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மறைமலையம் - 22
me to meet at every turn the arguments set forth in both the works. Of these two works, one is 'A History of Tamil Literature' by Mr.K.Srinivasa Pillai and the other is "The life of Seran Senguttuvan' by Pandit M.Raghava Iyengar.
The first is replete with errors resulting from guesses and conjectures and from twisted interpretations but by the verses quoted in support of his views. Apart from the matter taken out of the excellent exegetical editions of Tamil Classics brought out by the veteran Tamil scholar Pandit V.Saminatha Iyer and some others, what constitues the original contrubutions of the author is, I am very sorry to say, mostly erroneous. Had such matter been presented at least in a style as artistic and as fascinating as that in the historical writings of J.A.Froude, the reader would have been benifited to a degree. Even such a compensating virtue cannot be met with in this 'History of Tamil Literature.' Its Tamil style is impure, commonplace, insipid and ungrammatical, while the matter is mostly incorrect. The subject - matter of my book, being necessarily related to all that is treated in this book, it has become indispensable for me to expose the errors lurking in it and give a true and connected account of almost all the standard Tamil works that preceded and succeeded the time of St. Manickavachakar. For Manickavachakar lived at a time that stands midway between the classical and mediaeval periods of Tamil literature and one who inquires into the characteristic features of his age and its literary productions cannot do full justic to his subject without comparing them with the nature and conditions of the works that were produced both before and after his time.
Now, the second treatise not only relates the life of the powerful Sera monarch Senguttuvan, but also attempts to fix his age, as well as the ages of the classical epics the Silappadhikaram and the Manimekhalai, of the prose commentary of Nakkirar on the Tamil poetics called Iraiyanar Ahapporul, and of the lyrics composed by the poet Mamoolanar. Thea biographical portion of the book is
