Tolkāppiyam

 ( History Of Linguistics ) 

The tradition and some Indian scholars favor an early date for its composition, before the common era, and state that it is the work of one person associated with sage Agastya. Other Indian scholars, and non-Indian scholars such as Kamil Zvelebil, prefer to date it not as a single entity but in parts or layers. The Tolkappiyam manuscript versions that have survived into the modern age were fixed by about the 5th century CE, according to Zvelebil. Scholars reject traditional datings based on three sangams and the myth of great floods because there is no verifiable evidence in its favor, and the available evidence based on linguistics, epigraphy, Sangam literature and other Indian texts suggest a much later date. The disagreements now center around divergent dates between the 3rd century BCE and 8th century CE.

The datings proposed by contemporary scholars is based on a combination of evidence such as:

• comparison of grammar taught in Tolkappiyam versus the grammar found in the oldest known Tamil-Brahmi and old-Tamil inscriptions
• comparison of grammar taught in Tolkappiyam versus the grammar found in the oldest known Tamil texts (Sangam era); this evidence covers items such as phonemic shapes, palatals, and the evolution in the use of compounds
• comparison of grammar taught in Tolkappiyam versus the grammar taught and found in the oldest known Sanskrit texts; this includes tracing verses and phrases found in the Tolkappiyam that borrow, translate or closely paraphrase verses and phrases found in the works of ancient and influential Sanskrit scholars such as Panini, Patanjali, Manu, Kautilya, Bharata and Vatsyayana.
• comparison of poetry and prose rules taught in Tolkappiyam versus the actual early Tamil poetry and prose
• Prakrit and Sanskrit loan words ( vadacol), and inconsistencies between the sutras of the Tolkappiyam

• In his book published in 1925, T. R. Sesha Iyengar – a scholar of Dravidian literature and history, states that the Tolkappiyam while explaining grammar, uses terms for various forms of marriage in the Kalaviyal chapter. Elsewhere it mentions terms related to caste. Such ideas about different weddings and caste, states Iyengar, must be the influence of Sanskrit and Indo-Aryan ideologies. He disagrees with those European scholars who refuse to "concede high antiquity to the Dravidian civilization", and as a compromise suggests the Tolkappiyam was composed "before the Christian era".Sesha Iyengar, T.R. (1925), Dravidian India, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, reprinted 1995, pp 155–157
• In post-Independence India, the Tamil scholar Gift Siromoney states that the Tolkappiyam should be dated based on the chronology of TALBI-P system based inscriptions, which is difficult to date. He suggests that this could be around the time of Ashoka, or centuries later.Gift Siromoney (1983), Origin of the Tamil-Brahmi script, Seminar on "Origin evolution and reform of the Tamil script", pp. 21–29, The Institute of Traditional Cultures, University Buildings, Madras-600005
• Iravatham Mahadevan dates the Tolkappiyam to no earlier than the 2nd century CE, as it mentions the puḷḷi being an integral part of Tamil script. The puḷḷi a diacritical mark to distinguish pure consonants from consonants with inherent vowels only became prevalent in Tamil epigraphs after the 2nd century CE.
• V. S. Rajam, a linguist specialised in Old Tamil, in her book A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry dates it to pre-fifth century CE.Rajam, V. S. 1992. A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry: 150 B.C.–pre-Fifth/Sixth Century A.D. Memoirs of the American philosophical society, vol. 199. Philadelphia, Pa: American Philosophical Society, p. 7
• Vaiyapuri Pillai, the author of the Tamil lexicon, dated Tolkappiyam to not earlier than the 5th or 6th century CE.Vaiyapuri Pillai, S. 1956. History of Tamil language and literature; beginning to 1000 A.D.. Madras: New Century Book House.
• Kamil V. Zvelebil dates the earliest layer, the core Ur-text of the Tolkappiyam to 150 BCE or later. In his 1974 review, Zvelebil places Book 1 and 2 of the Tolkappiyam in the 100 BCE to 250 CE period. Rest of the sections and sutras of the text to centuries between 3rd and 5th century CE. The extant manuscripts of Tolkappiyam are based on the "final redaction" of the 5th century, states Zvelebil.
• Takanobu Takahashi, a Japanese Indologist, states that the Tolkappiyam has several layers with the oldest dating to 1st or 2nd century CE, and the newest and the final redaction dating to the 5th or 6th century CE.
  Takanobu Takahashi (1995). 9789004100428, Brill. ISBN 9789004100428
• A C Burnell, a 19th-century Indology who contributed to the study of Dravidian languages was of the view that the Tolkappiyam could not be dated to "much later than the eighth century.""It is thus impossible to put the original text much later than the eighth century, for by the tenth century the whole Pāṇḍiya kingdom had fallen under the orthodox Coḷas."
• Herman Tieken, a Dutch scholar, states that the Tolkappiyam dates from the 9th century CE at the earliest. He arrives at this conclusion by treating the Tolkappiyam and the anthologies of Sangam literature as part of a 9th-century Pandyan project to raise the prestige of Tamil as a classical language equal to Sanskrit, and assigning new dates to the traditionally accepted dates for a vast section of divergent literature (Sangam literature, post-Sangam literature and Bhakti literature like Tevaram).Tieken, Herman Joseph Hugo. 2001. Kāvya in South India: old Tamil Caṅkam poetry. Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Hermen Tieken's work has, however, been criticised on fundamental, methodological, and other grounds by G.E. Ferro-Luzzi, George Hart and Anne Monius.George Hart III. "Review of Tieken's Kavya in South India." Journal of the American Oriental Institute 124:1. pp. 180–184. 2004.G.E. Ferro-Luzzi. "Tieken, Herman, Kavya in South India (Book review). Asian Folklore Studies. June 2001. pp. 373–374Anne E. Monius, Book review, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Nov., 2002), pp. 1404–1406

