Silappathikaram - A musical and literary treasure

In Silappathikaram, Ilango Adigal provides invaluable insights into the anatomy, structure, notes, and scales of Tamil music during the Sangam era. This classical Tamil epic is a significant record of ancient Tamil Isai (music) and its theoretical foundation.

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1. Tamil Music System – Structure and Notes

The ancient Tamil music system, as reflected in Silappathikaram, shares similarities with modern-day Carnatic music but has its unique features. It was highly structured and built around:

Seven Notes (Ezhisai - எழிசை):

The Tamil music system used a seven-note scale, referred to as "Ezhisai":

• Kural (குரல்) - Sa (Shadjam)
• Thuttham (துத்தம்) - Ri (Rishabham)
• Kaikkilai (கைக்கிளை) - Ga (Gandharam)
• Uzhai (உழை) - Ma (Madhyamam)
• Ili (இலி) - Pa (Panchamam)
• Vilari (விலரி) - Dha (Dhaivatam)
• Tharam (தாரம்) - Ni (Nishadam)

This is equivalent to the Sapta Swaras (Do-Re-Mi scale) in later Carnatic music, showing that Tamil music already had a well-established structure.

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2. Scales (Pann - பண்): The Melodic Framework

In Silappathikaram, Pann refers to the Tamil equivalent of the Raga in Carnatic music. It serves as the melodic foundation of songs, dictating the arrangement of notes and the emotional mood of the music.

Types of Panns:

• Marudappann: Calm and meditative, associated with devotion.
• Sempalai: Expresses joy and celebration.
• Sadari: Reflects sorrow and pathos.
• Kausikam: Evokes love and romantic moods.

These Panns were carefully chosen for their ability to communicate specific emotions (Navarasas).

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3. Rhythm and Tala

Rhythm in Tamil music was as significant as melody. Silappathikaram emphasizes the use of Tala (rhythm cycles), which governed the tempo of the performance.

• Talam (தாளம்): Refers to rhythmic patterns created with percussion instruments like Parai and clapping.

Tempos varied to suit the mood:

• Vilambita Tala: Slow pace for devotional or sorrowful songs.
• Madhyama Tala: Medium tempo for general storytelling.
• Druta Tala: Fast pace for celebratory and festive music.

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4. Instruments and Musical Harmony

The epic highlights the harmony created by instruments that accompanied singers and dancers. Key instruments used include:

String Instruments:

• Yaazh (யாழ்): A harp-like instrument producing soft, melodic notes.

Variants like Sengottu Yaazh and Periya Yaazh were tuned to different scales.

Percussion Instruments:

• Murasu (முரசு): A large drum for festivals and war announcements.
• Parai (பறை): A rhythm instrument for dance and rituals.

Wind Instruments:

• Flute-like instruments producing long, soulful notes.

The combination of melody (Yaazh), rhythm (Parai), and voice created a balanced and rich musical experience.

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5. Musical Modes (Paadal - பாடல்)

Silappathikaram classifies music into distinct Paadal (songs), depending on their emotional tone and occasion:

• Aham Paadal (அகம் பாடல்): Songs of love, romance, and personal emotions.
• Puram Paadal (புறம் பாடல்): Songs of valor, praise, and external themes like war or heroism.
• Vediyal Paadal: Sacred songs in praise of gods, sung during rituals.

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6. Music as a Representation of Emotions

Ilango Adigal emphasizes how Tamil music could evoke and represent the Navarasas (nine emotions):

• Sringaram (Love)
• Karunam (Compassion/Sorrow)
• Veeram (Courage)
• Adbhutam (Wonder)
• Raudram (Anger)
• Bhayam (Fear)
• Bibhatsam (Disgust)
• Shantam (Peace)

The notes, scales, rhythms, and instruments worked together to reflect these emotions perfectly.

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Conclusion

Silappathikaram is a musical and literary treasure that documents the anatomy and structure of ancient Tamil music. With its well-defined notes (Ezhisai), melodic scales (Panns), rhythms (Talam), and instruments, it showcases a sophisticated and organized system of music. It demonstrates the Tamil people’s deep understanding of music as an emotional and artistic expression, solidifying Tamil music's place as an early and advanced classical tradition.

Tamizh's classical music

Only such book available now on ancient Tamil music is ‘Pancha Marabu' written by Serai Arivanar. As the name denotes, it has five chapters. Out of them, three are devoted to music and two to dance.

