99-511: The Tiruppavai ( Tamil : திருப்பாவை , romanized: Tiruppāvai ) is a set of Tamil Hindu hymns attributed to the female poet-saint Andal . The Tiruppavai consists of thirty stanzas referred to as pasurams in praise of Perumal. It is a part of the Nalayira Divya Prabandham , a collection of the works of the twelve poet-saints called the Alvars , an important part of
198-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or
297-480: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without
396-740: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and
495-487: A banyan leaf at time of deluge, Please give us them all, who is known for victory over enemies, After singing you we will get drums and many gifts, And after being praised by all the people, Wear we will the golden flower on our hair, Wear we will golden bracelets, Wear we will golden ear studs, Wear we would then the golden flowers on the ear, Wear we will ornaments on the legs, Wear we will pretty new dresses, Eat we will rice mixed with milk, Covering
594-584: A drum, And if you give the drum to us, We would sing about thine great fame and wealth, And would end our sorrows and become happy, Oh lord who is like the blue sapphire, If you ask us what we need, In your great grace and great deeds, For our holy bath of Margaḻi, We will ask for very many conches Like the milk white conch of yours called Pancha Janya, Very many big drums whose sound can be heard everywhere, Several musicians of fame to sing “Pallandu ” Several beautiful pretty lamps, Several flags and cloths to make tents, Oh, He who sleeps on
693-427: A holy bath, And offered pure flowers at his feet, And sang with our mouth, And brought the thoughts of him in our mind, And we were sure, That all our mistakes of the past, And all that we will do in future, Will vanish as ashes in fire, Did you not hear the loud sound of white conch, From the temple of the king of Garuda, Oh, girls please wake up, Let us hear the holy sounds of "Hari, Hari". From
792-591: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil
891-512: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with
990-508: A particular religious vow to marry Vishnu and remain in his everlasting company, inviting of all her friends to join her to serve him with her. According to the religious hymns the symbolic undertone behind Andal's entreaty to her friends to wake up and seek Krishna subsumes the essence of the three basic mantras in the Vaishnava tradition — the Tirumantram, Dvayam, and Charama Sloka that signify
1089-523: A relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil) was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which
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#17330934485351188-463: A sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes : போக pōka go முடி muṭi accomplish Parasara Bhattar Parasara Bhattar ( Tamil : பராசர பட்டர் , romanized: Paraśara Bhattar ), also called Periya Bhattar and Parashara Bhattarya ,
1287-620: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of
1386-595: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who
1485-458: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on
1584-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to
1683-410: A well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and
1782-447: Is a lion cub, He who is pretty in black colour, He who has small red eyes, He who has a face like the well-lit moon, And He, who is our deity Narayana, Is going to give us protection, So that we bathe and that is our Pavai (vratam or practice), In a way that the whole world sings about. Be pleased to hear of those penances, That we daily do for the worship of Pavai, We will sing of those holy feet, Of Him who sleeps in
1881-538: Is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from the Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows
1980-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel
2079-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of
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#17330934485352178-466: Is generally named by the first few words of the religious hymns. These are given first and a translation into verse given then:- On this day filled with the light of moon, Come for bathing, Oh ladies who are richly dressed, And Oh ladies in rich homes of cowherds, For he with the sharp spear, He who kills his enemies without mercy, He who is the son of Nanda gopa, He who is the darling son of Yasodha, Who wore scented flower garlands, He who
2277-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change
2376-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,
2475-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard
2574-506: Is in trance of deep pleasurable sleep, Let us all call him the great enchanter, Madhavan and he who lives in Vaikunta, By several of His names, And get benefited, Due to penance done in last birth, Won't you reply, please Won't you open the door, please If we pray the God Narayana, Having with him the scented garland, Made of holy basil, He would give us gifts, many, He
2673-413: Is it different for you?" "Have every one gone?" "Gone, think they have gone" "Please wake up and sing, Of he who killed the big elephant, Of him who can remove enmity from enemies, And of him who is the holy enchanter, Hey, who guards the ornamental door with flags, Please be kind to open the door with bells, For yesterday the enchanter Kannan, Has promised to give beating drums, To us
