SV: Classical languages of India

[C.R. Selvakumar]

'>'
'>'>     Grammatical works like Tholkaappiyam,
'>'>     musical works etc. There are no works like Thevaaram and Thiruvaasagam
'>'>     and Alvaar's songs in Sanskrit.
'>'
'>'No works at all in Sanskrit? This is the other extreme of the linguistic
'>'politics that plagues contemporary Indian thinking. Apparently, praise for
'>'Tamil literature can only be at the
'>'expense of Sanskrit literature and vice versa.

    If you know of some Sanskrit works around 700 C.E or earlier
    like ThEvAram (philosophical, devotional, and set to
    classical *music*), I would be delighted to hear and
    correct my opinion. ThEvAram, Alvaar's songs and ThiruvAsagam
    are quite unique in my understanding. It is possible that
    I'm mistaken.
    Irrespective of the fact whether Sanskrit does or does not
    have such literature, don't you think that the existence of
    these beautiful Tamil songs (the saivite literature alone has more than
    18,000 songs set to music plus the 4000 Vaishnavite songs)
    along with many other works in Tamil
    should qualify Tamil as a classical language?
    Is that not the issue ?
    I never disputed the fact that Sanskrit is a classical language
    (and that is not the issue here) but
    my reference about a certain lack of a particular genre of literature
    in Sanskrit was only to highlight some unique characteristics of
    Tamil (praised as muttamiz (literature-music-dance)) medium .
    If you can point to Sanskrit literature set to various PaNs or Ragas
    that is elevating emotionally intellectually like ThEvAram I would
    appreciate it. I don't understand how my comment points to
    'extreme of the linguistic politics'! Did I say no works like TholkAppiyam
    exists in Sanskrit, or no epics like SilappathikAram exist in Skt ?
    No.

    C.R.Selvakumar
'>'
'>'Vidyasankar