Book Review: An Update on AIT (Part 1)

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

The portrayal of Tamil as a female by ilaGkO, the Jain author of 
cilappatikAram, was not an isolated occurrence. Note the following from the 
zaivite  tirukkayilAya JAn2a ulA by cEramAn2 perumAL of 7-8th century CE.

tIm tamizin2 teyva vaTivAL
 (112.1)

Here a 14-19 year old girl is praised as "the divine feminine form of sweet 
Tamil".

Then consider the following from yApparuGkalakkArikai by the Jain 
amitacAkarar of 10th century CE.

kAn2Ar malayattu arum tavan2 con2n2a kan2n2it tamiz nUl  (yAp. 2.2)

"The text in maiden Tamil which was taught by the sage of the forest-filled 
malaya mountain". 

This work on prosody was a required text of study by all Tamil scholars. So 
the concept of Tamil as a female must have become accepted among the tamil 
scholars. 

Consider the following from periyapurANam of 12th century CE.


kan2n2it tamiz nATTut tirumA maturai 
    (per. 3828.3)


Madurai in the land of maiden Tamil


periyapurANam also calls Tamil divine as given below.

teyvat tamizum...(per. 970.4)

Also note the following from tiruviLaiyATaRpurANam (1450/1500-1625 CE)


 kan2n2it taN tamizc col
 (2.58.3-4)

"words of maiden cool Tamil "

ten2 col maTa makaL (2.56.3-4)

"the southern language (Tamil), the beautiful woman"

Not only was the language personified as female. The Tamil land was also 
personified as female as shown below.


 tamiz nATu Am kan2n2i   (2.33.1)

Thus the tradition of personifying Tamil as female, goddess, maiden, and 
mother goes back continuously at least 1500 years. In fact, I would say that 
it should be as old as the time when Tamils saw themselves as a people bound 
by a common language in a geographically identifiable area. Kamil Zvelebil 
says that cilappatikAram was "the first consciously national work of Tamil 
literature, the literary evidence of the fact that the Tamils had by that  
time attained nationhood" (The Smile of Murugan, p. 172). But , even though 
we do not find a clear example in CT as in cilappatikAram, the 
personification of Tamil as female must have probably occurred earlier since 
the word "tamizakam" meaning "the land of the Tamils" occurs in puRanAn2URu 
168.18. Why? One can infer that from the Tamil concept of "people" as shown 
by the semantics of the word "makkaL" (DEDR 4616) which means people as well 
as children. So tamizmakkaL means Tamil people or children of Tamil. 

Ramaswamy has missed this completely.

Regards
S. Palaniappan