According to Kamil Zvelebil, the earliest sutras of the Tolkappiyam were composed by author(s) who lived before the "majority of extant" Sangam literature, who clearly knew Pāṇini and followed Patanjali works on Sanskrit grammar because some verses of Tolkappiyam – such as T-Col 419 and T-Elutt 83 – seem to be borrowed and exact translation of verses of Patanjali's Mahabhashya and ideas credited to more ancient Panini. Further, the author(s) lived after Patanjali, because various sections of Tolkappiyam show the same ideas for grammatically structuring a language and it uses borrowed Indo-European words found in Panini and Patanjali works to explain its ideas. According to Hartmut Scharfe and other scholars, the phonetic and phonemic sections of the Tolkappiyam shows considerable influence of Vedic Pratishakhyas, while its rules for nominal compounds follow those in Patanjali's Mahābhāṣya, though there is also evidence of innovations. The author(s) had access and expertise of the ancient Sanskrit works on grammar and language.

According to Zvelebil, another Tamil tradition believes that the earliest layer by its author(s) – Tolkappiyan – may have been a Jaina scholar, who knew aintiram (pre-Paninian grammatical system) and lived in south Kerala, but "we do not know of any definite data concerning the original author or authors". This traditional belief, according to Vaiyapuri Pillai, is supported by a few Jaina Prakrit words such as patimaiyon found in the Tolkappiyam.

means "sound, letter, phoneme", and this book of the ''Tolkappiyam'' covers the sounds of the [[Tamil language]], how they are produced (phonology). It includes  which is combination of sounds, orthography, graphemic and phonetics with sounds as they are produced and listened to. The phonemic inventory it includes consists of 5 long vowels, 5 short vowels, and 17 consonants. The articulatory descriptions in ''Tolkappiyam'' are incomplete, indicative of a proto-language. It does not, for example, distinguish between retroflex and non-retroflex consonants, states Thomas Lehmann.
Thomas Lehmann (2025). 9781136911644, Routledge. . ISBN 9781136911644 The phonetic and phonemic sections of the first book show the influence of Vedic Pratisakhyas, states Hartmut Scharfe, but with some differences. For example, unlike the Pratisakhyas and the later Tamil, the first book of ''Tolkappiyam'' does not treat /ṭ/ and /ṇ/ as retroflex.
     

meaning "word", and the second book deals with "etymology, morphology, semantics and syntax", states Zvelebil. The ''sutras'' cover compounds, some semantic and lexical issues. It also mentions the twelve dialectical regions of Tamil speaking people, which suggests the author(s) had a keen sense of observation and inclusiveness for Old Tamil's linguistic geography. According to Peter Scharf, the ''sutras'' here are inspired by the work on Sanskrit grammar by Panini, but it uses Tamil terminology and adds technical innovations. Verb forms and the classification of nominal compounds in the second book show the influence of Patanjali's ''Mahabhasya''.
     

"Porul" meaning "subject matter", and this book deals with the  and  of Old Tamil. It is here, that the book covers the two genres found in classical Tamil literature:  and . The ''akam'' is subdivided into  and . It also deals with dramaturgy, simile, prosody and tradition. According to Zvelebil, this arrangement suggests that the entire ''Tolkappiyam'' was likely a guide for bardic poets, where the first two books led to this third on how to compose their songs. The third book's linking of literature (''ilakkiyam'') to the grammatical rules of the first and the second book (''ilakkanam'') created a symbiotic relationship between the two. The literary theory of ''Tolkappiyam'', according to Peter Scharf, borrows from Sanskrit literary theory texts.