MEMORY OF THE WORLD REGISTER
Classical Tamil Manuscript Collection of the Dr. U.V. S. Library
(France, Germany, India)
Ref N° 2010-18
PART A – ESSENTIAL INFORMATION
1
SUMMARY:
With its history of more than two thousand years, Tamil has a unique status among
Indian languages as both a modern and a classical tongue. This was finally recognized
by the central government in 2004, when they formally declared it a “classical”
language, alongside Sanskrit. No firm dating is possible for the earliest surviving
works, but most scholars agree that they are to be placed somewhere between the 3 rd
cent. B.C. and the 6th century A.D. This corpus of “Classical” Tamil literature
comprises poetry of love and of war, as well one large treatise of remarkable
complexity that describes the grammar and poetical conventions employed.
The translations of A.K. Ramanujan (1967), the celebrated Chicago poet, created a
literary sensation when they first brought some of this poetry to the English-speaking
world. For historians too, this literature is of incomparable value: it is virtually the
only surviving testimony to centuries of South India's past.
And yet, by the early modern period the literature of Classical Tamil had come to be
largely forgotten. One outstanding scholar of Tamil is credited with its rediscovery in
the 19th century: Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar (1855-1942). He devoted his life to
searching village after village for manuscripts, and it was he who edited most of the
classical texts for the first time.
His collection, today preserved in the Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar Library (Dr. UVS
Library) in Chennai, contains over 3000 Tamil manuscripts, among which many
transmit ancient works. This unique collection is thus a vital witness to a major
cultural tradition of India, that of the earliest surviving Dravidian literature. Measures
must now be taken to protect it for posterity.
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DETAILS OF THE NOMINATOR
2.1
Names
(1)
Dr. Dominic Goodall,
Professor (Directeur d'Etudes) and Head,
École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO),
(www.efeo.fr/)
16 & 19 Dumas Street,
Pondicherry 605 001
India
(2)
Dr. Thomas Lehmann
1
Dept. of Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures
South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University
(www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/)
Im Neuenheimer Feld 330
69120 Heidelberg
Germany
(3)
2.2
Dr. Eva Wilden,
EFEO/Hamburg University,
Collaborator in the German DFG-sponsored
Project “Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa”
(www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/index_e.html)
Rothenbaumchaussee 34
D-20148 Hamburg, Germany
Relationship to the documentary heritage nominated
In 2004 the EFEO signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Dr. UVS Library
to set up a joint program for the digital preservation of their palm-leaf and paper
manuscripts. The EFEO had at the time launched a Caṅkam research project aiming to
prepare, for the first time, critical editions of Caṅkam works, as well as new
lexicographical tools. For this project, a reexamination of all surviving witnesses to
the texts, in particular the manuscripts, was essential.
2.3
Contact persons
Dr. Dominic Goodall and Dr. Thomas Lehmann
2.4
Contact details
(1)
Dr. Dominic Goodall,
Professor (Directeur d'Etudes) and Head,
École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO),
16 & 19 Dumas Street,
Pondicherry 605 001, India
E-mail: dominic.goodall@gmail.com
(2)
Dr. Thomas Lehmann
Dept. of Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures
South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University
Im Neuenheimer Feld 330
69120 Heidelberg, Germany
E-mail: thomas.lehmann@uni-heidelberg.de
3
IDENTITY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE DOCUMENTARY HERITAGE
3.1
Name and identification details of the items being nominated
2
Classical Tamil Manuscript Collection
Dr. U. V. Swaminatha Aiyar Library (Dr. UVS Library)
2, Arundale Beach Road,
Besant Nagar,
Chennai 600 090,
India
3.2
Description of the documentary heritage
Of all the South Indian or Dravidian languages Tamil has the longest tradition, an
uninterrupted literary history of more than two thousand years. The earliest still extant
theoretical work is a treatise called the Tolkāppiyam, which describes the grammar and
poetics of the earliest Tamil language and literature. The oldest portions of the
phonological and morphological parts of this treatise may date, according to some
scholars, from as early as the 3rd century B.C. The Tamil literary tradition predates
those of all other Indian languages spoken today by several hundred years.
