Talk:Tamil literature

Literary works from Sri Lanka,Malaysia and other Tamil speaking regions
This page should also conatin literary works from all Tamil speaking countries.Currently it contains information only from Tamil Nadu. Hope somebody from these regions or who knows information regarding such works can add these information to this article.

Ok, found a source about Lankan Literary...
The earliest known Sri Lankan Tamil poet was Eelattu Poothanthevanar, whose poems were included in the Tamil cankam (sangam) poetry anthologies compiled in southern India before 250 ad. A distinctly Sri Lankan Tamil literary tradition first developed in the 1940s with the works of the so-called marumalarchi (renaissance) writers Mahakavi, A. Kandasamy, and Varadar.  User:Karooran

Modern Tamil Women Poets
Iam not sure if this is the right place to mention about emerging poets and their controversise. Tamil Literature is too broad a topic for such information. I think this needs to be moved to a more "appropriate page". -- Sanjeeth 09:17, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree with Sanjeeth. This is not the place to mention about the controversy. We have a lot to document about the Tamil Literature, not these menial issues.

-- SanthoshGuru 16:17, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * The current article is nowhere near what is expected of it. We need better coverage for all the eras under all categories (poetry, prose, short stories etc), not a mere listing of works and authors. All these controversies can be put in a separate article like Controversies over Tamil literary works or Controversies with Tamil authors or some other better title. -- Sundar

Further development
This article requires a complete rewrite. Here is a very ambitious structure of what I think an 'ideal' article on Tamil literature would include:


 * Cankam literature Done for now, but this sub-topic should also have its own article with more detailed coverage
 * Overview
 * Tamil traditions about the three Cankams
 * The cankam corpus (ettuthokai, patthupáttu, tolkáppiyam)
 * Cankam poetics (the akam and puram tinais and their significance - illustrate with examples?)


 * Post-sangam literature (the padhinen kizhkanakku)
 * Thirukkural
 * Náladiyár
 * Brief description of the other works


 * Epic literature
 * Cilappathikáram and Manimékalai
 * Civakacinthámani
 * The lost epics
 * Perhaps also a bit about the Perunkathai and Culamani?


 * Early bhakti literature -- work in progress: expected completion 7 Feb
 * The nayanárs and the thirumurais
 * The ázhvárs and the náláyira thivya prapantham
 * Kambarámáyanam
 * Periya puránam


 * Later bhakti literature -- work in progress: expected completion 7 Feb
 * The tamil puranas (e.g. Kaccaiyappar's kanthapuranam)
 * Religious commentaries and the growth of religious Manipravalam literature
 * Arunakirináthár
 * Non-hindu religious literature (e.g., cirappuránam, tempávani)


 * Folk-inspired and social literature (the cittars, Tháyumánavar, Pattinatthar, Ramalinka svamikal, Gopalakrishna Bharati, thiruvilaiyátal, kurava songs, parani, ulá, thúthu poetry, etc.)


 * Modern literature
 * The birth of the Tamil novel and the Tamil short story (should include Vetanayakam Pillai, Rajam Aiyyar, VVS, and Kalki)
 * Bharatiyar's marumalarcci natai and its impact
 * The "pure Tamil" movement and its effect (is the puthu manipravala natai even worth mentioning?)
 * Puthumaipitthan and the Manikkoti movement
 * Tamil women's literature
 * Contemporary literature (Jayakanthan, Ramatirthan...)
 * Tamil emigrant literature


 * Sri Lankan Tamil literature
 * Early evidences of Sri Lankan Tamil Literature
 * Tamil Literature during Jaffna Kingdom Period (13th century - 1620 AD)
 * Early Colonial rule and Tamil Literature in Sri Lanka (1620 - 1796 AD)
 * Tamil Literature during British rule (1796 - 1948 AD)
 * Post Independent phase (1948 and after)

Feel free to edit this list as you like - and especially to say which bits you think you can take primary responsibility for. We can probably also draw on some of the people who write for the Tamil wikipedia. As you can see, this whole thing will probably be too big for one article. We could perhaps just write summaries of some of these sections for now, but they should ultimately be fleshed out in their own articles, if not here.

To get started, I'll write and post a draft of the Cankam literature section this weekend. - Arvind 15:50, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Good work, Arvind. A humongous project indeed. Let's pool in our resources and make it. -- Sundar 05:27, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)


 * Arvind, I saw your note in my talk page. I will contribute on the Tamil literature of Sri Lanka. Further, there evolves a whole new type of expatriate Tamil literature through the Sri Lankan Tamils now living in many Western Europeon countries, Canada, Australia and other places. The Tamil literature is becomming familier with a new set of situations and contexts through them. We can mention about this too. Mayooranathan 17:58, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Use a consistent system of spelling
I suggest that all pages on Tamil in Wiki use a consistent system of spelling. The best would be to use the Tamil Lexicon system which has the advantage of being consistent with other Indian alphabets. For example we will have Pāratiyār, Cilappatikāram etc.


