Page:Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture.djvu/87

 Sanskrit, crept into Tamil poems. The Mokshaśāstram of the northerners, reprezented by the Upaniṣhads, the Bhagavad Gītā and the Vedānta Sūtras, prevailed in the South. Very soon South India more than amply repaid this debt to North India by producing the three great Bhāshyakāras—Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and Ānandatīrtha.

The genius of Tamil is marked by the scientific temperament; concrete ideas and images appeal to the Tamil people and hence Tamil is peculiarly fitted to be the vehicle of scientific knowledge. The genius of Sanskrit is marked by the philosophical temperament; it revels in abstractions which are the life-breath of philosophy. It was the wedding of Tamil genius and Sanskrit genius that is responsible for South Indian thinkers having become the guides of Indian thought during the last thousand years. In our days the genius of Europe has begun to influence India. The great ambition of Europe is to amass wealth and to utilize it for raising the standard of life, by developing the means of attainment of the ever-increasing methods of appealing to the senses, not only the five senses, but also that of locomotion. How far the genius of Europe is going to alter the life of the Tamils is concealed in the womb of time. We have succeeded in tearing the veil of past time and getting a few glimpses of ancient life; but future time is covered by a veil of nebulous matter which cannot be pierced by any known methods of enquiry.