François Gros interviewed by Ravikumar (Dinamani, 1997)

[N. Ganesan]

This is my note to writer Ravikumar (ex-MLA, Tol. Tiruma's party aligned with DMK) on his interview 

with prof. François Gros, France. It was published in 1997. 

~ N. Ganesan

(written originally to Tiru. Ravikumar in CTamil (UParis, CNRS list).

On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 9:42 AM, Ravikumar <adhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear All
>
> Received this mail from Mr Narenthiran, Libraraian , IFP, Pondicherry.
>
> I have spent many evenings with him in 90s, thanks to Kannan.M,one of my
> former friends, now aresearcher in IFP.
>
> You can read his interview recorded by me in my blog
> http://nirappirikai.blogspot.in/
>
> It was published in the Pongal special of Dinamani in 1997 and was re
> published in the 4th issue of Manarkeni.
>

I just read the 1997 Pongal malar (Dinamani) interview. Thanks.

http://nirappirikai.blogspot.com/2012/11/blog-post_8.html

Did F. Gros send his reply to you in English or in French?

If so, can you please put his original reply here, or in your blog.

The Tamil words used for important English words do not

capture the meaning, I think. For example, For "metalanguage"

 ”மீமொழி” will be better instead of "tanimozi". The term, metalanguage, was first

used by K. Zvelebil for Tamil in his popular book, The Smile of Murugan.

After A. K. Ramanujan's The Interior Landscape, appearance  of

KZ's  Smile of Murugan introduced classical Tamil texts to a generation

of students and scholars in USA, and even in Indian cities.

Similarly, phonetics can be ஒலியனியல் instead of "collaNikaL".

Smile of Murugan, pg. 4:

"An entirely different situation prevails in Tamil literature. The earliest literature

 in Tamil is a model unto itself—it is absolutely unique in the sense that, in 

subject-matter, thought-content, language and form, it is entirely and fully indigenous,

 that is, Tamil, or, if we want, though I dislike this term when talking about literature, Dravidian. 

And not only that: it is only the Tamil culture that has produced—uniquely so in India—

an independent, indigenous literary theory of a very high standard, including metrics 

and prosody, poetics and rhetoric.

There is yet another important difference between Tamil and other Dravidian literary 

languages: the metalanguage of Tamil has always been Tamil, never Sanskrit. 

As A. K. Ramanujan says (in Language and Modernization, p. 31): "In most Indian

 languages, the technical gobbledygook is Sanskrit; in Tamil, the gobbledygook is 

ultra-Tamil".

There is an obvious historical explanation of the fact: the earliest 

vigorous bloom of Tamil culture began before the Sanskritization

of the South could have had any strong impact on Tamil society.

It is now an admitted fact by scholars in historical Dravidian

linguistics that the Proto-South Dravidian linguistic unity

disintegrated sometime between the 8th-6th century B.C., and it

seems that Tamil began to be cultivated as a literary language

sometime about the 4th or 3rd cent. B.C. During this period, the

development began of pre-literary Tamil (a stage of the development

in the history of the language which may be rather precisely characterised

by important and diagnostic phonological changes) into the next stage,

Old Tamil, the first recorded stage of any Dravidian language. The final

stages of the Tamil-Kannada split, and the beginnings of ancient Tamil

literature, were accompanied by conscious efforts of grammarians

and a body of bardic poets to set up a kind of norm" [...]

When C. W. Damodaram Pillai, U. V. Swaminatahiyar, Pinnathur Nayaranasami, 

S. Vaiyapuri Pillai, ... discovered Classical Tamil poems from palm-leaf mss.

and printed them on paper, a name for these classical texts

was not there known to the general public. Even before the Tamil Brahmi 

corpus was deciphered, primarily by Iravatham, with some important 

corrections by  Nagaswamy, ... and the impact of Jainism in the early formation

of Tamil as a literary language was well known, ... S. Vaiyapuri Pillai, thru' philology 

(=  பனுவலியல், study of texts,) showed that Tolkappiyar and Tiruvalluvar

were Jainas. Thru' philological means, Sri. VaiyapurippiLLai correctly 

concluded on the decisive impact of Jainas on how Tamil writing was born.

