Palmleaf manuscripts - Tamil literature

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Feb. 10, 1996

           Caring of Palm-leaf Manuscripts - Tamil literature
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Two old poems from Tamil literature come to my mind.

U. V. Saminathaiyar who edited the Sangam classics for the
first time in print edited a messenger poem on Madurai Siva.
(UVS, maturaic cokkan^Atar tamizviTu tUtu, 1930, Madras, I
edition. 7 reprints were made after).

The heroine sends "Tamil" as her messenger to her Lord.
There are few couplets describing Tamil as a girl.
One of them is,

   manjaL kuLippATTi maiyiTTu muppAlum
   minjap pukaTTa mikavaLarn^tAy!

1) As for a girl, the meaning is:
When you were a baby, you enjoyed taking showers with turmeric (manjaL)
smeared  all over. decorated using cosmetics (mai/anjana) and 
consumed milk/juices taht are essential for healthy growth.

2) As for the sweet Tamil, the meaning is:
All your treasures/literatures in palmleaves are protected with
turmeric, the letters on palmleaves are coated with soot (mai/anjana)
to make the writing more visible, and in the early stages of life,
Valluvar's KuRaL nourished you! (muppAl is another name for the
famous TirukkuRaL because it is divided into three sections.)


The second example comes from ParanjOti Munivar's tiruviLaiyATal
purANam (16th century?). The local stala purANam for Madurai.
(Dr. William Harman translated parts of this work.)
Here the imagery is grand and beautiful.
 
   cEya tArakai varuNamAt tITTiya vAnam
   Aya ETTinai iruLenum anjanam taTavi
   tUya vALn^ilA enumveN tUcinAl tuTaippAN
   pAya vElaiyil muLaittanan panimatik kaTavuL.

Siva appears in the sea. 
The crescent moon on his head sends out lunar rays to remove 
the darkness of the night sky and the stars shine.

It is like
The poet using a soft, white cloth to remove the carbon (anjanam) 
from the face of palmleaf manuscript and the letters look bright!
 
       Here, the comparison is:
    
          sky  ------>  palmleaf
          stars ----->  written letters
          darkness of the night ---> carbon smear
          moon's rays ----> soft cloth

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Tamil has 40000 stone/copper plate inscriptions from second century B.C
onwards. Karandai Tamil sangam plates of Rajandra Chola (1050 A.D.)
are the largest written inscription anywhere in the world from 
premodern times. 


Tamil, other than Sanskrit, possesses a large number of manuscripts.
Many of the Tamil manuscripts remain unpublished. Out of a total of 
25000, there are about 2500 Tamil manuscripts scattered in many 
libraries all over Europe. This century's great Tamil scholars
never travelled to Europe & they knew little or no English.
Some Tamil sangam work or atleast few important prabandham/talapurANam
will be existing somewhere, hitherto unpublished or thought to have been lost.
Hope some Western scholars in the future will come forward to study 
Tamil and help to preserve/publish the Tamil manuscripts.
The following books give nice writings on how to read from 
palmleaves. It is very different that reading print!

1) K. C. Chellamuthu, International catalogue of Tamil palmleaf manuscripts,
5 vol. 1995, Tamil university, Thanjavur.

2) A descriptive catalogue of Tamil palm-leaf manuscripts,
The first 3 volumes in 6 parts has come out, Madras.

3) G. John Samuel, Palmleaf manuscripts in tamil and their preservation,
p. 85-100, Journal of the Institute of Asian studies, XIII, 1, Sep. 1995.

4) pU. cuppiramaNiyam, cuvaTi iyal, IITS, 1991, 328 p.

5) irA. iLangkumaran, cuvaTikkalai, Salem, 1991, 380 p.

6) ti. vE. kOpAlaiyar, tamizh ezhuttum ETum, Thanjavur, 1990, 68 p.

Have a good day.
Yours,
N. Ganesan
nas_ng at lms461.jsc.nasa.gov