Page:Tamil studies.djvu/274

Rh living in the latter half of the second century A.D. Again, Sittalai Sattanar another member of this academy and the author of Manimekalai also lived at about the same time. Had all these poets been really members of the third academy, it must have been founded during the first century A. D., or even long before that time. This tradition thus militates against our conclusion that the second academy existed till the second century, and it must, therefore, be rejected as a pure fiction.

Again according to the Tiruvalluvanalai one of the fortynine professors of the third Sangain was Perundevanar, the famous translator of the Mahabharata; as a member of this academy the compilation of the eight anthologies (எட்டுத்தொகை) is also attributed to him. If it was really so, a learned scholar and poet of this reputation must have been mentioned by Nakkirar (or whoever he might be) in the account of Sangams given in Iraiyanar's Agapporul. As his name is not in the list, it is evident that he was not a member of the third academy, and this inference is clinched by an allusion in his Bharatam to the Pallava king Nandivarman who won the battle at Tellar. The poet Perundevanar must have thus lived at the latter part of the eighth century. With it the general belief that the compiler of the eight anthologies was the selfsame Perundevanar falls to the ground, unless it be that the third academy actually existed about that period and that its forty-nine professors together with Tiruvalluvar were his contemporaries—all which