Page:Manimekhalai in its historical setting.pdf/13



THE study of Manimēkhalai presented in the following pages was intended to be delivered as the ninth of my courses of special lectures at the Madras University in the last term of the academic year 1925-26, but was held over as some points required further study. The course was ultimately delivered in March and April of the current year rather later than usual in the academic year to suit the exigencies of other University fixtures. This classic and its twin, the Silappadhikāram, formed part of my study in connection with the investigations on the age of the Tamil Sangam, which was undertaken at the instance of the late Mr. L. C. Innes, a retired Judge of the Madras High Court and an ex-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Madras, in the early years of the century. The first fruit of this study was published as the Augustan Age of Tamil Literature, the first constructive effort on my part to solve this problem on which a few remarks and criticisms were made, in a paper on the Age of Kamban written by the esteemed scholar above mentioned, in the pages of the Asiatic Quarterly for the year 1898. The Augustan Age of Tamil Literature contains matter taken both from the Silappadhikāram and Manimēkhalai. This naturally led to a considerable amount of criticism as to how far these two works, distinct from the various collections generally known as the Sangam collections, could be regarded as Sangam works, directly or indirectly. The late Mr. V. Venkayya, Epigraphist to the Government of India, was willing to admit that the age of the Sangam was the