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Sanskrit loan words in the Civakacintamani
169
The number of Skt. words found in the Perunkatai is comparatively very much smaller than what we find in the Cc.
There are two main reasons which necessitated the use of a larger number of Skt. words by Tevar in the Co.
(i) As in the case of the Manimekalai, the need to explain religious ( Jaina religious terms in the case of the Cc.) concepts involving Skt. technical terms resulted in many of these terms being used as such or in a translated form.
of the Virutta metre
os of the 'pavara
vllables, with
(ii) The employment of the Virutta metre so as to enable the poem to be set to music. The viruttam metre unlike the metres of the 'pa' variety found in the earlier Tamil literature, is governed by the scansion of the lines into syllables, with appropriate use of alliteration (etukai) and assonance (mõnai) which place relatively more severe constraints on the metrical composition. Thus it became necessary for the author to draw from a much larger vocabulary. This vocabulary included words from Skt. along with their equivalents in Tamil.
The following examples from the Cc. show how one word borrowed from Skt. is used in two or more forms in Tamil :
Skt.
Tamil 1. Kșema Cēmam (safe) 670 Emam
(prosperous) 988 2. Amrta Amirtam (ambrosia) 2827, 1178, 1731 Amirtu
(ambrosia) 222, 350 3. Hingulika Inkulikam (vermilion) 2239
Kulikam 4. Pratima (Pkt. Padinā) Patimai (image) 2752
paţimam (image) 2642
Pațivam (form) 395, 1166 Now we will analyse the phonological and semantic changes of the words which are not Jain religious technical terms.
Before starting the analysis of the phonological changes in the Skt. loan-words in the Cc., one thing must be borne in mind. The gender system in Tamil and in Skt. are entirely different from one another. Tamil has a natural gender whereas Skt. has a grammatical gender. Therefore when Tamil borrowed Skt. words in it, as a general rule, the Tamil personal endings -n, or -t, or the neuter endings -ai,-m, or i are added 1 1 Vaidyanath in Loc.cit., p. 430
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