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Kalittokai
''Kalittokai'' ( ta, கலித்தொகை meaning ''the kali-metre anthology'') is a classical Tamil poetic work and the sixth of Eight Anthologies (''Ettuthokai'') in the Sangam literature. It is an "akam genre – love and erotic – collection par excellence", according to Kamil Zvelebil – a Tamil literature and history scholar. The anthology contains 150 poems and was compiled by one of the authors named Nallantuvanar. The collection has a different tone, metre and style than earlier Sangam literature, evidence that it is a late Sangam work, likely from the 3rd-century CE or after. Naccinarkiniyar, a Tamil scholar who lived during the 14th-century CE, has commented on this work. It is unclear whether the ''Kalittokai'' was authored by more than one author. Some scholars attribute the collection to five authors, including one by the famed Sangam poet Kapilar. Others, such as S.V. Damodaram Pillai and K.N. Sivaraja Pillai consider it the work of one poet. The ''Kali ...
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Sangam Literature
The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், ''caṅka ilakkiyam'';) historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், ''Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ'') connotes the ancient Tamil literature and is the earliest known literature of South India. The Tamil tradition and legends link it to three literary gatherings around Madurai and Kapāṭapuram ( Pandyan capitals): the first over 4,440 years, the second over 3,700 years, and the third over 1,850 years before the start of the common era. Scholars consider this Tamil tradition-based chronology as ahistorical and mythical. Most scholars suggest the historical Sangam literature era spanned from c. 300 BCE to 300 CE, while others variously place this early classical Tamil literature period a bit later and more narrowly but all before 300 CE. According to Kamil Zvelebil – a Tamil literature and history scholar, the most acceptable range for the Sangam ...
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Eight Anthologies
The Eight Anthologies, known as Eṭṭuttokai ( ta, எட்டுத்தொகை) or "Eight Collections" in the literature, is a classical Tamil poetic work that forms part of the Eighteen Greater Texts (''Patiṉeṇmēlkaṇakku'') anthology series of the Sangam Literature. The Eight Anthologies and its companion anthology, the Ten Idylls (''Pattuppāṭṭu''), is the oldest available Tamil literature. According to Kamil Zvelebil, a scholar of Tamil literature and history, dating these Eight Anthologies or their relative chronology is difficult, but the scholarship so far suggested that the earliest layers were composed sometime between the 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE, while the last layers were completed between 3rd and 5th century CE. Contents of the anthologies The Eight Anthologies consist of 2,371 poems varying from small stanzas of three lines in Ainkurnuru to stanzas of forty lines in Purananuru. The following poems form the Eight Anthologies: * ''Ainkur ...
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Tamil Language
Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Puducherry. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is also spoken by the Tamil diaspora found in many countries, including Malaysia, Myanmar, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and Mauritius. Tamil is also natively spoken by Sri Lankan Moors. One of 22 scheduled languages in the Constitution of India, Tamil was the first to be classified as a classical language of India. Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical languages of India.. "Tamil is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India" (p. 7). A. K. Ramanujan ...
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Kamil Zvelebil
Kamil Václav Zvelebil (November 17, 1927 – January 17, 2009) was a Czech scholar in Indian literature and linguistics, notably Tamil, Sanskrit, Dravidian linguistics and literature and philology. Life and career Zvelebil studied at the Charles University in Prague from 1946 to 1952 where he majored in Indology, English, literature and philosophy. After obtaining his PhD in 1952 and until 1970 he was a senior research fellow in Tamil and Dravidian linguistics and literature at the Oriental Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. He held the role of associate professor of Tamil and Dravidian at Charles University in Prague until 1968, when he and his family (including his son, the later archaeologist, Marek Zvelebil) were forced to flee after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. They fled to the United States at first, but later settled in the Netherlands. During the late 1960s, he made many field trips including those to South India. From 1965 to 1966, h ...
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Naccinarkiniyar
__NOTOC__ Nacciṇārkkiṇiyar, also spelled Naccinarkkiniyar or Nachinarkiniyar, was a 14th-century Tamil and Sanskrit scholar famous for his commentaries on Sangam literature and post-Sangam medieval Tamil literature. His commentary on some of the most studied Tamil texts such as the '' Tolkappiyam'', '' Kuruntokai'' and '' Civaka Cintamani'' have guided scholarship that followed him, including modern era studies of Tamil literature. According to Kamil Zvelebil, a Tamil literature scholar, Naccinarkiniyar had a "keen poetic sense, awareness of word values". He vividly analyzed the primary text and secondary literature on that primary text, in a sophisticated impartial manner seen in modern era scholarship. He paid attention to minute details with a critical observation, states Zvelebil, and Naccinarkiniyar's work shows "a clear mind and a vast erudition" of Tamil and Sanskrit works. Naccinarkiniyar was a Brahmin of the Shaivism tradition of Hinduism. The Tamil Plutarch, Pg 57 Naci ...
