Advocate, high court judge
Cirupitty Wyravanathar Thamotharampillai (Pillai) (Template:Lang-ta; 12 September 1832 – 1 January 1901)), sometimes referred to by the initials as C. Y., devoted his energies to the work of editing and publishing some of the oldest works of classical Tamil poetry and grammar.[2]
Jaffna born Pillai was the earliest scholar to systematically hunt for long-lost manuscripts and publish them using modern tools of textual criticism.[3] These included:
- Viracoliyam (1881)
- Iraiyanar Akapporul (1883)
- Tolkappiyam-Porulatikaram (1885)
- Kalittokai (1887) - the first of the Eight Anthologies (Eṭṭuttokai).
Pillai, along with his contemporaries such as U. V. Swaminatha Iyer, was responsible for collecting and cataloguing numerous old Sangam manuscripts and preparing them into compilations and modern form.
Both Iyer and Pillai printed and published Tholkappiyam, Nachinarkiniyar urai (1895), Tholkappiyam Senavariyar urai, (1868), Manimekalai (1898), Cilappatikaram (1889), Pattupattu (1889), and Purananuru (1894), all with scholarly commentaries. Between them, they published more 100 works in all, including minor poems.
References
- ↑ The first Madras graduate(9 August 2004).
- ↑ A Study in Tamil Biographies. Tamil Times.
- ↑ A.R. Venkatachalapathy, Enna Prayocanam?' Constructing the canon in colonial Tamilnadu, Indian Economic Social History Review 2005 42:535, p544