Book Review: An Update on AIT (Part 1)

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

Sumathi Ramaswamy says,

 <Indeed it is only in the latter half of the nineteenth century that Tamil
emerges as an autonomous subject of praise (Krishnan 1984).> p. 10

This is not true. Tamil is an autonomous subject of praise much earlier as
seen in the following zleSa verse quoted in a medieval work called
taNTiyalaGkAram (probably first half of 12th century).

OGkal iTai vantu  uyarntOr toza viLaGki
EGku oli nIr JAlattu iruL akaRRum - AGku avaRRuL
min2n2Er tan2i Azi vem katir on2Ru En2aiyatu
tan2 n2Er ilAta tamiz

Here both Tamil and the sun are said to appear at a high location/mountain,
be worshipped by  those who are great/learned/exalted (as in piety, in
virtue, or in austerities), and remove darkness from the earth.

A later poem by paraJcOtimun2ivar (between 1450/1500 and 1625 A.D ) in
tiruviLaiyATaRpurANam is shown below.

kaN Nutal kaTavuLum kazakamOTu amarntu
paN uRat terintu Aynta ip pacum Tamil
maN iTaic cila ilakkaNa varampilA mozi pOl
eN iTaip paTak kiTantatAy eNNavumpaTumO

Here the poet praises Tamil by asking  "Can one think of Tamil as one among
many grammar-less languages given that Tamil was studied by ziva himself as a
member of the academy in Madurai?"

The above verse is one of four praising Tamil. In fact, this work seems to
have been an immediate source of inspiration for Sundaram Pillai's poem which
apparently led to Ramaswamy's research.

In that poem, Pillai uses a zooming technique to praise Tamil by the
following metaphorical equivalences.

earth - woman
Indian subcontinent - woman's face
Deccan - woman's forehead
Dravidian country - tilaka on the forehead
Tamil - the fragrance of the tilaka

Now consider the following poem in paraJcOti's work.

mAyavan2 vaTivu Ayatu vaiyam mAl untic
cEya paGkayam Ayatu  ten2n2an2 nATu alarmEl
pOya men2 pokuTTu Ayatu potiyam ap pokuTTin2
mEya nAn2mukan akattiyan2 muttamiz vETam

Here the following equivalences are noted:
earth - viSNu
Pandya country - lotus growing from viSNu's navel
potiyil mountain - pericarp of the lotus
agastya - brahma sitting on the pericarp
Tamil - veda created by brahma

One can see the obvious similarity between these two. paraJcOti's zooming
technique, in turn, is based on a pre-bhakti poem (paripATal tiraTTu 8).

Next, let us look at the feminization of language.

Regards
S. Palaniappan

PS: In my earlier postings, "Petersen" should have been "Peterson". I regret
the error.