Dear Manu,

I’m glad you asked! 

The earliest available Tamil grammatical work, Tolkappiyam, is loaded with the phrase “eṉmaṉār pulavar (என்மனார் புலவர்).” Other significant phrases in this context are “eṉpa ciṟanticiṉōrē (என்ப சிறந்திசினோரே),” “eṉmaṉār pulamaiyōrē (என்மனார் புலமையோரே),” “moḻimaṉār pulavar (மொழிமனார் புலவர்),” “eṉpa vāymoḻi-p pulavar (என்ப வாய்மொழிப்புலவர்),” “eṉa moḻipa yāppu aṟi pulavar (என மொழிப யாப்பு அறி புலவர்),” “eṉa moḻital pulavar āṟē (என மொழிதல் புலவர் ஆறே),” “… col iyal pulavar … eṉpa (… சொல் இயற்புலவர் … என்ப), “nūl navil pulavar nuvaṉṟu aṟaintanarē (நூல் நவில் புலவர் நுவன்று அறைந்தனரே),” … so on and so forth. 

[The auto-fill feature renders “pullover” for “pulavar,” and I’ve tried to rectify it. So, if you see "pullover,” please decode it to mean “pulavar.” Thanks!]

Commentaries on grammars take this gesture further and make explicit statements about variances.

Regards,

rajam

p.s. The point is that acknowledging earlier scholarship was ethical and normal (unlike in modern Google copy/paste technology and plagiarism) in traditional scholarly texts.

On Jan 25, 2015, at 11:54 PM, Manu Francis <manufrancis@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Rajam,

Could you please indicate the original Tamil phrase(s) you have in mind for "So say earlier authors/learned-ones"?

Thanks in advance.

With best wishes.
--

Emmanuel Francis
Chargé de recherche CNRS, Centre d'étude de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (UMR 8564, EHESS-CNRS, Paris)
http://ceias.ehess.fr/
http://ceias.ehess.fr/index.php?1725
http://rcsi.hypotheses.org/
Associate member, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Culture (SFB 950, Universität Hamburg)
http://www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/index_e.html
https://cnrs.academia.edu/emmanuelfrancis

2015-01-25 21:08 GMT+01:00 rajam <rajam@earthlink.net>:

"So say earlier authors/learned-ones" is a very common expression in the earliest Tamil grammatical works. In fact, it is used to distinguish between what was traditional and what was in vogue at the time of the grammatical work.

Regards,
Rajam


-----Original Message-----
>From: Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh@umich.edu>
>Sent: Jan 25, 2015 7:38 AM
>To: Rosane Rocher <rrocher@sas.upenn.edu>
>Cc: "indology@list.indology.info" <indology@list.indology.info>
>Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Iti praancah
>
>In the sense of "earlier authors", the word prāñcaḥ is very frequent in
>Sanskrit grammatical commentaries.
>
>Madhav Deshpande
>
>On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 7:56 PM, Rosane Rocher <rrocher@sas.upenn.edu>
>wrote:
>
>>  It does indeed mean "so say earlier authors."
>>
>> Rosane Rocher
>>
>> On 1/25/15 9:19 AM, Martin Gansten wrote:
>>
>> In a technical section of an astrological text (Balabhadra's Hāyanaratna)
>> I just came across the expression iti prāñcaḥ, which I don't recall
>> seeing before and couldn't find in Tubb and Boose's otherwise excellent Scholastic
>> Sanskrit. Am I right in thinking that it means something like 'so say
>> earlier [authors]'?
>>
>> A quick web search for the phrase returned seven hits, one of which
>> (Annambhaṭṭa's Tarksaṃgraha
>> <http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/1_sanskr/6_sastra/3_phil/nyaya/antsdi_u.htm>)
>> does seem to contrast prāñcaḥ with navīnāḥ, in support of my conjecture;
>> but the others were inconclusive. An old blog post
>> <http://elisafreschi.blogspot.se/2008/12/longer-discussions-on-arthabhvan-in-bha.html>
>> showed that at least I'm not alone in wondering about it.
>>
>> Any clarifications or corrections would be much appreciated.
>>
>> Martin Gansten
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
>--
>Madhav M. Deshpande
>Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
>Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
>202 South Thayer Street, Suite 6111
>The University of Michigan
>Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608, USA

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