2772-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,
2871-579: Is not that good, And cannot be accepted by us. Who removed sorrow and fear, From the thirty three sections of Devas, Even before they approached you, Oh deity, Who is glittering like gold, Oh deity, who has inimitable valour, Please wake up, Oh Lady Nappinnai, Who has desirable busts like golden pots. Who has little red mouth, And who has thin narrow hips, Please wake up, Oh Goddess of wealth. Please give mirror and fan, Just now to your consort, And allow us to take bath, Who owned several cows, Which gave so much milk, That always
2970-436: Is our vratam (Pavai). Who grew big and measured the world, And worship our Goddess Pavai, Then would there be at least three rains a month, And the red paddy plants would grow big, And in their fields would the fish swim and play, And the spotted bees after sipping honey, To their hearts content, Would sleep in the flower themselves After having their fill, And the cows with big udder Would fill milk pots to
3069-414: Is said to have consumed the milk offered to the deity. He is stated to have once come across a highly learned man who held the title sarvajña (omniscient) while playing in the street. The infant is described to have scooped some soil in both of his hands and asked the man what it contained. When the man stood nonplussed, Parasara Bhattar laughed, and stated that they were fistfuls of soil, and suggested that
Tiruppavai - Misplaced Pages Continue
3168-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which
3267-441: Is the same who is holy in times ancient, Sent Kumbhakarna to his death, After beating him in the field of war. Did that ogre give you his sleep, Before he went off from here, Oh lass who is very lazy, Oh lass, who is like pretty jewels, Wake up from your sleep, well, And open the door. Who milks herds of cows, And wages war on enemies And makes his enemies lose their strength, Oh Golden tendril, Oh lass who has
3366-822: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only
3465-486: The Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of the differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada
3564-684: The Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate the Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though
3663-500: The Thai king . According to T.P. Meenakshisundaram, the name of the festival indicates that Tiruppavai might have been recited as well. Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia . It is one of
3762-584: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to
3861-486: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak
3960-494: The God would bring abundant rain and thus prosperity. Offering Krishna fresh flowers would expiate sins committed earlier and those that may be committed in future. In the next ten stanzas she describes the importance of community participation. She invites her friends to gather flowers. She essays the ambience at her village, the chirping of birds, colorful blossoms, the musical sound of butter-churning, herds of cattle with tinkling bells,
4059-476: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by
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4158-469: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in
4257-480: The Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that the name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having
4356-673: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as
4455-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ
4554-912: The approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004, a number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
4653-433: The blue lotus, Come from your temple to here, And sit on the majestic royal throne, And hear with compassion, For why we have come here, We worship your fame of winning over the king of Southern Lanka, We worship thine valour in breaking the ogre who came like a cart, We worship thy strength which threw the calf on the tree, We worship thine goodness in making the mountain as an umbrella, And we worship
4752-451: The brim, And healthy cows and never diminishing wealth, Would fill the country, And all this I assure by our vratam/practice. Oh rain God who comes from the sea, Enter the sea, please, and bring water to your fill, And with zest and sound take it up, And like the God of the deluge become black, And shine like the holy wheel in the hands, Of The God Padmanabha who has powerful biceps, And make booming pleasing sounds, Like
4851-408: The conch. You who promised to wake us up, Please wake up, Are you not ashamed, You chatter box, Let us all sing about the lotus eyed one, Who has a holy conch and disc in his hands, "Hey, little bird, Are you still sleeping?" "Don't disturb my sleep, Lasses, I will just come". "You are good in your speech, We know what you mean." "You be good, but leave me alone" "Come quickly, why
4950-413: The connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines
5049-450: The daughter of Vishnucitthar (Periyalvar) who made this garland of 30 pasuram s and says those who recite with devotion will have Krishna's blessings. The Tiruppavai also includes three taniyans (literally, 'singletons' or standalone verses) composed by later authors to introduce older texts. The first thaniyan , 'Nila tungastana ... ' in Sanskrit was composed by Parashara Bhattar , and
