Hindi translation of Sangam text Tolkappiyam released

Union Minister of State for Education, Dr. Subhas Sarkar has released the Hindi translation of Tolkāppiyam, a unique work on grammar and poetics. 

A part of the corpus of Sangam literature, Tolkappiyam is the most ancient extant Tamil grammar text and the oldest extant long work of Tamil literature.

Tolkappiyam was written by Tolkappiyar during the Sangam period. According to some Tamil tradition places Tolkappiyam in the mythical second Sangam (great literary assembly), variously in 1st millennium BCE or earlier.

Tamil writing systems dates back to 250 BCE and Tamil Sangam poetry contains 2381 poems in Tamil composed by 473 poets, some 102 anonymous. Most scholars suggest the historical Sangam literature era spanned from c. 300 BCE to 600 CE to be among the finest of world literature.

Though it is reasonable to believe that the ancient Tamil itself had a long poetic tradition and a large body of literature, only a grammatical treatise in verse called Tolkāppiyam, the eight anthologies (Ettuttokai) and Ten Songs (Pattuppattu) have survived the ravages of time.

Ettuttokai consists of Nattrinai, Kuruntokai, Aignkurunuru, Pathittrupattu, Paripādal, Kalittokai, Akananuru and Purananuru.

A unique work on grammar and poetics, Tolkappiyam deals with Ezhuttu (letter), Col (word) and Porul (subject matter).

Almost all levels of the human language from the spoken to the most poetic lie within the purview of Tolkappiyar’s analysis as he treats in exquisitely poetic and epigrammatic statements on phonology, morphology, syntax, rhetoric, prosody and poetics.