The Colas c34.43

c34.43

The *Nēminādam* of Guṇavīrapaṇḍita is a short treatise comprising less than 100 verses in the *Veṇbā* metre and treating of the orthographs and parts of speech (*eḻuttu* and *śol*) of the Tamil language. The work takes its name from the *tīrthaṅkara* Nēminātha of South Mylapore, Tenmayilāpuri.⁶³ The author was a Jain, and pupil of Vaccaṇandi (Vajranandi) of Kaḷandai, possibly the same place as that of Pugaḻēndi. Another work of Guṇavīra on prosody is called *Veṇbāppāṭṭiyal*, also *Vaccaṇandi-mālai*, the garland of Vaccaṇandi, after the author’s *guru*. From the preface to the *Vaccaṇandi-mālai* we learn that the author’s literary activity fell in the reign of Tribhuvana-dēva, no doubt identical with Tribhuvana-vīradēva of the inscriptions, i.e. Kulōttunga III. If this view is correct, Nēminātha, who according to tradition recorded in a recent compilation, the *Tamiḻ-nāvalar-caritai*, was a contemporary of Oṭṭakkūttan, might not be identical with our author.