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Kapilar
Kapilar or Kabilar (Tamil: கபிலர்) was the most prolific Tamil poet of the Sangam period (c. 3rd century BCE to 3rd century CE). He alone contributed some 206 poems, or a little less than 10% of the entire Sangam-era classical corpus by 473 ancient poets. Held in high regard by other poets of the Sangam era, as well as the post-Sangam era, he is variously dated to have lived between c. 50–125 CE, or 140–200 CE. He was a contemporary of Karikala Chola, Irunkōvēl and Vēl Pāri. He was the close friend, confidant and alleged favorite of Vēl Pāri, one of the Vēlir kings.''Studies in Tamil Literature and History by Ramachandra Dikshitar'', pages 55-59 He was the author of Inna Narpathu, a didactic work of the Sangam literature. Verse 5 of the Tiruvalluva Maalai is also attributed to him. Early life Kapilar was born in Thiruvadhavur in the Pandyan Kingdom. Initially a poet at the Pandyan court, he left Madurai at an early age to travel across various kingdo ...
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Poetic Metre
In poetry, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study and the actual use of metres and forms of versification are both known as prosody. (Within linguistics, " prosody" is used in a more general sense that includes not only poetic metre but also the rhythmic aspects of prose, whether formal or informal, that vary from language to language, and sometimes between poetic traditions.) Characteristics An assortment of features can be identified when classifying poetry and its metre. Qualitative versus quantitative metre The metre of most poetry of the Western world and elsewhere is based on patterns of syllables of particular types. The familiar type of metre in English-language poetry is called qualitative metre, with stressed syllables comin ...
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Natyasastra
The ''Nāṭya Śāstra'' (, ''Nāṭyaśāstra'') is a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts. The text is attributed to sage Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The text consists of 36 chapters with a cumulative total of 6000 poetic verses describing performance arts. The subjects covered by the treatise include dramatic composition, structure of a play and the construction of a stage to host it, genres of acting, body movements, make up and costumes, role and goals of an art director, the musical scales, musical instruments and the integration of music with art performance. The ''Nāṭya Śāstra'' is notable as an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts, one which has influenced dance, music and literary traditions in India. It is also notable for its aesthetic "Rasa" theory, which asserts that entertainment is a desired effect of performance arts but not t ...
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Sangam Landscape
The Sangam landscape (Tamil: அகத்திணை "inner classification") is the name given to a poetic device that was characteristic of love poetry in classical Tamil Sangam literature. The core of the device was the categorisation of poems into different ''tiṇai''s or modes, depending on the nature, location, mood and type of relationship represented by the poem. Each ''tiṇai'' was closely associated with a particular landscape, and imagery associated with that landscape—its flowers, trees, wildlife, people, climate and geography—was woven into the poem in such a way as to convey a mood, associated with one aspect of a romantic relationship. Symbolism Classical Tamil love poetry assigns the human experiences it describes, and in particular the subjective topics that those experiences relate to, to specific habitats. Every situation in the poems is described using themes in which the time, the place and the floral symbols of each episode are codified. These cod ...
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion, diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age#South Asia, Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a lingua franca, link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Indo-Aryan languages#Old Indo- ...
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Ancient Tamil Music
The ancient Tamil music is the historical predecessor of the Carnatic music during the Sangam period spanning from 500 BCE to 200 CE. Many poems of the classical Sangam literature were set to music. There are various references to this ancient musical tradition found in the ancient Sangam books such as ''Ettuthokai'' and ''Pattupattu''. The early narrative poem ''Cilappatikaram'', belonging to the post-Sangam period (5th or 6th century) also mentions various forms of music practiced by the Tamil people. Music was an integral part of the compositions of the Tamil Saiva saints such as Appar, Siva Prakasar, Thirugnana Sambanthar and Manikkavasagar during the Hindu revival period between the 6th and the 10th century. Sangam music The Sangam age grammatical work '' Tolkappiyam'' mentions the various music pertaining to the five landscapes (''thinai'') of the Sangam literature. The five landscapes are associated with a particular mood of the poem and to give colour to these ...
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