User:Fowler&fowler/Antiquity of Indian literature

Some references for the dates of the beginning of literature in the languages of India. The languages include both the classical languages, Sanskrit and Tamil, as well as the modern vernaculars such as Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam. For, now, I'm adding only the ones for Tamil.

Tamil literature
I'd say that the time period 100 BC–250 AD should cover most of the modern scholarly opinion on the antiquity of Tamil literature.


 * 1) Quote: "Of particular historical importance among surviving non-Sanskrit grammars is Tolkappiyam, a grammar (with a section on poetics), of the old Dravidian language Tamil.  It is usually assigned to the early centuries of the Christian era.  Preliminary information about Tolkappiyam and other grammars, language-centered accounts, and so on of Dravidian languages can be found in Scharfe (1977: 178–86)."
 * 2) Encyclopedia Britannica, signed article, "South Asian Arts, Indian lterature: Dravidian literature," by A. K. Ramanujan. Quote:"Early classical Tamil literature is represented by eight anthologies of lyrics, 10 long poems, and a grammar called the Tolkappiyam (“Old Composition”). ... it is generally ascribed to the first three centuries of the Christian Era and represents the oldest non-Sanskrit literature to be found on the South Asian subcontinent."
 * 3)  Quote: "Chart 1  literature: 1. the "Urtext" of the Tolkappiyam, i.e. the first two sections, Eluttatikaram and Collatikaram minus later interpolations, ca. 100 BC  2. the earliest strata of bardic poetry in the so-called Cankam anthologies, ca. 1 Cent. BC–2 Cent. AD."
 * 4) Encyclopedia Encarta 2008.  Signed article "Indian Literature"  by Indira Viswanathan Peterson.  Quote: "In southern India, beginning in the 1st century AD, a magnificent body of nonreligious poetry was written in the Tamil language."
 * 5) .  Quote: "Of all the Dravidian languages Tamil has the longest literary tradition, covering more than two thousand years.  ... the earliest extant literary text is the grammar Tolkappiyam (100 BCE), which describes the grammar and poetics of Tamil during that period."
 * 6)   Quote: "The first known work, Tolkappiyam, is a treatise on grammar and poetics ascribed to the early pre-Christian era, presupposing a large body of literature before it, available in the form of anthologies.  Although the influence of early Sanskrit grammars (fifth century BC) is obvious in certain grammatical concepts ... there is much that is original in Tolkappiyam."
 * 7)  Quote: "Early classical Tamil literature (c. 100 BC–AD 250) consists of the Eight Anthologies (Eţţuttokai), the Ten Long Poems (Pattuppāţţu), and a grammar called the Tolkāppiyam or the 'Old Composition.' ... The literature of classical Tamil later came to be known as Cankam (pronounced Sangam) literature."
 * 8)  Quote: "The Purananuru is an anthology of 400 poems written between the first and third centuries CE by more than 150 poets, ... The language is old Tamil, the precursor of modern Tamil and Malayalam.  Comprising one of the eight "Sangam" anthologies, the Purananuru is among the earliest works in Tamil that we possess."
 * 9)  Hart, George L. (2000), Tamil as a classical language. "Its oldest work, the Tolkappiyam, contains parts that, judging from the earliest Tamil inscriptions, date back to about 200 BCE.  The greatest works of ancient Tamil, the Sangam anthologies and the Pattuppattu, date to the first two centuries of the current era."
 * 10) .  Quote: "The time around 9th and 10th century is significant in the history of Indian languages, it being the time when most of the modern Indian languages, the Indo-Aryan as well as the Dravidian (excluding Tamil which has had a continuous literary history since the beginnings of the Christian era) emerged as distinct speeches, ..."
 * 11)   Quote: "... the more developed Dravidian languages are four: Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam, and they are located in the south.  Among them Tamil has a very special place.  It has the longest literary tradition, extending to over two thousand years, next only to Sanskrit."
 * 12)  Quote: "TAMIL : Oldest of the Dravidian languages, and one of the earliest spoken languages in the world (500 BC).  The Tolkappiyam, meaning "Old Composition," is a work from the Sangam period (1-4 century AD) codifying Tamil grammar, ..."
 * 13)  Quote (p. 333): "Tamil: A member of the Dravidian family of languages ... It is written in the Tamil alphabet, found in inscriptions dating from the 3rd century BD, with a literature tradition from the 1st century AD, thus (apart from Sanskrit) providing the oldest literature in India."
 * 14)   Quote (p. 146): "One of the great achievements of Tamil culture in the field of literature is the corpus of over 2,300 poems collected in the eight so-called cankam anthologies. ... The earliest poems in this corpus were probably composed in the first few centuries CE."