The Colas c34.39

c34.39

Grammar, rhetoric and lexicography have always claimed the attention of authors since the beginning of written literature, and striking contributions were made in these departments in the Cōḷa period. The *Yāpparuṅgalam* and *Yāpparuṅgalakkārigai* of Amitasāgara, a Jaina ascetic, were composed some time towards the close of the tenth century. The correct form of the author’s name is Amitasāgara (the boundless ocean—*aḷapparungaḍal*) and not Amṛtasāgara as it is sometimes written by mistake. The author calls himself a disciple of Guṇasāgara, quotes the *Cūḷāmaṇi* and is quoted by Perundēvanar, the annotator of the *Vīrasōḻiyam*. The text and commentary of the *Vīrasōḻiyam* both date from the reign of Vīrarājēndra. The age of the *Cūḷāmaṇi* is not beyond dispute; it has been ascribed to the latter half of the ninth century,⁵⁴ but it might well have been some centuries earlier. The *Kārigai* of Amitasāgara soon attained great celebrity and the place where the work was composed came to be known as Kārigai-Kuḷattūr, as may be seen from two inscriptions of the reign of Kulōttunga I, from Niḍūr.⁵⁵ These inscriptions state that an ancestor of Kaṇḍan Mādhavan of Kuḷattūr induced Amitasāgara to come and live in the Śiṟu-Kuṉṟanāḍu of the Jayangoṇḍaśōḻa-maṇḍalam; if this name was current in Amitasāgara’s time, the composition of these two works on *Yāppu* must have been later than the last years of Rājarāja I who assumed the title Jayangoṇḍa-śōḻa towards the close of his reign.