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மாணிக்கவாசகர் வரலாறும் காலமும் 1
܀1
13
Sadly the author of the work in question betrays a want of this sound historcial sense. For a just and adequate treatment, the history of Tamil literature still awaits the hand of a Max Muller or a Weber, a Macdonell, or a Ragozin. In the folliwing work, I have, to the best of my ability, surveyed the whole extent of Tamil literature beginning with the Tholkappiam the age of which goes back to 3500 B.C., and ending with the Sivajanabodham of the 12th centuray A.D. For the time fo St. Manickavachakar stand midway between the close of the ancient pure classical Tamil period and the beginning of a some-what mixed kind of literary Tamil period, and cannot be adequately treated of without entering fully into the causes that led to the formation of wholesome literature and into those that introduced extraneous matter into its system and made way for its decay. I Believe I have not passed over any point of importance in fixing the time of several literary and religious strata and if any one will have the kindness to point out omission of any important point, I shall be very thankfull to him and shall not tail to notice it in the second edition.
I have to say a work concerning the way in which the life of our Saint is treated here. Of the verse compositions that narrate the life of our Saint, only four have been taken for a comparative study of his life. Of these four, The Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam by Perumapatrappuliyoor Nambi is the earliest, being, as has been shown by its learned editor Pandit Saminatha Iyer, composed in the eleventh century A.D. The author of this treatise seems to have had a fair historical sense, since many of his accounts, I find to my great astonishment, are reliable. Next in point of time comes 'The Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam' by Paranjoti, a contemporary of the king Ati Vira Rama Pandian whose reign began between 1562 and 1563 A.D. (see Dr.Krishnaswami Iyengar's Ancient India, p.375). The author of this work being much influenced by the Sanscrit Purana, gives not only a false colouring even to historical incidents but introduces also many things new and unhistorical and unauthorized
