Page:Tamil studies.djvu/227

200 least 12,000 years which is 4 or 5 millenniuins older than the earliest known civilisation. The history of Egypt commences from not more than 3,000 years before Christ ; that of the Greeks ascends scarcely to 2,700 years from to-day. It serves no good to enter into the details of his classification; its improbabilites and fanciful dates assigned to different works will be brought out in the sequel.

Mr. Suryanarayana's classification :-To pass on from the dubious field of blind faith and tradition to the domain of reason and history, we find in Mr. Suryanarayana Sastri saner views. His little book on the history of Tamil language is a useful attempt worth imitating on a larger scale by Tamil scholars trained in the occidental methods. He devotes a chapter to an outline history of Tamil literature which he divides into the following periods :I. Early.

B. C. 8000 to A. D. 100. This includes the age of the

three academies or Sangams. II. Mediæval. (a) First half: 100--600

A. D. The five major and the five minor epics, Tiruvachakam, Divakaram, Muttollayiram and other works were written during this period.

(6) Second half : 600-1400 A.D. Tevaram, Kalladam, Tiruvoymozhi, Agapporul, Purapporul, Ramayanam, Nala Venba and other works were written.