Date of the Tolkappiyam

The dating of the earliest Tamil grammatical treatise Tolkappiyam has been debated much and it is still imprecise and uncertain ^[1][2][3] and has seen wide disagreements amongst scholars in the field.^[3][4][5] It has been dated variously between 1st CE and 10th CE.^[1][3][4]

While most of the antediluvian datings which stem mostly from a descriptive commentary in an 8th century work called Iraiyanar AgapporuL, about the existence of three Tamil Academies, which have been rejected as being devoid of any archeological/linguistic evidence,.^[4][5] The disagreements now center around divergent dates from the third century BCE or later,^[1][4][6] with one estimate (by a botanist-author) being as late as 10th CE.^[3] Some scholars prefer to date it not as a single entity but in parts or layers which are estimated as written between the third century BCE and the fifth century CE.^[7] There is also no firm^{[weasel words]} evidence to assign the authorship of this treatise to any one author^{[citation needed]}.

Dates proposed

• Iravatham Mahadevan, an Indian epigraphist, argues that epigraphy sets an upper limit of around the 7th^[8] century CE on the date of the Tolkappiyam, on the basis that the Tolkappiyam is familiar with the use of the puḷḷi - a diacritical mark to distinguish pure consonants from consonants with an inherent vowel - which does not occur in inscriptions before that time.^[9]

• Vaiyapuri Pillai, the author of the Tamil lexicon, dated Tolkappiyam to not earlier than the 5-6th CE.^[1][10]

• Kamil V. Zvelebil, a Czech indologist specialised in the Dravidian languages, dates the core of Tolkappiyam to pre-Christian era.^[11]

• Robert Caldwell, a 19th century linguist who prepared the first comparative grammar of the Dravidian languages, maintains that all extant Tamil literature can only be dated to what he calls the Jaina cycle which he dates to the 8th-9th CE to 12-13th CE.^[5] However, Caldwell did not have the benefit of reviewing a large section of ancient Tamil literature (including ancient texts such as the paththuppaattu - பத்துப்பாட்டு and puranaanooru - புறநானூறு ) that were later uncovered and published by U. V. Swaminatha Iyer.

• Dr. B. G. L. Swamy, a botanist and historian, contends that the Tolkappiyam cannot to be dated to anything earlier than the 10th CE.^[3]

• Takahashi Takanobu, a Japanese Indologist, argues that the Tolkappiyam has several layers with the oldest dating to 1st-2nd CE, and the newest and the final redaction dating to 5th-6th centuries CE.^[4]

• T.R. Sesha Iyengar, a scholar of Dravidian literature and history, estimates the date of Tolkappiyam to have been composed 'before the Christian era'.^[12]

• Dr. Gift Siromoney, an expert on ancient languages and epigraphy, estimates the date of Tolkappiyam to be around the period of Asoka (c 300 BCE), based on an analysis of the Tamil Brahmi inscriptions found at Anaimalai in Tamil Nadu.^[13]

• V. S. Rajam, a linguist specialised in Old Tamil, in her book A reference grammar of classical Tamil poetry: 150 B.C.-pre-fifth/sixth century A.D. dates it to "pre-fifth century AD".^[14]

• Herman Tieken, a Dutch scholar, who endeavours to trace the influence of the Sanskrit Kavya tradition on the entire Sangam corpus, argues that the Tolkappiyam dates from the 9th century CE at the earliest. He arrives at this conclusion by treating the Tolkappiyam and the anthologies of Sangam literature as part of a ninth century Pandyan project to raise the prestige of Tamil as a classical language equal to Sanskrit, and assigning new dates to the traditionally accepted dates for a vast section of divergent literature (Sangam literature, post-Sangam literature and Bhakti literature like Tevaram).^[6] Hermen Tieken's work has, however, been criticised on fundamental, methodological, and other grounds by G.E. Ferro-Luzzi, George Hart and Anne Monius.^[15][16][17]

• A C Burnell, a nineteenth century indologist who contributed seminally to the study of Dravidian languages was of the view that the Tolkappiyam could not be dated to "much later than the eighth century."^[18]

