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Classification of Animals in Tholkappiyam
Part 1
Balkrishna K. Nayar
Tholkāppiyam is an ancient Tamil treatise which deals with the writing (eluththu ) the spea. king ( sol ) and the meaning ( po. rul) of the Tamil language. It covers various branches like orthography, phonetics, morphology, etymology, semantics, syntax, prosody and rhetoric ( Karumuttu Thiagarajan-Foreword to Tholkāppiyam in English, 1964). Many consider it the oldest extant work in famil. Few books command the prestige and authority that Tholkāppiya n has in Tamil. "The greatest, grandest, and the most ancient Tamil work" is how Shri C. N. Annadurai describes
it in his Introduction to an Eng. Tish translation of Tholkāppiyam with critical studies by Professor S. Ilakkuvanār.
Among the numerous topics that come within the enormous sweep of Tholkāppiyam is a classification of the animal world. Living things have been classified into six on the basis of their sensory perception. "The life of one sense is that
which has the sense of touch The life of two senses is that
which has the sense of tongue in addi.
tion to the one
Catit 9571-3
47
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