As for the earliest literary corpus, it consists of 18 works:
 5 anthologies of love poetry
 2 anthologies of heroic poetry
 1 anthology of songs in praise of religious sites
 10 larger poems or songs
These texts have been handed down over centuries, first through memory and then
through copying and re-copying on palm-leaf manuscripts. It seems unlikely that any
further Tamil literature of this earliest phase will be discovered.
Of course the true circumstances of the composition of the poetry are unknown. There
is little internal evidence, but the poets often make reference to themselves as
travelling bards visiting various courts, and the poems indeed display some features
typical of oral poetry.
Even though the poetic corpus of Classical Tamil is ancient—probably composed
during the eight centuries between the 3rd century B.C. and the 6th century A.D. —,
most of the texts had fallen into oblivion by early modern times and were only
recently rediscovered in the 19th century. During the medieval period, all Tamil
literary and scholarly activities became centred in religious monasteries, where literary
records, in the form of copper plates and palm-leaf manuscripts, were collected and
preserved. Literary and grammatical texts were transmitted by copyists and analysed
and commented on by scholars. These centres, however, had a preoccupation with
religious Tamil literature, most of which was composed during the period of Middle
Tamil, i.e. between the 7th and 13th centuries. As a consequence, the study of secular
literature, including that of the “Caṅkam”, languished. Moreover, due to the frailty of
palm-leaf manuscripts in the South Indian climate many manuscripts perished before
the texts they transmitted could be recopied. It was only through the efforts of
eminent scholars such as Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar (1855-1942) in the 19th century
that palm-leaf manuscripts of Classical Tamil texts were re-discovered, collected,
recopied and printed for the first time.
In his efforts to preserve Classical Tamil literature and to publish the ancient literary
texts, Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar spent most of his life travelling the length and
breadth of the Tamil-speaking South by ox cart, visiting almost every town and village
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in search of manuscripts, which were at risk of being eaten up by termites or being
burned or thrown away. As a result, a large number of literary works, which had been
gathering dust in lofts, store-rooms, boxes and cupboards, were recalled from the brink
of extinction. Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar collected more than 2000 palm-leaf
manuscripts, copied many of them himself on paper and edited and published many
classical literary texts. Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar thus resurrected a treasury of
ancient Tamil classics and presented them to the world in his now famous annotated
scholarly editions.
3.2.1 Inventory of the Classical Tamil Manuscript Collection of the Dr. UVS Library
According to the various Tamil manuscript catalogues, that is on the one hand the
International Catalogue of Tamil Palmleaf Manuscripts compiled by K.C.
Chellamuthu, P.B. Nagarajan and T. Padmanaban and published by the Tamil
University, Thanjavur, in 1991, and on the other hand the various catalogues
published by the individual Tamil manuscript holding libraries and institutions:









Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar (Chennai)
Government Oriental Manuscript Library (Chennai),
Tiruvāvaṭurai Mutt Library,
Sarasvati Mahal Library (Thanjavur),
Tamil University (Thanjavur),
National Library (Kolkatta),
Oriental Research Institute and Manuscript Library (Trivandrum),
British Library (London),
Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris),
and based on personal verification of the manuscripts at the libraries themselves, 96
palm-leaf manuscripts of the Caṅkam Literature are still extant today in the
respective manuscript libraries (unpublished List supplied by Eva Wilden, EFEO,
Paris).