The work defines Isai (music) and Pann, the equivalent of the present day raga. The book explains the varieties of yazh, the number of strings and the kind of wood that was used to make them. It also gives the materials that were used to make the vangiyam (flute) and percussion instruments. 

References to musical form and structure in Sangam literature

The Arangetrukaadai, a chapter of the Silappathikaram, mentioned earlier, also provides details the musical instruments of the day such as the yal (a kind of a 14-stringed lute or harp), kulal (flute) and percussion instruments as well as pann, the equivalent of musical scales in the Western music paradigm. The chapter describes in intricate detail how the use of different notes with the help of the yal resulted in different pann. It appears that the equivalent of the seven basic notes (SRGMPDN) that form the foundational construct upon which all South Indian Carnatic and Hindustani music is built today, were in existence during the Sangam period but known by their Tamil names of Kural, Tuttam, Kaikilai, Uzhai, Ili, Vilari, and Taram. Additionally, there were terms for the upper and lower octaves of each note for example Kurai Tuttam and Nirai Tuttam for the lower and upper octaves respectively. According to Venkatasubramaniam (2010), the Tiruvaduturai Mutt palm leaf manuscripts (AD1742) list the twenty-one common pann that were sung during the day and night and their contemporary approximations.

Name of the pan and their Equivalent present day raaga

Palaiyazh  - Harikambhoji

Velavali - Velavali

Siragam  - Sriragam

4Malakari - Malhari

Narayani - Narayani

Bhairavam - Bhairavam

Varati - Varali

Dhanasi - Dhanyasi

Ramakri - Ramakriya

Salarapani - Anandabhairavi

Padumalai - Natabhairavi

Mullaippani - Mohanam

Marudayazh - Kharaharapriya

Chevvazhiyazh - Todi

Gowdi - Gowri

Padai - Padi

Guchchari - Gurjari

Nagadhoni - Nagadhvani

Bowri - Bowli

Sayari - Saveri

Kedalikkurinji - Kedaram

Udaya giri - Revagupti

Nagaragam - Nagasvaravali

Surtungaragam - Suryakantam

Megaragam - Kokilapriya

Sigandi - Sigandi

Sayavelarkolli - Sarasangi

Mandral - Nattaikkurinji

Andi - Vasantha

Sandi - Purvikalyani

Viyandam - Vilasini

Saral - Ratnakanti

Pancha marabu jathi

Unique choreography

- Sri Mudhraalaya

- Lakshmi Ramaswamy

Works

Computer Recognition and Transliteration of Mridangam Mnemonics

An overview of Tamizh classical music

Music of the Narikorava people

Veena and Yazh

Harvard University Tamil Chair

பிறப்பொக்கும் எல்லா உயிர்க்கும் சிறப்பொவ்வா

செய்தொழில் வேற்றுமை யான்.

- திருக்குறள் (திருவள்ளுவர்)

Al l beings are born equal. Distinction

Comes with differences in profession/deeds.

- Thirukkural (Thiruvalluvar)



Jonathan Ripley, Tamil Chair, Harvard.

Tamil 101A. Elementary Tamil
Jonathan Ripley 
(fall term). M., W., F., 9-10:00am
An introduction to the oldest of the Dravidian languages of South India, Tamil holds official language status in Tamil Nadu, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. Tamil has one of the oldest uninterrupted literary traditions in the world, ranging from classical love poetry, devotional compositions and epics to the modern novel and short story. Students will be introduced to the Tamil script and to reading, writing, and speaking. Materials from popular culture will supplement modern teaching materials.

More here ...

All beings are equal, said our ancestors. They lived and showed us a path that is love and love only. Visitors to a Tamil family are questioned first - 'Did you eat'? Offering food to the visitor, even if the entire family starve, is considered as the first and foremost responsibility of the family. Oh, did I forget to say that the visitors here are any being.

The language spoken by such a clan is the most ancient and classical. No wonder the language is spoken till today. Tamil is the mother of all languages proposed and agreed by many scholars worldwide.

Iravatham Mahadevan papers

Why Government of India deny excavations in Mahabalipuram,  Pumpuhar and Kanyakumari? What government of India denied is done by the cosmos. The Mahabalipuram ruins "reappeared" after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

CBS News - Tsunami Revealed Lost India City

Mangaladevi Kannagi Kottam, has remained a symbol of monumental neglect

We are neglected, denied, our history erased and not taught in our schools properly. 

