old tamil

Sun Nov 18 23:17:02 UTC 2012

Dear Dr. Aprigliano,

Other scholars on the list have given some references. I would like to outline some points that will help situate the study of Old Tamil in its  historical/cultural background. 

Except for V.S. Rajam's grammar which others have cited too, the study of Old Tamil lacks some fundamental philological analyses. Here I am taking Old Tamil to refer to Classical Tamil (CT) texts of eight anthologies and ten long poems. Most of the interpretations of CT texts are based on commentaries that were written several centuries after the poems were composed. These commentators were not historians and assumed a level of Tamil cultural continuity from the CT time to their times which was unwarranted. (Between the world of the CT texts and the later Bhakti texts there was a major culture change in the Tamil country.) These commentators were mostly from the upper castes - brahmins and non-brahmins- who had a very similar cultural viewpoint. 

These commentators projected into the CT past the cultural significance and semantics of terms of their times. They were often divorced from other cultural domains such as music, dance, etc. (The anecdote involving U.V. Swaminatha Iyer and his teacher Meenakshisundaram Pillai regarding the former learning Carnatic music exemplifies this.)  Often when the traditional Tamil scholars interpreted key terms dealing with such fields, they were wrong. An example is the case of the word kāmaram, which occurs in a CT text. Traditional commentators interpret the term as a specific melody by the name cīkāmaram. See http://www.tamilvu.org/slet/l1100/l1100pd3.jsp?bookid=20&auth_pub_id=68&stpage=157&edpage=157&file=l1130704.htm&id=2&word=தும்பி . You will find the same interpretation parroted by other commentators with respect to the occurrence of the same word in later texts too. See http://www.ifpindia.org/ecrire/upload/digital_database/Site/Digital_Tevaram/U_TEV/VMS1_047.HTM#p3 . This interpretation of kāmaram as cīkāmaram is as silly as equating the word rāga with Śrīrāga, a specific melody, and reflects these commentators' ignorance of epigraphic evidence of the use of the word kāmaram. In inscriptions we find an expert musician is often given the title kāmarap pēraraiyan which indicates kāmaram referred to melodious music in general. Most Tamil professors in Tamil Nadu will be unable to explain the term paṇṇuppeyarttal (modal shift of the tonic) that occurs in CT texts. To understand such terms one has to use musicological works such as Tamiḻicaik Kalaikkaḷañciyam by V. P. K. Sundaram. 

Similarly for the word paṉuval which meant 'warp' in specific poems, the traditional scholars assigned the meaning 'cotton' even though the meaning 'warp' is there in the oldest lexical work Tivākaram. They also failed to realize that the bards and warriors were not from two different strata of the society. Even as late as 11th century, as a Tanjavur temple inscription reveals, several performing artists were members of highly selective units of the Cōḻa army. 

Another example of the upper caste bias can be seen in choosing the reading "kaṉṟupeṟu valcip pāṇaṉ" instead of "kaḷiṟupeṟu valcip pāṇaṉ" in Nāṟṟiṇai 310.9 referring to a gift received by a bard. Pinnattur Narayanasamy Aiyar chose as correct the first variant interpreting the bard as one who eats veal.  Although Eva Wilden, the author of the critical edition of Nāṟṟiṇai did not argue for the second reading in her footnotes in the critical edition, she now agrees with me that the second reading is the correct one saying, "It is a case of that PuRam topos of the elephant bull as a gift," referring to the custom of bards getting bull elephants as gifts from chieftains and kings.

Most of the Western scholars' interpretations/translations of CT texts are based on the interpretations of the above-mentioned traditional Tamil commentators. As a result, one has to be careful in reading the Old Tamil texts. In other words, considerable work needs to be done using tools of philological, linguistic, and historical analysis to understand the CT texts to excavate the culture that lies behind layers of traditional misinterpretation. Unfortunately, many Tamil literary scholars in Tamil Nadu do not know history, many historians do not know literature, and even if one knows both literature and history, one does not know linguistics. 

Regards,
Palaniappan

-----Original Message-----
From: Adriano Aprigliano <aprigliano at USP.BR>
To: INDOLOGY <INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk>
Sent: Thu, Nov 15, 2012 7:33 am
Subject: [INDOLOGY] old tamil

Dear colleagues,

A friend asks me about good materials for the study of Old Tamil. What would you recommend?
Best wishes
Adriano Aprigliano

Post-doc researcher
Universidade de São Paulo
São Paulo/SP
Brasil

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