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What is the news?
The Minister of State for Education has released the Hindi translation of Tolkāppiyam and the Kannada translations of 9 books of Classical Tamil literature.
Tamil Literature
Tamil writing systems date back to 250 BCE and Tamil sangam poetry contains 2381 poems in Tamil composed by 473 poets. Some important Tamil works are: Tolkāppiyam, the eight anthologies (Ettuttokai) and Ten Songs (Pattuppattu).
Tolkāppiyam
Tolkappiyam was authored by Tolkappiyar and is considered the earliest of Tamil literary work.
Some in the Tamil tradition place the text in the mythical second sangam, variously in 1st millennium BCE or earlier.
It is a unique work on grammar and poetics.It consists of three parts of nine sections each. The three parts deals with Ezhuthu (letter), Col (word) and Porul (subject matter).
Almost all levels of the human language, from the spoken to the most poetic, lie within the purview of Tolkappiyar’s analysis.
The Tolkappiyam in Hindi was translated by Dr. H. Balasubramaniam and Prof. K. Nachimuthu.
Ettutogai (Eight Anthologies)
It consists of eight works – Aingurunooru, Narrinai, Aganaooru, Purananooru, Kuruntogai, Kalittogai, Paripadal and Padirruppatu.
Pattuppattu (Ten Idylls)
It consists of ten works – Thirumurugarruppadai, Porunararruppadai, Sirupanarruppadai, Perumpanarruppadai, Mullaippattu, Nedunalvadai, Madurai Kanji, Kurinjippatttu, Pattinappalai and Malaipadukadam.
Source: This post is based on the article ‘Dr. Subhas Sarkar releases the Hindi translation of Tolkāppiyam and the Kannada translations of 9 books of Classical Tamil literature’ published in Indian Express on 23rd Dec 2021.