Apart from palm-leaf manuscripts, the various libraries hold also a stock of paper
manuscripts. These paper manuscripts are much younger than the palm-leaf ones, the
oldest of them being about 150 years old. Since they are often the only extant
transcripts of older palm-leaf manuscripts which no longer survive, they are also of
great value and significance. According to the catalogues of individual libraries (for
there is no comprehensive catalogue of the paper manuscripts, as there is of the palmleaf ones), 47 paper manuscripts transmitting works of the Caṅkam literature are
known to survive today.
Of the 96 palm-leaf manuscripts of Caṅkam literature, 69 palm-leaf manuscripts
are held in the Dr. UVS Library. And of the 47 paper manuscripts available, 21
belong to the Dr. UVS Library.
According to the above-mentioned International Catalogue of Tamil Palmleaf
Manuscripts, there are 120 Tolkāppiyam palm-leaf manuscripts conserved in libraries.
In addition to these, various library catalogues list 67 paper manuscripts that transmit
the Tolkāppiyam.
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Of the 120 surviving Tolkāppiyam palm-leaf manuscripts, the Dr. UVS Library
possesses 32. In addition, of the 67 Tolkāppiyam paper manuscripts, the Dr. UVS
Library holds 16.
Given the poor conditions of preservation in other libraries in Tamil Nadu, some of
whose manuscripts are recorded in catalogues but are now damaged beyond
readability, the Dr. UVS Library collection is all the more important.
With 101 Classical Tamil palm-leaf manuscripts (69 Caṅkam and 32 Tolkāppiyam)
and 48 Classical Tamil paper manuscripts (32 Caṅkam and 16 Tolkāppiyam), the Dr.
UVS Library holds thus by far the largest collection of Classical Tamil manuscripts in
the world and possesses, therefore, with this rare collection one of the few remaining
witnesses to the literary tradition of Classical Tamil.
3.2.2 Condition and storage of the Classical Tamil Manuscript Collection
At present the manuscript collection of the Dr. UVS Library is stored in ordinary open
shelving. For want of funds no special storage arrangements, such as boxes and airconditioning, could be installed so far.
As is well known, because of the humid sub-tropical climatic conditions of South
India and the resulting threat of fungi and the attacks of various types of insect larvae,
South Indian palm-leaf manuscripts often decay rapidly, especially if they are
unattended. Once palm-leaf manuscripts get perforated with holes by insect larvae,
they become fragile and can easily break whenever they are handled. For this reason,
the palm-leaf manuscripts of the Dr. UVS Library, like those in most other South
Indian libraries, are usually not more than 300 years old, and most belong to the 18th
and 19th centuries. A number of manuscripts are brittle and damaged, especially at the
edges of the folios. Paper manuscripts are equally subject to decay and a number of
those in the Dr. UVSL are very fragile. Preventive measures of conservation are now
being adopted, for which see 6 and 9.
3.2.3 Bibliographical references of the Classical Tamil Manuscript Collection
The cataloguing work of the Dr. UVS Library and its published descriptive catalogue
has been described in detail in the following publication: A Descriptive Catalogue of
Palm-leaf Manuscripts in Tamil Vol. I, Part I+II, Vol. II, Part I+II (1990-1992)
published by the Institute of Asian Studies, Chennai, India.
3.2.4 Referees
 Dr. Abdul Kalam, former President of India
Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam,
No 10, Rajaji marg,
New Delhi -110011.
India
Phone: 011 23793601
E-mail : apj@abdulkalam.com
 Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan, authority on Tamil epigrapy
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Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan
No.B1, Narumukai Apartments
Brindavan Nagar Extn.
Adambakkam
Chennai 600 088
India
Phone:044-22533230
E-mail: iravatham@vsnl.net
 Prof. George Hart, Professor of Tamil, University of California.
Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies,
University of California,
7312 Dwinelle Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-2540
USA
Phone: 001-510- 642-8169
E-mail : glhart@berkeley.edu
4
JUSTIFICATION FOR INCLUSION/ ASSESSMENT AGAINST CRITERIA
4.1
Authenticity
The authenticity of South Indian palm-leaf and paper manuscripts transmitting these
literary works has long been taken for granted in the scholarly world because no cases
of forgery have been reported and because there seems to be little motivation for
producing forgeries. Scholars have been using many of these manuscripts for the past
150 years. Moreover, the existence of manuscripts transmitting some of the same texts
conserved in other manuscript libraries in Tamil Nadu suggests that the works are
genuine. The authenticity of the manuscript holdings may thus be regarded as
established.
4.2
World significance, uniqueness and irreplaceability
As pointed out under 3.2, the palm-leaf and paper manuscripts of the Classical Tamil
Manuscript Collection of the Dr. UVS Library are the largest body of sources for the
earliest extant literary culture of South India. The loss of these manuscripts would
mean that the last surviving witnesses of the literary tradition of the Tamil and South
Indian culture that is one of the two great literary traditions of the Indian subcontinent
(the other one being that of Sanskrit), would disappear.
For the still on-going work of preparing critical editions of the ancient literary Tamil
works these manuscripts are indispensable. Moreover, the number of manuscripts per
text and the exclusiveness of certain manuscripts are a peculiarity of the Dr. UVS
Library collection. For example, complete palm-leaf manuscripts of texts such as the
Puṟanāṉūṟu, Kuṟuntokai, Naṟṟiṇai, and some texts of the ten larger poems (songs) are
only to be found in the collection of the Dr. UVS Library. The Classical Tamil
Manuscript Collection of the Dr. UVS Library is therefore unique and irreplaceable.
6
While it is true that there are editions of all Cankam works that are known to survive,
and that those editions are works of erudition, they are nonetheless not editions which
report the readings of all the surviving witnesses (manuscripts, quotations in other
works, relevant parallels). The value of the practice of textual criticism has only
recently begun to be realized in Tamil studies and the first editions with full critical
apparatuses that record the variants of all surviving sources are now beginning to be
prepared. The importance of the manuscripts of the Dr. U.V.S. Library is therefore
now greater than it has ever been.
4.3
The criteria of time, people, place, subject and theme, form and style, and social
community significance are satisfied.
Time:
The Classical Tamil Manuscript collection of the Dr. UVS Library consists of literary
texts that were written by many poets over a number of centuries. They are the earliest
surviving literary productions of South India. No earlier documents from this region or
in any other Dravidian language survive.
People, place, subject and themes:
Apart from a few uncertain references by Greek travellers and stray observations in
Sanskrit literature, Caṅkam poetry gives us the only literary picture we have of a now
vanished South Indian society as it was before it was transformed by a close contact
with Sanskritic cultural influence. Social values, in particular attitudes to war and to
marital and premarital love, are explored in the poetry, but there are also tantalising
glimpses of economic activities (salt-trading, millet-cultivation, etc.), religion
(festivals, trances of possession, etc.), and urban life in named but for the most part
unidentified coastal trading towns. The names of numerous kings, royal houses and
poets from the boundary between history and prehistory are known to us only from
this extraordinary corpus.
Form and Style:
Inscriptions that are of comparable antiquity also survive, scattered across the Tamilspeaking South, but they tend to be very short texts full of proper names whose
interpretation is problematic. The Caṅkam corpus of poetry thus furnishes us with the
earliest surviving body of evidence for a Dravidian language. In the Tolkāppiyam we
have the earliest attempt to describe the phonetics, morphology and syntax of a
Dravidian language, as well as an account of metrics and poetic conventions.
The delicate nature-descriptions that are often used to echo the situations of lovers
described in the poetry are astonishingly subtle and evocative, so much so that even
new readers, still unaware of the rich conventional language of the poetry, are often at
once enthralled.