Let us wake-up and the world !

Please donate

 

Tamil in Australian Aboriginal Languages

Lingustic Evidence for Tamil in Australian Aboriginal Languages

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES: CONSONANT-SALIENT PHONOLOGIES AND

THE ‘PLACE-OF-ARTICULATION IMPERATIVE’

Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology, School of Medicine

Flinders University, Adelaide

and

Research Centre for Linguistic Typology

La Trobe University, Melbourne

Ref Page 18 & 19

A hypothesis that the phonetics and phonology of a language have been shaped by the hearing status of the speakers is not easily falsifiable, but we can at least identify two major types of prima facie counter-evidence that would be a problem for such a hypothesis: firstly, evidence that the cause of the hearing impairment had not existed in the population for long enough for it to have had the postulated effect and secondly, evidence that there are other languages with ‘long flat’ phonologies whose speakers do not show a high prevalence of COM and/or populations with a high prevalence of COM whose languages do not have ‘long flat phonologies. As to the first point, it is probably a reasonable assumption that the kinds of atypical phonological characteristics we are dealing with here would take longer than 200 years

18

. As to the second point, there are very few languages elsewhere in the world with a system of contrasts anything like those found in Australia. Whilst the consonant systems of New Guinea and Polynesian languages typically lack a voicing distinction (and in some cases a fricative series), the number of places of articulation is invariably restricted to /p t k/(with the occasional /?/) and almost all of these languages have at least five vowels. Eskimo-Aleut languages, such as Inuktitut, typically have four places of articulation, no voicing contrast and only three vowels (although they do have fricatives). On the other side of the Arctic, Chukokto-Kamchatkan languages, such as Chukchee, arguably have five or six places of articulation, no voicing distinction and a minimal fricative contrast (but six or seven vowels). Perhaps most similar to Australian languages are the Dravidian languages of southern India. Tamil, for example, has five places of articulation in a single series of stops, paralleled by a series of nasals, and no fricatives (thus approaching the Australian proportion of sonorants to obstruents of 70% to 30%). Approaching the question from the opposite direction: according to the latest WHO data on the prevalence of chronic otitis media (Acuin 2004:14ff), Aboriginal Australians have the highest prevalence in the world – 10-54%, according to Coates & al (2002), up to 36% with perforations of the eardrum. They are followed – at some distance – by the Tamil of southern India (7.8%, down from previous estimates of 16-34%) to develop.

- Andrew Butcher

Genetic Evidence for Australian Aboriginals were Dravidians

The experiments were regarding the early coastal migration of human beings to Australia . Because, according to our theory, the first time man migrated from Africa was to Australia . India proved a critical turning point for us as genetic testing of isolated Indian populations produces a key genetic marker [one of the genetic changes] linking India as a crossroad for the journey of man to both Australia and Central Asia. So we were looking in the south of India because most Indian scientists said that the oldest population in India stayed in south India . And we found out in our experiments that these people were Dravidians.

Spencer Wells, Phd

National Geographic Science

Video Link for Australian Aboriginals

Tamilagam the cradle of the human race

Tamilaham, or the ancient Tamil Country, was the submerged continent of Lemuria in the Indian Ocean on both sides of the equator. In his History of Creation Vol. I & II and in the Pedigree of Man, Prof. Haeckal assures us that the Indian Ocean formed a continent which extended from the Sunda Islands, along the coast of Asia to the east coast of Africa, and which is of great importance as having been the cradle of the human race. Sir Walter Raleigh's 'History of the World' strongly supports the hypothesis regarding the first nursery of man, and affirms that "India was the first planted and peopled country after flood." The locality of the origin of the earliest race from the most recent researches appears to have been on lands now submerged beneath the Indian Ocean. An account of the 'Lost Lemuria' by Scott, Elliot will be found instructive and interesting and confirmatory of the original adobe of man in the southern ocean. In 'Peoples and Problems of India' Sir T. W. Holderness writes "Peninsular India or the Deccan (literally the country of the south) is geologically distinct from the Indo-Gangetic plain and Himalaya. It is the remains of the former continent which stretched continuously to Africa in the space now occupied by the Indian Ocean.

