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A. CHAKRAVARTI :
we can say is that it is one of the very early classics in Tamil literature. It contains 894 stanzas on the whole. This text is certainly very useful to students of Tamil literature in exhibiting several rare grammatical and idiomatic usages, and archaic terms in which the work abounds.
Two other minor kāvyas which are still lying in obscurity in palm-leaf manuscripts are (4) Udayanakävya and (5) Nāgakumāra-kavya. The former, as its name suggests, relates to the life of Udayana, the Vatsa prince of Kaušāmbi. Since they are not published, we cannot say inuch about them.
There is another Tamil classic dealing with the storyof Udayana. Probably this is not one of the minor kavyas. Judging by the volume of matter and the meter employed in this work, it is probably an independent work not included in any of the traditional lists. It is made available to the Tamil reader by that indefatigable worker in the cause of Tamil, Dr. Swaminatha Ayyar, whom we have already referred to. This work Perunkathai probably was named after the Brhat-katha of Guņādhya written in what is known as Piśācabhāṣā, a Prākrit dialect. The author is known as Konguvēl, a prince of the Kongu-deśa. He lived in Vijayamanagar, a place in Coimbatore District, where there were a number of Jainas in former days. This work is quoted by several famous commentators
1. Perunkathai, Ed. by V. Swaminatha Ayyar, Madras,
1924.
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