 * Hi there. That's exactly what I've tried to do in my ongoing rewrite of this article - take a look at the Ca&#7749;kam literature section.  We do need to agree on a set of transliteration guidelines, though - I'm working on a set of draft guidelines for the nynorsk wikipedia at the moment and I was planning to translate them into English and put them up for discussion when I was done, but that'll take time so if you'd like to take it up please go ahead.  Where I've gotten stuck is on the system of transcription to use for article titles - we can't use &#257;, &#7789;, &#7749; and other such characters there.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them. -- Arvind 12:47, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * For the article titles, use the forms of the letters &#257;, &#7789;, &#7749; etc. without the diacritics, so you have Paratiyar instead of P&#257;ratiy&#257;r, etc. This isn't ideal, but that's the general Wikipedia solution for special characters that can't be included in article titles due to technical reasons. For instance, the page on Lech Wa&#322;&#281;sa is at Lech Walesa. Any other solution would probably confuse those not familiar with Tamil. Good luck, --Iceager 16:23, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Seeraappuranam
There is no mention of Omaruppulavar's epic Seeraappuranam which details the biography of Prophet Muhammed. This is an important example of ancient Tamil Muslim scholarship. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.202.96.95 (talk • contribs)


 * The article does mention this book Parthi talk/contribs 22:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Akilam
Venu, Perhaps Akilam may be one among the largest (by a single author) works in Tamil. Then it may be the best narrative ballad to tell right from creation to the end(similar to Bagavatham I think) which was somethig unusuall in Hindu History. It also seems that it includes Mahabaratha and Ramayana, kanda Purana within itself. So it is definitely notable. - white dot...!!! 15:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * We have been through this numerous times. Ayyaavazhi is not a notable religion. It is not known outside the three southern districts of Tamil nadu. Can you find 'Indipendent' sources to support your claim about Akilam? Until you do so, this is not to be included in a summary article that spans over two thousand years of Tamil literature. - Parthi talk/contribs 19:49, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't bother whether Ayyavazhi is notable as a religion or not. And Pls explain this, "It is not known outside the three southern districts of Tamil nadu."


 * Also the topic under Ahilam is placed is "narrative epic". Akilam is 'narrative' and is an 'epic'. It's not matter how much years it spans and all.


 * For me, Akilattiretu is also a Hindu Scripture among others. But one thing it seems to give a good narrative line; and it seems to give place for all complex ideas in Hinduism which was rare in other texts.Also I came to know from some discussions that it contains more than 15000 lines and the largest balled etc. So I added it here. Any way as you told let me try to find some independent sources to support all these. Thanks.

white dot...!!! 15:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Lalu, please see the policies of WP:UNDUE and WP:RS before adding the Akilam again. Note that statements such as is one of the greatest works in modern times are incredibly POV and have no place in Wikipedia. GizzaDiscuss  &#169; 03:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Okey, Sorry. It may be because of my impression over it. I accept to tone down the sentence. Do you have any preferences? white dot...!!! 14:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Dravidian civilizations
Wiki Raja 10:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Concerns
This article has serious lapses in sourcing. Much of the article is simply without any sourcing whatsoever. I was also able to spot some WP:PEACOCK also thought I havent looked very closely at the article yet. There are several content issues also that need to be taken care of. Before that however, i feel that this article should be rewritten from scratch. Sarvagnya 17:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You "havent(sic) looked very closely at the article yet", but you "feel that this article should be rewritten from scratch." Great! I've removed all the tags you added except PEACOCK as the others were downright inaccurate. Nofootnotes when there are inline citations actually. Moreover, that tag is not meant to be placed on the top of the article. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 07:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

In addition, I'd be grateful if whoever added the verification tags to the various quotes could clarify exactly what it is they're looking for verification of. The tags by themselves aren't much help. -- Arvind (talk) 10:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, Arvind I added that tag. Providing a citation is good, but here it cites a translation of a vernacular poem which may need additional verification. Perhaps multiple citations asserting the same translation would help. As such the article is poorly cited, furhter raising doubts about the contents as a whole. Just my thoughts.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 13:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Dinesh, you'll never find two translators who translate a poem in the same way. If they did, they'd be plagiarising and possibly breaching copyright.  You're asking for the impossible.  Ramanujan himself has produced at least three different translations of the first poem here.
 * As for the article being poorly cited, well, it's a B-class article (and barely makes it into that class). You've been particularly productive when it comes to producing featured articles, but the quality of the content relating to Kannada / Karnataka is by no means typical of Wikipedia content. The bulk of Wikipedia's content is B-class or worse.  This article is no worse than the typical article - and thus shouldn't raise any more doubts as to its contents than the typical article. If there are any facts you find particularly surprising - for instance, that raise an WP:REDFLAG, feel free to bring them up.  -- Arvind (talk) 08:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for removing the tag, Dinesh. Your comment about the need for a well-cited article is spot on, though - I would dearly love to see this move up to featured quality.  It's something I've been thinking about on and off.  The real trick is to figure out a structure that will make it an article about Tamil literature as a whole, rather than simply a chronological account of Tamil literature.  -- Arvind (talk) 10:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Eelam Contributors
"Contributors to the Tamil literature mainly were Tamil people from Tamil Nadu, however there have been notable contributions from European authors."

The statment does not credit Eelam Tamils who have contributed immensely to Tamil literature since ancient times. Also, it does not acknowledge the Diaspora contributions (Malaysia, Singapore, Europe, Canada), since their contributions add different elements to Tamil literature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.186.177 (talk) 17:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with your comment. Many contributors of the Tamil literature mainly were Tamil people from Tamil Nadu, and there have been notable contributions from European authors. So I just created a page Tamil Linguists in order to add notable contributors.Arvind Arokara (talk) 23:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

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Kurraala kuravanji
Tamil kutralam kuravanji 203.189.184.164 (talk) 10:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, a new article needs to be created on this topic. Rasnaboy (talk) 11:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)