The land south of Vindhia Hill was an island, called 'Navalan Deevu' and Tamilaham was a vast continent bordering on Africa in the west, on Australia in the South, and touching Kamaschatka far in the east. Tamilaham was in the existence 15,000 years ago Ancient Madura and Kavatapuram or Mutthoor were the capitals of the Pandya kingdom. Lanka was a portion of the old continent.

Archaeologists point out the influence of Tamil on the languages spoken in the distant lands. Sir W. W. Hunter, History of India, says that the language spoken at Kamaschatka at the North-East corner of   Asia is considered by eminent authorities to be a dialect of Tamil. In the Indian Antiquary, Vol. X, we find that the language spoken by the Maories in the far-off New Zealand which forms the ultima thule of the 700 Kathams of the Tamil land from Cape Comorin referred to in the Silappathikaram and the languages spoken by the inhabitants of the numerous groups of islands between these to boundaries are similarly akin to Tamil.

After the submergence of the original Tamilaham and the emergence of the Himalaya, the land lying between the latter and Cape Comorin became one, and has now come to be known as India. The Tamil warriors then spread their conquests as far as the Himalaya and established their kingdoms there. The adventurous Tamils who had escaped the floods in their boats seem to have founded colonies in Africa and Europe and proceeded to the farthest west as America. Scholars have found out that the language spoken at Tuscany in Italy is a dialect of Tamil. Tamil is one of the classical languages of the world and Tamil words are found in the other classical languages viz, Sanskrit, Hebrew and Greek. These and many other researches are likely to prove that the Tamilaham was the cradle of the whole human race.
Tholkaappiyar - The author of Tholkaappiyam

Tholkaappiyam is the most ancient extant Tamil grammar text and the oldest extant long work of Tamil literature.

Citation

Tamil Literature by M. S. Purnalingam Pillai

Sumerian is Archaic Tamil / the Tamil of First CaGkam

Central to my various claims about the Dravidian past remains my identification of Sumerian as Archaic Tamil, a fossil of the past of Tamil Language, a fossil in the sense of Aurobindo’s Evolutionary linguistics. Languages evolve in various ways and it happens that Tamil language has evolved over the last 5000 years at least throwing on the way many fossils of which we have abundance of such fossils in Sumeria (4000 BC to 1000 BC) and from about 300 BC to 300 AD in CaGkam classics and so forth. There is a gap perhaps from about 2000 BC to about 500 BC that needs to be filled up.

Dr K.Loganathan

http://arutkural.tripod.com/sumstudies/sum-as-arch-tamil.htm

Affinity of Indus texts with Dravidian language Tamil

There has been considerable debate regarding whether the Indus texts have affinity with the Dravidian languages (such as Tamil), Indo-European languages (such as Sanskrit), or some other language family. A frequently cited argument in favor of the Dravidian hypothesis is that the Indus texts appear to be agglutinative in their morphological structure: sign sequences often have the same initial signs but different final signs (ranging from 1 to 3 signs).Such modification of morphemes by a system of suffixes is found in Dravidian languages but is rare in Indo-European languages (such as Sanskrit) which tend to be inflectional (changing the final sound of a word rather than adding suffixes). Our result that the conditional entropy(measure of the loss of information in a transmitted signal or message) of the Indus texts is closest to Old Tamil, a Dravidian language, among the datasets we considered is suggestive in this regard. However, this result is also tied to our use of an alpha-syllabic script to represent the Sangam era Tamil texts.

Citation

Entropic Evidence for Linguistic Structure in the Indus Script

Rajesh P. N. Rao, Nisha Yadav,Mayank N. Vahia,Hrishikesh Joglekar,R. Adhikari, Iravatham Mahadevan

Tamil the language of Dravidians

The extensive excavations carried out at the two principal city sites, Harappa nd Mohenjo-Daro, both situated in the Indus basin, indicates that this Dravidian culture was well established by about 2500 B.C., and subsequent discoveries have revealed that it covered most of the Lower Indus Valley. What we know of this ancient civilization is derived almost exclusively from archaeological data since every attempt to decipher the script u sed by these people has failed so far. Recent analyses of the order of the signs on the inscriptions have led several scholars to the view that the language is not of the Indo-European family, nor is it close to the Sumerians, Hurrians, or Elamite, nor can it be related to the structure of the Munda languages of modern India. If it is related to any modern language family it appears to be Dravidian akin to Old Tamil, presently spoken throughout the southern part of the Indian Peninsula.

