Page:Status of Women in Tamilnadu during the Sangam age .pdf/56

64 cultural attainments of women. The Sangam poets had always been harping on the virtues of chastity, and culture.

The late lamented Räjäji has pronounced that to become a gentleman, one requires a man's brain, a woman's heart and the feeling of a child.

The Bible contains a sage advice that a cultured wife is the crown of her husband. In concluding I wish to emphasise on the fact that the women of ancient Tamilagam were in enjoyment of higher privileges, freedom, scope and opportunities than at any time later.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it had been my privilege to deliver these endowment lectures and know the audience is a discriminating, critical and at the same time an appreciative one.

I hope Ladies and Gentlemen that I have not trespassed on your patience and forbearance.

Mr. President, you had been very kind and considerate to me these two days, and it was my rare and good fortune to deliver my first endowment lectures under your auspices.

I am very happy that my chief Dr. Sanjeevi, has always been insisting on me, as on all research scholars that a research worker should go deep into a matter and then make a comparative study of it. "The two mottos he has coined are" (ஒப்பு நோக்குவோம்) and " (உற்று நோக்குவோம்)" These mottos have been stimulating and inspiring students of Tamil like me and have served to descipline and regulate research work.

I am grateful very much to the Ladies especially who have graced this occasion in large numbers and bent their patient ears to my talk.

At the risk of repetition, I should like to thank again Dr. M. Varadarajanar but for whose insistent efforts to mould me in my formative years and instil into me a sense of duty, love of Tamil and power of expression; I should not have been what I am now.