The Verses on the Precious Jewel Prosody Composed by Amitacakarar, with the Commentary by Kunacakarar (Amitacakarar iyarriya Yapparunkalakkarikai, kunacakarar iyarriya uraiyutan).

• Author: Shulman, David
• Position: Review

Text, translation, and notes by ULRIKE NIKLAS. Publications du Departement d'Indologie, vol. 79. Pondichery: INSTITUT FRANCAIS DE PONDICHERY, 1993. Pp. xvii + 467.

This fine volume is a translation and reprint with careful, if rather laconic, annotation of the standard introduction to classical Tamil prosody, the Yapp arunkalakkarikai [YK] and its attached commentary by Kunacakarar. The karika text was composed by Amitacakarar, a Jaina scholar probably contemporaneous with Rajaraja I (985-1014); Kunacakarar, the commentator, may have been this author's teacher. There also exists a longer work by Amitacakarar known simply as Yapp'-arunkalam ["Precious Jewel Prosody," in the phrase of the translator] with its virutti (= Skt. vrtti) expansion also attributed to a Kunacakarar, who may or may not be identical with the commentator on YK. YK is to some extent a precis of the earlier Yapp'arunkalam and its virutti, which are cited at many points in Kunacakarar's commentary. Both the karikas and the commentary are models of lucid scholarly formulation - hence the cherished place of this work in medieval Tamil erudition and its more recent offshoots. Thus the great savant U. Ve. Caminataiyar, one of the founders of modern Tamil studies and the rediscoverer of ancient Tamil literature, speaks lovingly in his autobiography of his first exposure to the YK and its commentary at an early point in his studies, in 1869, under the instruction of Viruttacala Reddiyar; this work, together with what might be seen as the companion text of Nannul dealing with phonology and morphology, served as the foundation of a classical Tamil education.(1) The best modern edition of the text was published from manuscripts by the U. Ve. Caminat'aiyar Library in 1948 (reprinted 1968), edited by Caminat'aiyar's son, S. Kaliyanacuntara Aiyar, who thereby fulfilled an unrealized ambition of his father. The present beautifully printed edition, however, follows the more widely known SISS text, at places corrected in light of the Caminat'aiyar Library publication. No new manuscript materials have been utilized.

Kunacakarar (p. 4) defines the karikai text as an anga to Yapp arunkalam, "like Nirukta for the Veda, the karika[s - of Bhartrhari?] for vyakaranam, and Nalati narpatu for Avinayar yappu." The unique features of Tamil metrical analysis, remarkably removed from Sanskrit prosody and its derived systems, are, of course, in evidence throughout, beginning with the primary unit...