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#17330934485355148-446: The devotional genre of Tamil literature . The Tiruppavai has also been translated into Telugu by Mullapudi Venkataramana as Melupalukula Melukolupu. In this work, Andal calls upon to all people to recite the name and glories of Vishnu . The Tiruppavai belongs to the pāvai genre of songs. This genre referred to the Tamil tradition of unmarried girls performing rites and upholding a vow ( vrata ) of their performance throughout
5247-983: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of
5346-634: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in
5445-400: The dripping fog, And sing about Him, Who killed in anger the king of Southern Lanka, And who is very dear one, But open your mouth, you don't.. At least wake up now, Why this very deep slumber, For people of all houses around, Have already become alert The place of prayer for Pavai, Singing the fame of our deity. Who killed the ogre who came like a stork. And who cut off
5544-528: The food with his wife, and due to having consumed blessed food, Andal shortly gave birth to two sons, Sreeramapillai and Bhattar. Bhattar was offered the additional name Parasara by Ramanuja , after the great sage and the author of the Vishnu Purana ( Parāśara ). According to legend, Parasara Bhattar is regarded to have been raised in the sanctum sanctorum of the Ranganathaswamy Temple , where he
5643-437: The girls from the houses of cow herds. We have come after purification, To wake Him up with song, So do not talk of this and that, Hey dear man, And open the door with closed latches, Who gives water, cloth and food to others, Please wake up. Our lady Yasodha, who is the light of the homes of cow herds, She who is dear to all the ladies, Please wake up Hey, Krishna who is the king of Gods, Who went up tearing
5742-405: The great spear in your hand, which led to your victory, We have come here to sing always for ever your praises, And get as gift the drums to sing, And in the same night in hiding. You became the son of another, But this he could not tolerate, And wanted to cause more harm to you, And you great one, became, The fire in the stomach of that Kamsa, We have come here with desire for
5841-567: The heads of the bad ogre, One by one. Venus has risen in the morning, Jupiter has vanished from the sky, The birds are making lot of sound, Of beautiful one with wide eyes red as a flower. Without taking bath by dipping again and again in ice cold water, Would you prefer to sleep. Oh lass, On this holy day, Do not stay aside, And come to bathe with us. The lily in the ponds have opened, The night flowers have closed, The white toothed sages, Who wear clothes as red as, The powder of brick, Are going to their temples. To sound
5940-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil
6039-590: The horse like ogre, By pulling apart his mouth, From Him who killed the wrestlers, Sent to kill him, From the Narayana, who is first among the Gods, And prostrate before him.. Please hear what we tell. And decide for yourself, In the soft cotton bed, In the pearl filled Villa, Well lit from all sides, And full of the smoke of incense, Please open the ornamental door. Oh aunt, why don't you wake her up, Is your daughter dumb or deaf, Or down right lazy, Or she
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#17330934485356138-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by
6237-554: The jasmine Pandals, And coo so that we all wake up, Hey Lady who happily plays ball, To help us sing your Lords fame, With your hands with tingling bangles, Please open the door with happiness, On the ornamental four legged ivory cot, On the soft bed filled with cotton, Reclining on the busts of Nappinnai, You sleep, Oh he who has a flower like heart, Please open your mouth. She who has, wide black eyes with collyrium. We know that you will never allow him to wake up, For you can never bear to be away from Him, This
6336-456: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar
6435-451: The leader of Sri Vaishnavas, followed by Parasara Bhattar. Parasara defeated an Advaita Vedanta philosopher named Madhava in a debate. He accepted Madhava as a disciple, gave him the name Nanjiyar , and appointed him as his successor. According to Sri Vaishnava tradition, once, Koorathalvar went to bed without dinner because he had not obtained any alms that night due to rain, nor was there any food in his house. When his wife, Andal, heard
6534-492: The man relinquish his title. When the learned man learnt of the prankster's age and identity, he marvelled at his precociousness, and took him to the care of his foster-parents, who performed rituals to protect him from harm. In another legend, he is described to have flawlessly recited teachings from the Vedas upon his parents' prompting, and complained that he was not learning anything new in his classes. Following his education, when he
6633-454: The milking vessel got overflowed, Please wake up. Oh deity, who is full of mercy, Oh deity, who is better than the best, Oh lord, who is the light that began the world, Please wake up. Like your flock of defeated enemies, Falling at your feet in surrender, We came praising you, So that we get fame, Of the wide World, that is pretty, Have crowded near your cot, After surrendering their ego, We also have come near. Will not
