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Book Review
THE NALADIYAR, Editor, Pt. Vinayasagarji & others; Publisher Prakrit Bharati Academy, Jaipur, 1990 A.D Pages 200+30, Price Rs. 120/-.
Jainism has its own importance in South India, particularly in Karnataka and Tamila Nadu. The Jaina teachers who moved to South India from the North (Madhyadeśa) during the great twelveyear famine, settled in Karnataka and Tamila country, learned the respective regional languages and composed there works of great value. The earliest and the most authoritative Tamil grammar Tolkappiyam is by a Jaina teacher. Silappadikaraṁ (Topic of the Anklet), the famous Tamil epic, is by the Jaina teacher Ilango Adigal Tirukkural (c 600 A D.), claimed as a world classic and Tamil Veda, is a rare treatise on the Art of living composed by an erudite Jaina householder Tiruvallvar-and not by Elācārya or Kundakundacarya as supposed by many so far (vide my paper Some Thoughts on Tirukkural and its Authorship, Tulasi Prajñā, Vol. XVII-2, 1991). Similarly the Naladiyar, is a compilation by the Jaina teacher Padumnar (c. 700 A.D.). It is also a worthy treatise on the Art of living containing 3 parts (Kāṇḍas) viz., Dharma, Artha and Kama, divided into 40 chapters (Adhyayas), each containing a group of ten verses which are quartains, Thus it is cast in all 400 quartains. These verses have 4 feet (nalaḍi) and hence, the work is entitled Nalaḍiyār.
The Prakrit Bharati Academy, Jaipur, in Association with Baijanath Goenka Charitable Trust, Munger, deserves special compliments for recently publishing (1990) this ancient (pp xxx-200, price Rs. 120/-) Tamil work, with Mahopadhyaya Vinaya Sagarji as its editor, Dr. G.A. Pope and F.W. Elis as its English Prose translators, Shri Sbreeram Desikan as its versified Sanskrit translator and Shri Shreenivas Raghavan as its versified Hindi translator-all in one Dr. Mandana Mishra, the Vice-Chancellor of Shri Lal Bahaddur Shastri University, Delhi, has written a scholarly Introduction to this important book. Discussing the importance of human speech (Vaņi), wise sayings (Subhasitas or Suktis) and such words of wisdom in Prakrit
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