FWD A request for 20th century Tamil songs

[Raveen Satkurunathan]

Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 07:18:25 -0800
From: Peter Schalk  <peter.schalk at relhist.uu.se>
Subject: request - Peter Schalk

Dear friends,

I read and heard about songs in Tamil from the beginning of the 20th
century in which Ilam is praised. I am interested about these songs for a
publication. I am not speaking about Tamililam, but about Ilam. It refers
to the island as a whole. If you know such a song and where and when it was
sung please contact me by email, fax or phone (see below). If you can write
down the text in Tamil in Tamil script, I would be grateful. If you know
somebody who knows, please contact that person. If you want to remain
anonymous, tell me.

Here I give the first reference to the word ilam in history.

The earliest now available reference to the word ilam is in a Tamil
inscription from about the 1st -2nd century AD. It was found in
Tirupparankunram in present Tamilnadu. The Tamil script and its predecessor
Vatteluttu, was not yet in use. The script was Pirami (Brahmi) that was
also used in Northern India and in the island, but adopted to Dravidian
languages. This special Pirami is also called Dravidi by some Western
scholars in the tradition of Georg Bühler. Some South Indian scholars use
the label Tamili. Some say Southern Brahmi to contrast it with Northern or
Asokan Brahmi.

The first line of the inscription which is written on a stone-bed,
runs:

erukatur ilakutumpikan polalaiyan

"Polalaiyan, [resident of] Erukatur, the husbandman [ householder] from
Ilam."

The word for ilam is written as ila with short i and the retroflex
approximant l. I have amended it to ilam. Short i stands also for long i
like short u stands for long u in -ur in Erukatur. My amending does not
break any convention.

The donor of the inscription is evidently a householder from Ilam, but
residing in Erukatur.

Ilam refers here to the island as a whole. One important point is that
this toponym is a little older than cinkalam. The implications you can
imagine yourself.

Regards

Peter Schalk
Rödbetsgatan 17 754 49 Uppsala Sweden

Phones: +46 18 252682, +46 70 4947669 (mobile).
Fax: +46 18 241786