 Even today, we use paLLi or paLLikkUTam for school,

aatti-cuuTi (aatti being the flower special symbol of 23rd Theerthankara,

Paariisanathar.) and Kalvi ozukkam from the Jaina nun, Auvaiyar

(like Kavunti aDikaL), ariccuvaTi or arivari from the Jaina mantra

told by the school children in ThiNNai PaLLikkUTam (ari namOttu sittam) etc., [1].

It was the philologist S. Vaiyapuri Pillai who coined the term,

Sanga ilakkiyam ("Sangam literature") because Jains started the first

Sangham known to us in history "dramiDa sangham", even tho' there

are some mythical sangams mentioned in later Saivaite texts such as iRaiyanAr

kaLaviyal (mutal, iDai, kaDai sangam-s) going back 1000s of years.

Using these pure myths, Lemuria concept became popular in late

19th, and especially in 20th century. Sumathi Ramswamy's book on

Lemuria myth needs to be translated into Tamil. For philology,

a Sanskrit based coinage will be "tantiraviyal" - an inspiration from

Tirumuular - and that may be good for Religion dept.s in World's universities. 

For example, " airOppiya maRRum  amerikkap palkalaikkazakaGkaL

muunRaam ulaka nATukaLin camaya nUlkaLaip pakuttArAyum

tantiraviyalil talaiciRantu viLaGkupavai."

On VaiyapurippiLLai's word, "sanga ilakkiyam" (rendered as Sangam

lietature) the poet A. K. Ramanujan wrote: "This spurious name Sangam 

(fraternity, community) for the poetry is justified not by history but by poetic

 practice." But Vaiyapuriyaar's coinage incorporates Jaina sangha,

which later on morphs into Tamil 3 sangams' legends, and may be one reason 

for its world wide usage. AaNDaaL (a character created by Periyalvar?

Rajaji wrote an article in Triveni it's so) sings about "Sangat Tamiz".

The latest book on Tamil & Sanskrit interactions (this one by Nagasamy), pg. 364:

""For example, Kaatyaayana a well known authority

on Indian law says "the Association of different City

dwellers is called Naigamaa; different weapon wielders

(soldiers)  are called Samavetas; the Assembly of merchants

is called "Puugan" the assembly of Brahmins is called

gaNal and the Assembly of Jains or Buddhists is called

Sangham." "

S. VaiyapurippiLLai gave the name to the then re-discovered Sangam

literature following the ShramaNa religions' early help when the

Tamil language starts to be written. That transition to Literacy

produced the best Tamils ever wrote. A.K.Ramanujan says this on 

Sangam literature, “In their antiquity and in their contemporaneity, there is not 

much else in any Indian Literature equal to these quiet and dramatic Tamil poems. 

In their value and stances, they represent a mature classical poetry; passion is

 balanced by courtesy, transparency by ironies and nuances of design, impersonality 

by vivid detail, leanness of line by richness of implication. These poems are not just

 the earliest evidence of the Tamil genius. The Tamils, in all their 2000 years of literary 

effort, wrote nothing better. “ (The Interior Landscape, pg. 115).

Best wishes,

N. Ganesan

[1] Tamils have two Tamil New Year celebrations: thai 1 and cittirai 1,

Thai beginning is assigned for honoring the memory of Tiruvalluvar

for the last 80 years. That is for Literature, but the basis for letters 

such as those by Valluvar is given in Granmar formulated by Tolkappiyar.

He is the one who uses many northern ways and tamilizes them.

For example, the Prakrit names of Tamil months used by Jainas

- thai is the only Tamil name, the other 11 names being Prakrit -

Tolkappiar gives grammatical definitions for the names, a first

in Tamil. Now we have Poolangurichi inscription giving the

Tamil year. Arthur Burnell has written that the 60 years cycle

has different names among Tamil Jainas and this unique sytem

might have had Tamil names originally, but only IA names

have survived to this day. Tolkappiyar's memory can be

celebrated on Cittirai 1 Tamil New Year day:

http://www.vadakkuvaasal.com/component/content/article/519.html

That we can celebrate both ilakkiyam and ilakkaNam on two Tamil New Year

days.

> I wish Prof Gros a long and healthy life.
>
> Ravikumar