Guest guest Posted December 18, 1995 Report Share Posted December 18, 1995 I am still a lay man and so my comments may not be corrrect. Dating is done based on style. Some work on stle in Gita or other works tries to differentiate author ship. Based on that here is my remark. All the alwars' songs are in fairly pure Tamil. There is some connection to early Tamil in style (see Vasudha Naryan's book Tamil Veda, Chicago U Press). The intrspersping of Sanskrit words in SriVaishanva works came after Ramanuja. Sanskrit was pronounced the court language in Tamilnadu by Pallava kings( Mahendra, a contemporary of Harshvardhana ). This should date most of the Alwars to pre 8th century. The term "mani-pravalam" refers to mixing of Sanskrit in Tamil writings. Nowadays I think it refers to usage of English in Tamil, which is very common in India. I think pure Tamil usage is difficult ( Tholai-pesi for phone, Per-oondhu vandhi for bus etc. ). The purists seem to have no objection for forign swear words! Krish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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