Social community significance:
The gradual rediscovery of a classical Tamil literature dating back two millennia,
notably by Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar, followed closely upon the identification of
the South Indian or Dravidian language-family by Robert Caldwell in the middle of
the 19th century. These two revolutionary discoveries led to the emergence of a
consciousness of a special identity among the Tamil population of South India. The
manuscript collection of the Dr. U. V. Swāminātha Aiyar Library thus contains the
principal witnesses to the wellspring that still nourishes Tamil cultural identity today.
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4.4
Rarity, threat and management
Because of various known factors such as unfavourable climatic conditions and
attacks by insects, the manuscript collection of the Dr. UVS Library is threatened by
decay, see 3.2.3. Measures of conservation of the Manuscript Collection are now being
adopted, for which see sections 6 and 9.
5
LEGAL INFORMATION
5.1.
Owner of the documentary heritage
Dr. U. V. Swaminatha Aiyar Library (Dr. UVS Library)
2, Arundale Beach Road,
Besant Nagar,
Chennai 600 090
India
5.2
Custodian of the documentary heritage
Same as owners.
5.3
Legal status:
(a) Category of ownership
Private institution (Society)
(b) Accessibility
Since all the manuscripts are in such a condition that they have to be handled very
carefully and many manuscripts are fragile and at the risk of crumbling, the
manuscript collection itself is not accessible to the public. Manuscripts can only be
made accessible if digitized first. The whole collection of Classical Tamil Manuscripts
has been digitized within the framework of a Memorandum of Understanding between
the Dr. UVS Library and the EFEO Pondicherry. The Cankam manuscripts of the
collection are therefore now accessible to scholars in the form of digital images on
CD. Such a CD collection has been acquired, for instance, by institutions such as the
Central Institute for Classical Tamil, Chennai, and the Tamil Virtual University,
Chennai.
During the years 2002 and 2008 the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, New
Delhi, microfilmed all the manuscripts of the Dr. UVS Library under its Programme
for Conservation of Ancient Indian Heritage.
(c) Copyright status
The names of the authors and scribes of the manuscripts are not known and cannot be
identified anymore. Moreover, these scribes all perished a long time ago. Therefore
the manuscripts themselves are not subject to copyright. The digital images of the
manuscripts on CD, however, are the copyright of the Dr. UVS Library.
8
(d) Responsible administration
6
The Dr. UVS Library is legally responsible for the safekeeping of the material of the
library.
MANAGEMENT PLAN
Current Storage and Custody
The manuscripts are in the custody of the Dr. UVS Library. The current storage
arrangements are described under 3.2.4. At present there is no management plan for
the documentary heritage. However, the Executive Committee of the Dr. UVS Library
has decided to send an application to the Government of Tamil Nadu, asking for funds
for the installation of a state-of-the-art preservation system for manuscripts (glass
boxes for each manuscript within an air-conditioned storage place) following the
preservation system of the National Library of India in Kolkatta.
Likewise the Dr. UVS Library plans to expand the digitization of manuscripts to other
subject areas of its manuscript collection, as well as digitization of the manuscript
catalogue so as to create an online resource.
7
CONSULTATION
This application is submitted on behalf of the Dr. UVS Library, the owner and
custodian of the heritage, and the Pondicherry Centre of the Ecole française
d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO).
PART B – SUBSIDIARY INFORMATION
8
ASSESSMENT OF RISK
The principal threat to and risk of loss of the manuscripts of the Dr. UVS Library are
the tropical climate conditions in South India and the depredations of insects, which
leads to a gradual decay of the material. The lack of insufficient preservation budget
has meant that necessary procedures for preservation, like air-conditioning and full
digitization, could not be implemented till date.
9
ASSESSMENT OF PRESERVATION
The constantly deteriorating physical state and condition of the manuscripts of the Dr.
UVS Library has been described in detail under 3.2.4 and has also been illustrated
with photographs (included with this application). The current preservation policy is to
apply for funds from various sources in order to carry out the necessary preservation
procedures, such as regular oiling of manuscripts with lemon-grass oil, airconditioning and digitizing of manuscripts.
9