Citation

"The Development of Civilization and Religion in India and its Influence on the World Society"

Dr. Alexander Harris

Origin of the word "Tamil"

The English word Dravidian was first employed by Robert Caldwell in his book of comparative Dravidian grammar based on the usage of the Sanskrit word "IAST|drāviḍa" in the work "Tantravārttika" by IAST|Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (Zvelebil 1990:xx). As for the origin of the Sanskrit word "IAST|drāviḍa" itself there have been various theories proposed. Basically the theories are about the direction of derivation between "IAST|tamiẓ" and "IAST|drāviḍa".

There is no definite philological and linguistic basis for asserting unilaterally that the name "Dravida" also forms the origin of the word "Tamil" (Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil). Zvelebil cites the forms such as "dramila" (in IAST|Daṇḍin's Sanskrit work "Avanisundarīkathā") "IAST|damiḷa" (found in Ceylonese chronicle Mahavamsa) and then goes on to say (ibid. page xxi): "The forms "damiḷa"/"damila" almost certainly provide a connection of "IAST|dr(a/ā)viḍa" " and "... "IAST|tamiḷ" < "IAST|tamiẓ" ...whereby the further development might have been *"IAST|tamiẓ" > *"IAST|damiḷ" > "IAST|damiḷa"- / "damila"- and further, with the intrusive, 'hypercorrect' (or perhaps analogical) -"r"-, into "IAST|dr(a/ā)viḍa". The -"m"-/-"v"- alternation is a common enough phenomenon in Dravidian phonology" (Zvelebil 1990:xxi)Zvelebil in his earlier treatise (Zvelebil 1975: p53) states: "It is obvious that the Sanskrit "IAST|dr(a/ā)viḍa", Pali "damila", "IAST|damiḷo" and Prakrit "IAST|d(a/ā)viḍa" are all etymologically connected with "IAST|tamiẓ" and further remarks "The "r" in "IAST|tamiẓ" > "IAST|dr(a/ā)viḍa" is a hypercorrect insertion, cf. an analogical case of DED 1033 Ta. "kamuku", Tu."kangu" "areca nut": Skt. "kramu(ka)".".

Further, another eminent Dravidian linguist Bhadriraju Krishnamurti in his book "Dravidian Languages" (Krishnamurti 2003: p. 2, footnote 2) states:"Joseph (1989: IJDL 18.2:134-42) gives extensive references to the use of the term "IAST|draviḍa", "dramila" first as the name of a people, then of a country. Sinhala inscriptions of BCE [Before Christian Era] cite "IAST|dameḍa"-, "damela"- denoting Tamil merchants. Early Buddhist and Jaina sources used "IAST|damiḷa"- to refer to a people of south India (presumably Tamil); "IAST|damilaraṭṭha"- was a southern non-Aryan country; "IAST|dramiḷa"-, "IAST|dramiḍa", and "IAST|draviḍa"- were used as variants to designate a country in the south ("IAST|Bṛhatsamhita-", "Kādambarī", "Daśakumāracarita-", fourth to seventh centuries CE) (1989: 134-8). It appears that "IAST|damiḷa"- was older than "IAST|draviḍa"- which could be its Sanskritization."

Based on what Krishnamurti states referring to a scholarly paper published in the International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, the Sanskrit word "IAST|draviḍa" itself is later than "IAST|damiḷa" since the dates for the forms with -r- are centuries later than the dates for the forms without -r- ("IAST|damiḷa", "IAST|dameḍa"-, "damela"- etc.). So it is clear that it is difficult to maintain Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil.

The Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary [ [http://webapps.uni-koeln.de/tamil/ Sanskrit, Tamil and Pahlavi Dictionaries ] ] lists for the Sanskrit word "draviUnicode|ḍa" a meaning of "collective Name for 5 peoples, viz. the Āndhras, KarUnicode|ṇāUnicode|ṭakas, Gurjaras, TailaUnicode|ṅgas, and MahārāUnicode|ṣṭras".

Tamil never came from Sanskrit

April 11, 2000

Statement on the Status of Tamil as a Classical Language

Professor Maraimalai has asked me to write regarding the position of Tamil as a classical language, and I am delighted to respond to his request.

