SV: Classical languages of India

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

>The "uLLuRai", "iRaicci" are predecessors to the
>dhvani theory of Anandavardhana et al., Dividing secular
>life into akam/puRam divisions in unknown elsewhere.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the tevAram and the prabandham
poems are not secular in intent or origin. If you say that
they reveal aspects of secular life, the same can be said of
the Sanskrit purANas too. And do remember the predecessor
to works of Anandavardhana and abhinavagupta among the Skt
sources of aesthetics, namely the nATyaSAstra. This text must
be of contemporaneous origin as compared to the older stratum
of Tamil sources.

Every language enthusiast "finds" that there is nothing in
any other language to compare with the literature of his own
favorite one. There was a well-known British colonial who once
wrote that the entire literature of the Indian people was not
worth a page of that produced in Europe. That aside, my only
question is, why is the question of Indian classical languages
always cast in terms of Sanskrit VS. Tamil? Why not Sanskrit
AND Tamil? If denying classical language status to Tamil
reveals an ignorance of Tamil texts, don't you think that
those on the other side of the debate often reveal their
ignorance of Sanskrit sources?

Regards,
Vidyasankar
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