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Rh Again both the names Rama and Ravana occur in an example for the logical method of immediate inference cited by Sattanar. மீட்சியென்ப திராமன் வென்றா னென மாட்சியி லிராவணன் றோற்றமை மதித்தல்.—Mani. (To infer that 'Ravana suffered defeat' from the proposition 'Rama won’ is what is called mitchi.)

Thus we see that Ravana was not a Tamilian and that he and Rama had been regarded by the early Tamils as pure historical personages, till we come to the Puranic period, when the Vaishnava Saints (ஆழ்வார்) following the impetus given to Brahmanism in Upper India, began to deify Rama as an Avatar of Vishnu. And the Ramayana of Valmiki, in which Rama is described as a great national hero—a typical Aryan of noble, pure and sublime life worthy of divine respect—appears to have been recast with vast additions in imitation of the Mahabharata, probably, during the third or fourth century A.D. Even so late as the seventh century, the Ramayana did not secure such a hold on the Tamil mind as the Mahabharata. The following extract from the Kuram grant of the Pallava king Parame: vara Varma I.(A.D. 660) will be to the point :

இம்மண்டகத்தே பாரதம் வாசிப்பதற்குஒருபகு.

(One share to the reader of the Mahabharata at this mantapam.)

And it was one century later that the first Tamil translation of the Mahabharatha was made by