''Lilatilakam'' (

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Brahmic family, Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that ...

: ''Līlā-tilakam'', "diadem of poetry") is a 14th-century

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

-language treatise on the grammar and poetics of the ''

Manipravalam Manipravalam (, ) is a macaronic language found in some manuscripts of South India. It is a hybrid language, typically written in the Grantha script, which combines Sanskrit lexicon and Tamil morpho-syntax.The Illustrated weekly of India, (1965). ...

'' language style, a blend of Sanskrit and early Malayalam used in the

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

region of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Date and authorship

''Lilatilakam'' is an anonymous work, generally dated to the late 14th century. It is attested by two (possibly three) manuscripts and is not referenced by any other surviving pre-modern source. In 1909, Appan Thampuran published a translation of the first part of ''Lilatilakam'' in the Malayalam magazine ''Mangalodhayam.'' Later, Atoor Krishnapisharadi translated and published the entire treatise.

''Lilatilakam'' (literally "diadem of poetry") calls itself the only disciplinary treatise (''

shastra ''Śāstra'' ( ) is a Sanskrit word that means "precept, rules, manual, compendium, book or treatise" in a general sense.Monier Williams, Monier Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Article on 'zAstra'' The word is ge ...

'') on

, which it describes as the "union" of Sanskrit and Kerala-bhasha (the regional language spoken in Kerala). The text is written in

language, in form of a series of verses with commentary; it also features examples of Manipravalam-language verses. The text is divided into eight parts called ''shilpam.''

References

Bibliography

* * Grammar books 14th-century books Indian books 14th-century Sanskrit literature Malayalam language {{Grammar-book-stub

Date and authorship

Contents

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