6732-462: The month of Margaḻi . This practice assumes special significance during Margaḻi : each day of this month gets its name from one of the thirty verses. There are references to this vow in the late- Sangam era Tamil classic anthology called Paripatal . Andal's thirty songs contain the cardinal principles of Vaishnavism during the month of Margaḻi . Andal assumes the guise of a cowherd girl in these 30 verses. Andal appears intent upon performing
6831-478: The mount of venus, Like the hood of the snake, Wake up and come, When your flock of friends, Have come to your courtyard, And sing of Krishna, Who has the colour of the cloud, Oh rich, rich lady, How can you neither move nor talk, And lie in deep trance, The mooing she buffalo with a calf, Which took pity on the calf, And gave out plenty, Of milk to it through its udder, And made his courtyard slushy with milk, We are assembled in thine yard, In
6930-479: The name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela ,
7029-527: The next two taniyans , 'Anna vayal pudhuvai ... ' and "Choodi kodutha..." (translated below) were composed by Sri Uyyakondar. Taniyan This song is a prelude to Tiruppavai and is one of the 3 taniyans . Andal from the swan filled Puduvai, Sang she, in her sweet voice, Several enchanting sweet odes, For being sung during, The worship and adulation of Pavai. They are but a garland to him, From her who wore them first, Before presenting them to Him. Each pasuram (ode to Perumal) of Tiruppavai
7128-428: The ocean of milk, We will not take the very tasty ghee, We will avoid the health giving milk, We will daily bathe before the dawn, We will not wear any collyrium to the eye, We will not tie flowers in our hair, We will not do Any act that is banned, We will not talk ill of any to any one else, We will give alms and do charity, As much as we can, And do all those acts to make others free of sorrow, This
7227-531: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows
7326-428: The parents of Krishna and begging them to wake up Krishna and Balarama. Then they approach Niladevi , the consort of the deity, to have a darshana . The last nine stanzas are on the glories of the deity. On receiving his blessings Andal lists her demands; milk for the vrata , white conch, lamps, flowers, and rich costume and jewellery, plenty of ghee and butter. The concluding stanza is an envoie identifying her as
7425-401: The rice fully with ghee, And with the ghee dripping from our forehands, We will be together and be happy, Drive we would the cattle to the forest, And there we would all eat together, But We are blessed that you are one of us.. Oh Govinda who does not have any short comings. None can ever break the ties that we have with you, Oh deity, We are but ignorant girls, who do not know
7524-500: The right spiraled conch, And rain with out stop like the arrow storm, From Saranga the bow of Vishnu and descend on us, To make this world happy, And to help us take bath in month of Margaḻi, To Him the son of Mathura in the north, To Him who played and frolicked, In the shores of holy Yamuna, To Him who is the ornamental lamp, Of the family of cow herds, And to the Damodara who made, His mothers womb holy, We came after
7623-467: The savants and sages, Calling him who drank the poisonous milk from the ghost, Him who kicked and killed the ogre of the cart, And him who sleeps on the great serpent Adi Sesha So that it goes through our mind, And make our mind cool The twittering sound of black birds of the morn, Which sounds like a talk between them, Did you not hear the tingling sound, When the big and small coin like pendants, Rub against each other, Did you not hear
7722-483: The second time, a mindset that the deity encouraged him to maintain. Parasara Bhattar believed in the co-divinity of Lakshmi Narayana , calling them 'Mother' and 'Father' and stating that their relationship was similar to that of the sun and sunlight. In his Sri Guna Rana Kosa, he stated that the goddess Sri (Lakshmi) maintains the unique role of pleading the cause of mortal beings to her consort Narayana (Vishnu), encouraging him to be gracious to his followers. This idea
7821-409: The sight, Of your red eyes which is like the lotus Fall little by little on us? If you see us using those eyes, Which are like sun and the moon, All the curse on us will vanish, From the mountain cave in the rainy season, Looks with fiery sight, And with deep angry sweat from all the hairs, Turns up its head with awe, And comes out making much din, Hey deity, who is the colour of
7920-402: The sky. Please wake up, and do not sleep. Hey Baladeva, who wears pure golden anklets, Please wake up along with your brother, Of Nanda gopa, who has several elephants, And who is a great hero who never ran away from his enemies, Hey Lady Nappinnai, who has hair surrounded by holy scent, Please be kind to open the door. The cocks are everywhere waking us up, The koels flock on
8019-612: The sound of vigorous pull, Of the curd churner being pulled, By the flower bedecked cow herdesses, Did you not hear the sound of twirling curd, When churned using the mixer, Oh, leader among girls, How can you sleep, When they sing the names sweetly. Of Narayana and Kesava, Oh, She who is sparkling, Be pleased to open the door, The buffaloes are free to walk and graze, The remaining lasses, have stopped from going, All those who wanted to go, And have come to call you, Oh girl filled with happiness, Please wake up. Let us all sing and get gifts, From Him who has killed
