A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c9.23

c9.23

Whether Agastya wrote a treatise on Tamil grammar, and if so in what relation that work stood to the Tolkāppiyam, the oldest extant work on the subject, has been discussed by all the great annotators of the Tamil country. Pērāśiriyar (c. A.D. 1300) says that in his day some scholars held that Tolkāppiyan, the author of the grammar named after him, composed his work on principles other than those of the Agattiyam, following in this other grammars no longer extant. He refutes this theory by an appeal to tradition and authority, the Iraiyanār Agapporuḷ Urai being the chief. He maintains, with support from more ancient writings, that Agastya was the founder of the Tamil language and grammar, that Tolkāppiyan was the most celebrated of the twelve pupils of the great sage, that the Agattiyam was the original grammar, that Tolkāppiyan must be held to have followed its teachings in his new work, and that Agastya's work must have been composed before the Tamil country was confined, by an inundation of the sea, to the limits indicated by Panambāranār in his preface to the Tolkāppiyam—i.e. from Vengadam hill to Cape Comorin. The opposite party that denied Tolkāppiyan's indebtedness to Agastya did not give up its position. The general belief that Tolkāppiyan was a disciple of Agastya was too strong for them to deny, so they postulated hostility between teacher and pupil arising out of Agastya's jealousy and hot temper. Naccinārkkiniyar records the story that after his migration to the South, Agastya sent his pupil Triṇadhūmāgni (Tolkāppiyan) to fetch his wife Lopāmudrā from the North. Agastya prescribed that a certain distance should be maintained between the pupil and the lady during their journey, but when the rising of the Vaigai threatened to drown Lopāmudrā, Tolkāppiyan approached too close in holding out to her a bamboo pole with the aid of which she reached the shore in safety. Agastya cursed them for violating his instructions saying that they would never enter heaven; to which Tolkāppiyan replied with a similar curse on his master. This silly legend represents the last phase of a controversy, longstanding, significant, and by no means near its end even in our own time.