A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s2.28

c19.s2.28

The fourth and last great period of Tamil literature that will engage our attention extended from 1200 to 1650 and was marked by a large output of philosophical works, commentaries, Purāṇas and Prabandhas. Much of this literature is derivative and second-rate, and one gets the impression that the age of creative achievement has given place to imitation and criticism. A somewhat arid scholasticism found much encouragement in the numerous *maṭhas* that begin to play a prominent part in the educational system of the country. The numerous authors of the period belonged mostly to the Śaiva or Vaishnava sects, though some Jaina writers continued to write also. Though the emperors of Vijayanagar and most of their feudatories even as far south as Madura were Telugus with a decided preference for Sanskrit and Telugu, there is no reason to think that there was any setback in Tamil literary work, and the Pāndyas, confined to the extreme south from the fifteenth century, bestowed particular attention to the cultivation of Tamil.