8118-426: The sounding of the conch from the temple. She visits each household and awakens all her friends to join her for a bath in a nearby pond. She also praises the incarnations of the deity. The next five stanzas describe her visit to the temple accompanied by her friends. She desires to render a suprabhatham gently to wake up the deity. The group appeases the temple guards, enters the temple and recites prayers extolling
8217-465: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but
8316-530: The story of how the rich ladies, With faces like moon, Who worshipped and requested, The Madhava who is also deity Kesava, Who churned the ocean of milk, For getting a drum to worship Goddess Pavai, As sung by Kodhai who is the dear daughter, Of Vishnu Chitta the bhattar, From the beautiful city of Puduvai, Will be happy and get the grace, Of our Vishnu with merciful pretty eyes. And four mountain like shoulders, for ever. In Thailand, an annual Giant Swing ceremony known as Triyampavai-Tripavai
8415-615: The subtle seed, so is the entire essence of the Vedas is hidden in the Tiruppavai which can be revealed only under the guidance of an acharya or a guru who is well versed in Vedic scriptures. This entire hidden essence is mentioned in the Andal's verses in the form of poetry. The first five stanzas provide an introduction to the main theme, its principle and purpose. According to Andal, one should give up luxuries during this season. Sincere prayers to
8514-470: The truth of the paramatma or the Supreme being who dwells in everything. There is a hidden meaning in the 27th pasuram, for example, where Andal explains the importance of an acharya whose guidance is mandatory for a disciple to get these trio of mantras. The Tiruppavai is said to be 'Vedam Anaithukkum Vithagum', meaning it is the seed of the Vedas. As the entire tree and the trees coming from it are hidden in
8613-580: The two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has
8712-439: The wind instrument tiruchinnam being blown to ritually announce the ceremonial consumption of temple offerings ( prasadam ) by the deity Ranganatha , she is said to have wondered if it was proper for the deity to partake of lavish food when his devotee (Koorathalvar) had gone to bed hungry. Ranganatha heard her thoughts, and dispatched his devotee, Uttamanambi, to prepare some food and take it to Koorathalvar. The theologian shared
8811-483: The word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages , a family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as
8910-517: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in
9009-572: The world, And in ignorance and love we have called you by name. So please be not be angry on us, And please give us drums, Oh deity, In this very early dawn, We have come to worship, Your golden holy feet. You were born in our family of cow herds, And we are but there to obey your every wish, And not come to get only the drums from you, Oh Govinda. For ever and for several umpteen births, We would be only related to you, And we would be thine slaves, And so please remove all our other desires, The thirty odes in sweet Tamil, Of
9108-526: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,
9207-609: Was a follower of Ramanuja , a 12th-century Sri Vaishnava teacher (1062-1174 CE). He was the son of Koorathalvar . His works include the Srirangarajastavam . He wrote a commentary in Sanskrit on Vishnu Sahasranamam from a Sri Vaishnava viewpoint, titled Bhagavadguna Dharpanam, in contrast to the Advaita view of Adi Shankara . According to the Tenkalai tradition ( Guru-parampara ), Ramanuja 's cousin, Embar, succeeded him as
9306-557: Was adopted by Vedanta Desika . He believed that the recitation of the Vishnu Sahasranamam offers the absolution of sins and has no equal hymn. He is said to have offered ten precepts to his disciple, Nanjiyar. The Ashtashloki of Parasara Bhattar contains eight Sanskrit verses that are regarded to essentialise the three Sri Vaishnava mantras used in the performance of prapatti : the Tirumantra, Dvaya, and Caramasloka. He
9405-586: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are
9504-416: Was held in major cities until 1935, when it was abolished for safety reasons. The name of the ceremony was derived from the names of two Tamil Hindu chants: Thiruvempavai (a Shaivite hymn by Manikkavacakar ) and Tiruppavai . It is known that Tamil verses from Thiruvempavai — poet pratu sivalai ("opening the portals of Shiva's home") — were recited at this ceremony, as well as the coronation ceremony of
9603-604: Was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of
9702-413: Was of age to get married, Ranganatha himself is described to have contracted his parents' desired alliance, with a girl from Periyanambi's family. After his wedding, in an episode, Parasara Bhattar is described to have once visited Ranganatha twice, having been driven away by the deity first and welcomed the second time. Parasara Bhattar proclaimed that he felt as though were being welcomed by his own parents
9801-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined
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