Page:Tamil studies.djvu/426

Rh disciple Kazharamban purports to give us an outline history of the Tamil language. It is divided according to this writer into eight periods, namely, (1 ) Pre-alphabetic, (2) Alphabetic, (3) Grammatic, (4) Academic, (5) Monastic, (6) Jaina, (7) Pauranic, and (8) Modern. This classification, which on the face of it is unhistorical and anachronous, has been adopted with but slight modification by Mr. Damodaram Pillai in his introduction to Virasoliyam ; and it has been criticized at some length in the eighth essay. The last or modern period may be taken to commence in the fifteenth or sixteenth century A. D. A classification, which refers to phases of literary activity of the sixteenth century, to have been made by a disciple of Agastya in the second or third century B. C. is a hard pill to swallow, even should it come from the best of scholars. But Tamil Pandits will readily believe it to be the work of a disciple of Agastya. And the reader can easily understand that this work is a clear instance of forgery. What seems probable and believable is that Per-Agattiyam is a composition of a learned member of one of the Saiva mutts or monasteries in the Tanjore or Tinnevelly district written for the use of the Saiva students of Tamil, who may have had in the beginning a prejudice against the use of Nannul (being the work of a Jain) though it was decidedly the best grammar, and that it may have come into existence long after A. D. 1250.

5. In the prefatory sutra to Tolkapyam it is said of its author Tolkapyar as follows: