Tamil Literature: Revised and Enlarged by M.S. Purnalingam Pillai

This edition of the Primer of Tamil literature in antique paper contains much new matter and is in smaller type and counts more than double the number of pages in the previous edition. is provided with a full Index, with a complete Bibliography, It is thoroughly revised and brought up to date and with select M. A. questions on Tamil language and literature useful to candidates preparing for University examinations on the subject. It has, in addition, a scheme of public lectures prepared by the author to be delivered in 1926 under the auspices of the Madras University.
The story of Tamil literature is unfortunately little known to the Tamil people themselves. Writers on Ancient India, both Indian and European, make no mention of ancient South India and its literature, because they know next to nothing of the vast literature of that ancient land. In his Tamil India the author has tried to open and direct the eyes of orient lists to the buried treasures of the Tamil continent in religion, ethics, philosophy, history, civics, sciences and arts. No History of India on be complete without an adequate treatment of the history of South India founded on the firsthand knowledge of Tamil poems. This book on Tamil Literature the only book of the kind in English even after the lapse of five and twenty years since its first publication in 1904, will, it is hoped, discover to the future historian what Tamil books he ought to study for a full account of the ancient Tamilaham and its oceanic literature and for a full knowledge of the culture and civilisation of the Tamils long before the emergence of the cloud-clad Himalayas from the north-sea bottom, or much prior to the first exodus of the Aryans southward, across the sandy deserts and wild woodlands that had sprung into existence after the divergenes of the sea north of the Vindhin Mountains.
This revised and enlarged edition of Tamil Literature was in the press for over a twelvemonth despite the earnestness and vigilance of the printer to bring it out earlier. It illustrates the inevitable delays and difficulties of the local press run without type-foundries and without good paper-stores.

1. Tamil Literature. The literature of the Tamil race is a record in suitable form and language of its emotions, thoughts and volitions, and of its observations, ideas and actions. religious. It is ancient, vast and essentially moral and Its antiquity may best be inferred from the fact that its most flourishing period or palmy era was at least two thousand years ago, Its vastness will be evident when we count the number of literary works extant and take into con side ration the volumes swept away by the floods from Madura and Kavatapuram. It’s essentially moral and religious character can be made out if we reckon the number of didactic and sacred volumes after eliminating the medical, lexicographical and astrological works from any catalogue of Tamil books. In ancient times the influence of Aryam on Tamil vocabulary was not perceptible, and Tamil literature maintained its in dependence. The Buddhists arrested for a time the aggressive nature of Aryam, but their check was overborne by the Jains, who, great scholars as they were, copied from that language its models, and introduced foreign words freely in their Tamil works. It was they who vehemently put down the composition of lyrical and dramatic works in Tamil on the plea that they tended to stir up sensual pleasures. Barring this, their influence on Tamil literature was noteworthy. These puritans cultivated Natural or poetical Tamil to a large extent and have left a rich legacy of epics and didactic poems. After the decline and fall of the Jain influence, the triumphant growth of the Vaidik Sivaism and the development of Vaishnavism, which inspirited the Nayanmars and Alwars rospectively, added many a religious work to the stock of the revival of Saiva Siddhantam by St. Mahatmyams, Meikandan and his disciples enriched the religious philosophy Tamil literature. in Tamil Later, the Aryan classics were freely rendered into Tamil, and Tamil puranams, modelled on times Tamil came to be written replete with hyperbolical conceits and verbal jugglery of diverse kinds. In recent authors have begun to imbibe western culture and enrich their own literature with poetical and prose writings based on European models. In this way Tamil literature has commenced a new era, and its future development is expected to be great. Love and war formed the themes of the ancient classics, and religion and philosophy of the medieval poems, as science and humanity predominate in the modern writings.