Agasthiyam - quora.com

[Dhivakar]

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Question and answer 

What is Agathiam/Agattiyam ?

Agathiyam is the first ever Tamil grammar book written by Sapthamaha rishi Agasthiyar. There is a legend behind this book. It is said that Agasthiyar after years of meditation, got the bessings of Shiva and wrote this grammer book. The syntax of Tamil grammar is said to have dictated by Lord Shiva himself. Before Agasthiya maharishi got this book, Tamil was spoken, but it did not have a structural component to it, the major sorting out, structure and the grammar was given by Agasthiyar.
 

Agasthiyar launched this book is the first Tamil Sangam function, and Agathiyam was the very first book to get launched during the first Tamil Sangam. But unfortunately according to the records available this book is said to have drowned along with other works in the floods of Kumari Kandam.
Technically speaking Agathiyam is older than Tholkappiyam...but since Agathiyam is lost, we consider Tholkappiyam as the oldest available work, and our Tamil grammar is based on this book. 

Later there were other Tamil scholars who were called Agasthiyar also wrote books on Tamil grammar, that was too named as Agathiyam. You might get books of these poets, but not the original Agathiyam by saptha maharishi Agasthiyar, which is lost forever.

Tholkappiyar and Agasthiyar:

Tholkappiyar was Agasthiyars first and favorite disciple, hence his work Tholkappiyam should have been written with Agathiyam as the base (Tholkappiyar must have followed the syntax in agasthiyam and must have written his book- there is no other way out cos there was no proper structure to Tamil before agathiyam. My wild guess, like the present day P.hD thesis, it should have been approved by Agasthiyar (his mentor and guide). And since Tholkappiyam is widely followed I guess it should not have been very diffrent from Agasthiyam, more like volume 2. We might have missed the book, but more or less we are still practicing the essence.

P.S. 
Tholkappiyam was the first book to get launched in the second Tamil Sangam.
The Pandiya king who released Agasthiyam was called MaKriti Pandiya.

Dhivakar, Sent from my iPad 

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