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Tamil
Tamil is the oldest and purest of the
four Dravidian languages.
Ancient Indian literature is not all about the Vedas; it’s about
Sangam literature too. Tamil, the oldest and truest of the Dravidian
speeches, boasts of this literary tradition of more than 2,200 years,
the most remarkable body of secular poetry extant in India. While other
pre-Aryan languages were happily courting Sanskrit and Prakrit (600
BC-600AD), Old Tamil stood firm in its corner refusing to yield.
However, the evolutionary story of the language and script are a
controversy among scholars even today.
The Sangam compositions are anthologies of poems grouped into two - the
Eight Collections (Ettuttokai) and the Ten Idyls (Pattu-p-pattu). There
are also few individual long narrative poems (Kavyas). Based on two
distinct themes, akam (romantic) and puram (martial), the poems are
replete with imageries of seasons, places, plants and animals, enabling
scholars to know the world of these ancient poets. The literary output
till about 500AD is simply amazing.
By the next century, Shaiva (in praise of Shiva) and Vaishanva (in
praise of Vishnu) writers began rising from sleep, leading to a
religious renaissance. It was the turn of devotional literature to hog
the limelight. The corpus of Shaiva hymns, sung till today, were
compiled in Tirumurarais (early 11th century). The Vaishnava saints lay
the foundation of the Bhakti cult not only for South India (500-1000AD),
but for the whole of India. Their songs were put together in the
colossal Nal-ayira-p-pirapantam or the ‘Book of 4000 Hymns’.
Some of the great Tamil poets lived in the times of the mighty Chola
kings (10th-13th centuries), a period of literary revival. Kampan’s
Ramayana is the best in Tamil till today; Ottakkuttan wrote the Uttara
Kanda, the last canto of the Ramayana; Pukazhenti popularized the
Mahabharata with his simple adaptations in Tamil, and Chayam Kontar
wrote a long war poem Kalingattu Parani, in the Sangam style. Didactic
works, grammatical treatises and lexicons were produced from time to
time by Jain writers.
The following centuries were the age of learned commentaries on Sangam
poetry, Shaiva and Vaishnava philosophies, and literature influenced by
Sanskrit. Some of these were the esteemed Bharatham by Villiputthurar,
Thiruppuhazh (hymns) by Arunagirinathar and translations of many
Puranas. Some brilliant stray verses of this period have been collected
in late anthologies like Kalamegham, Satthimutthapulavar and Padikkasu
Thambiran. European Christian missionaries also took to Tamil in the
16th century, and the first book was printed in 1579. Muslim poets like
Sakkari Pulavar and Umaru Pulavar brought new themes in Tamil writings
in the 18th century.
A modern trend in Tamil literature was begun in the 19th century by a
group of writers influenced by English, Vedanayakam Pillai (1824-1889)
being among them who wrote the first original novels and dramas. A
literary giant of the 20th century was Subramania Bharathi, whose poems
and patriotic songs are well known. Although the development of prose
has been pretty slow, the historical romances of C R Srinivasa Aiyangar,
social novels like Padmavati and Vijaya Marttandam of A. Madhavayya,
Kamalambal by Rajam Iyer and S. Venkataramani’s Murugam are
prominent. The short story was popularized by V V S Iyer and Rajaji,
while Sambanda Mudaliar’s adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays
contributed to Tamil drama greatly.