See also

• Tolkappiyam
• Aindra school of Sanskrit grammar
• The Gajabahu synchronism

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Zvelebil, Kamil (1973)
2. ^ "The date of tolkappiyam has been variously proposed as lying between 5320 BC and 8th century AD", Takahashi, Takanobu (1995), p18
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} The Date of the Tolkappiyam: A Retrospect." Annals of Oriental Research (Madras), Silver Jubilee Volume: 292-317
4. ^ ^{a b c d e} "These agreements may probably advance the lower limit of the date of Tol, but do not mean more recently than 5th Cent AD as suggested by some critics such as S Vaiyapuri Pillai" -p18
5. ^ ^{a b c} Caldwell, Robert (1974)
6. ^ ^{a b} Tieken, Herman Joseph Hugo. 2001. Kāvya in South India: old Tamil Caṅkam poetry. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.
7. ^ Ramaswamy, Vijaya (1993). "Women and Farm Work in Tamil Folk Songs". Social Scientist (Social Scientist) 21 (9/11): 113–129. doi:10.2307/3520429. JSTOR 3520429. "As early as the Tolkappiyam (which has sections ranging from the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD) the eco-types in South India have been classified into ..." 
8. ^ http://www.varalaaru.com/Default.asp?articleid=607
9. ^ "This theoretical deduction is also confirmed by the actual occurrences of Pulli from about the end of the Arikamedu Period (Century 200 AD)... The age of the invention of the Puḷḷi has a bearing on the date of Tolkappiyam which is quite familiar with the device.Mahadevan, Iravatham (1970). Tamil Brahmi Inscriptions. "State Dept. of Archaeology. Govt. of Tamilnadu. pp. 6–7 
10. ^ Vaiyapuri Pillai, S. 1956. History of Tamil language and literature; beginning to 1000 A.D.. Madras: New Century Book House.
11. ^ Zvelebil, Kamil (1973). The smile of Murugan: On Tamil literature of south India. Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 137. ISBN 9004035915. "As we will see later, Tolkkapiyam, the core of which may be assigned to pre-Christian era, consists perhaps of many layers, some of which may be much earlier than others" 
12. ^ Sesha Iyengar, T.R., Dravidian India by , Madras, 1925, Asian Educational Services, 31 Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi 110016, reprinted 1995, pp 156.
13. ^ Dr. Gift Siromoney, Origin of the Tamil-Brahmi script, Seminar on "ORIGIN EVOLUTION AND REFORM OF THE TAMIL SCRIPT", pp.21-29, The Institute of Traditional Cultures, University Buildings, Madras-600005, 1983.
14. ^ Rajam, V. S. 1992. A reference grammar of classical Tamil poetry: 150 B.C.-pre-fifth/sixth century A.D.. Memoirs of the American philosophical society, v. 199. Philadelphia, Pa: American Philosophical Society, p7
15. ^ George Hart III. "Review of Tieken's Kavya in South India." Journal of the American Oriental Institute 124:1. pp. 180-184. 2004.
16. ^ G.E. Ferro-Luzzi. "Tieken, Herman, Kavya in South India (Book review). Asian Folklore Studies. June 2001. pp. 373-374
17. ^ Anne E. Monius, Book review, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Nov., 2002), pp. 1404-1406
18. ^ "It is thus impossible to put the original text much later than the eighth century, for by the tenth century the whole Pāṇḍiya kingdom had fallen under the orthodox Coḷas." Burnell, A. C. (1975). On the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians: Their place in the Sanskrit and Subordinate Literatures. Mangalore: Basel Mission Book and Tract Depository. pp. 8–9 

References

• Caldwell, Robert. 1974. A comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages. New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corp.
• Zvelebil, Kamil. 1973. The smile of Murugan on Tamil literature of South India. Leiden: Brill.
• Trautmann, Thomas R. 2006. Languages and nations: the Dravidian proof in colonial Madras. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Vaiyapuri Pillai, S. 1956. History of Tamil language and literature; beginning to 1000 A.D.. Madras: New Century Book House.
• Takahashi, Takanobu. 1995. Tamil love poetry and poetics. Brill's Indological library, v. 9. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
• Tieken, Herman Joseph Hugo. 2001. Kavya in South India: old Tamil Cankam poetry. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.
• Burnell, A. C. 1976. On the Aindra school of Sanskrit grammarians, their place in the Sanskrit and subordinate literatures. Varanasi: Bharat-Bharati.