacakam as the 8th book, the 28 hymns of nine other saints as the 9th book, the Tirumandiram of Tirumular as the 10th book, 40 hymns by 12 other poets as the 10th book, Tirutotanar Tiruvanthathi -
4756-432: 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
4838-469: The king about the tradition that only when all three poets come together, that the chamber can be opened, and Rajaraja found a worakaround by consecrating the images of the saint-poets through the streets of Chidambaram. Rajaraja thus became known as Tirumurai Kanda Cholan meaning one who (re)discovered the Tirumurai . Thus far Shiva temples only had images of god forms, but after the advent of Rajaraja,
4920-425: The kingdom. The second theory has more merit since the sons of Parantaka I (specifically Gandaraditya and Arinjaya ) must have also fought along with their brother, Rajaditya in that epic battle and must have been variously injured and died rapidly. Thus, Parantaka I was forced to get his grandson Sundara Chola (the son of Arinjaya and probably the oldest surviving prince) to be the heir-apparent. As noted earlier,
5002-461: 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
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#17327730200575084-485: 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 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 ,
5166-537: 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
5248-420: The people by singing the praise of Shiva in soul-stirring devotional hymns. Tirumurai in anthology supersedes Sangam literature , which is predominantly secular in nature. The entire Tirumurai is in viruttam meter or lines of four. The principal characteristics of the head-rhyming is influenced both by syllabic and moric prosody. The Shaiva Tirumurais are twelve in number. The first seven Tirumurais are
5330-669: The perpetuation of the Vedic religion's emphasis on the efficacy of ritual as per Davis. Odhuvars , Sthanikars , or Kattalaiyars offer musical programmes in Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu by singing Tevaram after the daily rituals. These are usually carried out as a chorus programme soon after the divine offering. There are records from Kulothunga Chola III from Nallanyanar temple in South Arcot indicating singing of Tiruvempavai and Tiruvalam of Manickavasagar during special occasions in
5412-631: The religious context find a mention in Tevaram . The temples mentioned in the works of the 9th Tirumarai , Thiruvisaippa , are in turn referred to as Tiruvisaipa Thalangal . The shrine of Gangaikonda Cholapuram are revered as under " He of the Shrine of Gangaikonda Choleswaram takes whatever forms that his worship visualize" - 131,5. Tirumurai was one of the reasons for converting Vedic ritual to Agamic puja followed in Shiva temples. Though these two systems are overlapping, Agamic tradition ensures
5494-479: The sacred anthathi of the labours of the 63 Nayanar saints, and added his own hymns as the 11th book. The first seven books were later called Tevaram , and the whole Saiva canon, to which was added, as the 12th book, Sekkizhar 's Periya Puranam (1135 CE) is wholly known as Tirumurai , the holy book. Thus Saiva literature which covers about 600 years of religious, philosophical and literary development. Paadal Petra Sthalams are 276 temples that are revered in
5576-470: 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
5658-507: The task of converting South Indian temples into granite from brick-and-mortar under the "Kalpani" scheme. The conscious decision by Uttama Chola is mentioned in his inscriptions at Kanchipuram. He spent more time in religious discourse. He is credited with writing a Tamil hymn on Siva of the Chidambaram Temple. Very early in his reign Gandharaditya must have made his younger brother Arinjaya co-regent and heir-apparent. It
5740-647: The temple. From the 13th century, the texts were passed on to the Odhuvars by the Adheenams or mathas and there was no more control by the kings or the brahmanas . The Odhuvars were from the vellala community and were trained in ritual singing in Tevaram schools. Periya Puranam , the eleventh-century Tamil book on the Nayanars that forms the last volume of the Tirumurai , primarily had references only to Tevaram and subsequently expanded to 12 parts and
5822-451: The trio. Karaikkal Ammaiyar (550-600 CE) is the earliest of the woman Saivite poets who introduced the kattalai-k-kali-t-turai meter, which is a complicated structural departure from the old classical Tamil meters. The other meter used by Ammaiyar was an old venba and also an antathi arrangement in which the offset of one line or stanza is identical with the onset of the next line or stanza. Periya Puranam ( Tamil :பெரிய புராணம்),
5904-580: The verses of Tevaram and are amongst the greatest Shiva temples of the continent . Vaippu Sthalangal are places that were mentioned casually in the songs in Tevaram. The focus of the moovars ' (first three poets) hymns suggests darshan (seeing and being seen by God) within the puja (worship) offering. The hymnists made classificatory lists of places like katu (for forest), turai (port or refuge), kulam (water tank) and kalam (field) being used - thus both structured and unstructured places in
5986-487: 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 , 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
6068-526: 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
6150-467: Was a 7th-century child poet-saint who died at the age of 16 in 655 CE. His verses were set to tune by Nilakantaperumalanar who is set to have accompanied the poet on his yal or lute. The first three volumes of Tirumurai contain 383 hymns. Appar (alias Tirunavukkarasar) was born in the middle of the 7th century in Tiruvamur, Tamil Nadu, and lived about 81 years. He converted to Jainism as a youth, became
6232-534: 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,
6314-600: 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
6396-532: Was included as the 12th Tirumurai . Tirumurai along with Vedas and Shaiva agamas form the basis of Shaiva Siddantha philosophy in South India and Sri Lanka . The Pallava period in the history of the Tamil land is a period of religious revival of Shaivism by the Shaivite Nayanars who by their Bhakti hymns captured the hearts of the people. They made a tremendous impression on
6478-614: 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 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
6560-596: Was the author of a Thiruvisaippa on Siva at the Temple of Chidambaram . In this there is a distinct statement that Parantaka I conquered the Pandya country and Eelam ( Sri Lanka ) and covered the temple of Nataraja with gold. Gandaraditya composed eleven poems on Lord Nataraja of Chidambaram . These are part of the ninth volume of the Tirumurai and are called Tiruvisaippa . He refers to himself as " Koli(Kozhi) Vendan Thanjaiyar Kon Gandaradittan" in these poems. It
6642-402: Was the daughter of Mazhavarayar clan chieftain and is described thus in inscriptions. Gandaraditya was also known as " Merkey elundarulina devar " - the king who rose in the west, that is who went west and attained salvation. The meaning of this phrase is not clearly understood but could possibly mean the king who went west to Kerala. There are claims that Gandaraditya in his later life adapted
6724-451: 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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