The Centre of Excellence for Classical Tamil identified forty one ancient Tamil works as classics that deserve international recognition in as much as they are comparable to any corpus of writings in any of the classical or modern languages of the world that have already been acclaimed as world literature. They include a grammatical treatise in verse called tolkāppiyam, Eight anthologies of poems on love and war ( naṟṟiṇai , kuṟuntokai , aiñkurunūṟu , patiṟṟuppattu , paripāṭal , kalittokai , akanānūṟu , puṟanānūṟu), ten songs (tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai, porunarāṟṟuppaṭai, ciṟupañcamūlam, peṟumpāṇāṟṟuppaṭai, mullaippāṭṭu, neṭunalvāṭai, maturaikāñci , paṭṭinappālai, kuriñjippāṭṭu, malaipaṭukaṭām ), Eighteen ethical works (nālaṭiyār, nānmaṇikkaṭikai, iṉiyavai nāṟpatu, iṉṉā nāṟpatu, kār nāṟpatu, kaḷavaḻi nāṟpatu, aintiṇai aimpatu, tiṇaimoḻi aimpatu, aintiṇai eḻupatu, tiṇaimālai nūṟṟaimpatu, tirukkuṟaḷ, tirikaṭukam, ācārakkōvai, paḻamoḻinānūṟu, ciṟupañcamūlam, kainnilai, mutumoḻikkāñci, ēlāti ), Two epics (cilappatikāram, maṇimēkalai), an anthology of venpas on love (muttoḷḷāyiram) and a grammar of futive love (iṟaiyāṉar kaḷaviyal). Though their exact dates of composition or even the centuries during which they were anthologized and brought to the notice of the public are not known, they are commonly ascribed to the period from the second century B.C. to the third or fourth century A.D.
There are diverse publications of these works which were originally in palm-leaf manuscripts. Medieval commentators such as Iḷampūṟanar, cēnāvaraiyar, Pērāciriyar, Nacciṉarkkiṉiyar, Parimēḷaḻakar and aṭiyārkkunallar have interpreted some of these writings. Besides these, when there was a revival of interest in these Sangam and post-Sangam works which were almost ‘rediscovered’ in the early decades of the twentieth century, a large number of critical articles and books by native and western scholars started pouring in.
Many of these works have been translated into English and a few other Western and Indian languages. During the last fifty years, in order to facilitate readers and researchers, a large number of study materials in the form of concordances, indexes, encyclopedias, bibliographies, and dictionaries have also been published. The holdings of the special library for Classical Tamil include many of these works numbering about 4000 in the printed form and three hundred as Xerox copies.
Click here to see the list of books available in Classical Tamil Library.
