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A. CHAKRAVARTI:
evidence. Here it is necessary to point out that this classification of jivas based on sense-organs is not found in any of the other darsanas or systems of Indian thought. It is peculiar to Jaina philosophy and Jaina philosophy alone. We may leave further discussion of this point to other competent scholars interested in such research. It is enough for us to note, at this stage, that the composition of this work on grammar, one of the earliest Tamil works, was probably by a Jaina author who was equally well-versed in Sanskrit grammar and literature. As to the exact age at which it was composed there is a good deal of controversy,' and we need not enter into that discussion for the present.
This grammatical treatise consists of three great chapters Eluttu, Sol and Poru!-letters, words and meaning respectively. Each chapter consists of nine Iyals or sections. On the whole it contains 1612 sūtras. This forms the foundation of the later grammatical
1. V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar op. cit., pp. 132-35. For a well documented and convincing argument for assigning Tolkäppiyaṇār to the 4th-5th century A. D., see S. Vaiyapuri Pillai Tamil-ccuḍarmanigal (1949), pp. 27-39. In an equally painstaking dissertation K. N. Sivaraja Pillai arrives at the conclusion (Chronology of the Early Tamils, App. XV, 258-65, The Age of Tolkäppiyam) that the author of that work could not have lived earlier than the 6th century A.D. Among recent opinions expressed on the subject, that of M. Rajamanikkanar (Tamil-moļi Ilakkiya Varalāņu, 1963, p. 84) would place Tolkappiyaṇār in about 300 B. C.
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