I have been a Professor of Tamil at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1975 and am currently holder of the Tamil Chair at that institution. My degree, which I received in 1970, is in Sanskrit, from Harvard, and my first employment was as a Sanskrit professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1969. Besides Tamil and Sanskrit, I know the classical languages of Latin and Greek and have read extensively in their literatures in the original. I am also well-acquainted with comparative linguistics and the literatures of modern Europe (I know Russian, German, and French and have read extensively in those languages) as well as the literatures of modern India, which, with the exception of Tamil and some Malayalam, I have read in translation. I have spent much time discussing Telugu literature and its tradition with V. Narayanarao, one of the greatest living Telugu scholars, and so I know that tradition especially well. As a long-standing member of a South Asian Studies department, I have also been exposed to the richness of both Hindi literature, and I have read in detail about Mahadevi Varma, Tulsi, and Kabir.

I have spent many years -- most of my life (since 1963) -- studying Sanskrit. I have read in the original all of Kalidasa, Magha, and parts of Bharavi and Sri Harsa. I have also read in the original the fifth book of the Rig Veda as well as many other sections, many of the Upanisads, most of the Mahabharata, the Kathasaritsagara, Adi Sankara’s works, and many other works in Sanskrit.

I say this not because I wish to show my erudition, but rather to establish my fitness for judging whether a literature is classical. Let me state unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the great classical literatures and traditions of the world.

The reasons for this are many; let me consider them one by one.

First, Tamil is of considerable antiquity. It predates the literatures of other modern Indian languages by more than a thousand years. Its oldest work, the Tolkappiyam,, contains parts that, judging from the earliest Tamil inscriptions, date back to about 200 BCE. The greatest works of ancient Tamil, the Sangam anthologies and the Pattuppattu, date to the first two centuries of the current era. They are the first great secular body of poetry written in India, predating Kalidasa's works by two hundred years.

Second, Tamil constitutes the only literary tradition indigenous to India that is not derived from Sanskrit. Indeed, its literature arose before the influence of Sanskrit in the South became strong and so is qualitatively different from anything we have in Sanskrit or other Indian languages. It has its own poetic theory, its own grammatical tradition, its own esthetics, and, above all, a large body of literature that is quite unique. It shows a sort of Indian sensibility that is quite different from anything in Sanskrit or other Indian languages, and it contains its own extremely rich and vast intellectual tradition.

Third, the quality of classical Tamil literature is such that it is fit to stand beside the great literatures of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Persian and Arabic. The subtlety and profundity of its works, their varied scope (Tamil is the only premodern Indian literature to treat the subaltern extensively), and their universality qualify Tamil to stand as one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world. Everyone knows the Tirukkural, one of the world's greatest works on ethics; but this is merely one of a myriad of major and extremely varied works that comprise the Tamil classical tradition. There is not a facet of human existence that is not explored and illuminated by this great literature.

Finally, Tamil is one of the primary independent sources of modern Indian culture and tradition. I have written extensively on the influence of a Southern tradition on the Sanskrit poetic tradition. But equally important, the great sacred works of Tamil Hinduism, beginning with the Sangam Anthologies, have undergirded the development of modern Hinduism. Their ideas were taken into the Bhagavata Purana and other texts (in Telugu and Kannada as well as Sanskrit), whence they spread all over India. Tamil has its own works that are considered to be as sacred as the Vedas and that are recited alongside Vedic mantras in the great Vaisnava temples of South India (such as Tirupati). And just as Sanskrit is the source of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, classical Tamil is the source language of modern Tamil and Malayalam. As Sanskrit is the most conservative and least changed of the Indo-Aryan languages, Tamil is the most conservative of the Dravidian languages, the touchstone that linguists must consult to understand the nature and development of Dravidian.

In trying to discern why Tamil has not been recognized as a classical language, I can see only a political reason: there is a fear that if Tamil is selected as a classical language, other Indian languages may claim similar status. This is an unnecessary worry. I am well aware of the richness of the modern Indian languages -- I know that they are among the most fecund and productive languages on earth, each having begotten a modern (and often medieval) literature that can stand with any of the major literatures of the world. Yet none of them is a classical language. Like English and the other modern languages of Europe (with the exception of Greek), they rose on preexisting traditions rather late and developed in the second millennium. The fact that Greek is universally recognized as a classical language in Europe does not lead the French or the English to claim classical status for their languages.

To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature. Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient literature is indescribably vast and rich.

It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the world's great religions. The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture.


(Signed:)
George L. Hart
Professor of Tamil
Chair in Tamil Studies