SV: Classical languages of India

[Venkatraman Iyer]

The definition given today for a classical language
will only suit for invaders like Arabic or Sanskrit or Persian
or Greek. Quoting from memory, A.K.Ramanujan wrote
that "after all a language is nothing but a dialect with
an army".

Dravidologists consider the pre-Pallavan sangam texts
as Classical Tamil ever since their rediscovery and
publication on paper in 19th century. Just like
Greek and Arabic, Modern Tamil is very different from
Classical Tamil. Indeed, "Early classical Tamil is not
intelligible to a modern Tamillian without special study."
(p. 98, AKR, The Interior Landscape).
In another book, Poems of Love and War, AKR also said:
"These poems are "classical," i.e., early, ancient; they are also
"classics," i.e., works that have stood the test  of
time, the founding works of a whole tradition. Not to know
them is not to know a unique and major poetic achievement of
Indian civilization."

The CT texts are remote to any living human.
"First of all, the so-called Sangam Tamil poetry is
regarded by the Tamils themselves, by the professional
historiographers and critics, as well as by intellectual
readers, as classical in the same sense in which we regard
some parts of our national literatures as classical.
Second, it has been a finite, "frozen" corpus, a body
of texts which had not been expanded since it ceased to
be part of a live oral tradition. Since those times, it
has become a part of the classical heritage as it were.
Third, it is the expression of a linguistic, prosodic and
stylistic perfection; it is a finished, consummate
and inimitable literary expression of an entire culture,
and of the best in that culture; in this sense,
it is truly a classical product, a classical literature."
(p. 50, K. Zvelebil, The Smile of Murugan).

The Satakarni kings ruling north of Tamil country have
issued bilingual coins with Sanskrit and Tamil on
each side. Tamil Saints/Poets' hagiographies have been
rendered into Kannada and Telugu. Marathi abhangs
have Tamil saints' stories. In Cambodia, many
sculptures of a Tamil poetess, Karaikkaal Ammai,
watching Nataraja dance do exist.

Best,
V. Iyer



From: Lakshmi Srinivas <lsrinivas at YAHOO.COM>

This suggestion seems to require, for a candidate
language to qualify as classical, an imperial context
whereby subject peoples use the language of the
imperial nuclear zone viz., Latin in the Roman Empire.

I'm not altogether sure this model is directly valid
in the Indian context esp. of Tamil.

In the case of Tamil, the elegant reasoning of AK
Ramanujan is certainly worth recalling - cf. Indology
post dt Fri, 15 Jan 1999 06:54:44 PST by Chris
Fernandez in the thread 'Classical vs. Modern'.

I hope that you do not require that a language be well
and truly dead for it to qualify as a Classical
language. This was another one of the arguments
advanced against Tamil's claims to being a Classical
language.

Thanks and Warm Regards,

LS


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