The most brilliant of the poetical productions which appeared in the period of the Saiva revival (13th and 14th centuries) are two collections of hymns addressed to Siva, the one called Tiruvdsakam, by Manikka-Vasakan, and a later and larger one called Tivaram, by Sambandhan and two other devotees, Sun daran and Appan. Both these collections have been printed, the former in one, the latter in five volumes. They are rivalled both in religious fervour and in poetical merit by a contemporaneous collection of Vaishnava hymns, the Nalayira-prabanclham (also printed at Madras). The third section of it, called Tiruvaymoli or "Words of the Sacred Mouth," has been published in Telugu characters, with ample commentaries, in ten quartos (Madras, 1875-76).
After a period of literary torpor, which lasted nearly two cen turies, King Vallabha Deva, better known by his assumed name Ativirarama Pandyan (second half of the 16th century), endeav oured to revive the love of poetry by compositions of his own, the most celebrated of which are the Neidadam, a somewhat ex travagant imitation of Sri Harsha's Sanskrit Naishadham, and the V erriverkei, a collection of sententious maxims. Though he had numerous followers, who made this revival the most pro lific in the whole history of Tamil literature, none of the composi tions of any kind, mainly translations and bombastic imitations of Sanskrit models, have attained to any fame. An exceptional place, however, is occupied by certain Tamil sectarians called iittar (i.e., siddhas or sages), whose mystical poems, especially those contained in the Sivavdkyam, are said to be of singular beauty. Two poems of high merit, composed at the end of the I7th century, also deserve favourable notice—the Nitinerivi lakkam, an ethical treatise by Kumaragurupara Desikan, and the Prabhulingalilei, a translation from the Kanarese of a famous text-book of the Vira-Saiva sect. See the analysis in W. Taylor's Catalogue, vol. ii. pp. The Modern Period, which may be said to date from the beginning of the last century, is ushered in by two great poets, one native and the other foreign. Tayumanavan, a philosopher of the pantheistic school, composed 1,453 stanzas (pddal) which have a high reputation for sublimity both of sentiment and style; and the Italian Jesuit Joseph Beschi (d. 1742), under the name Viramamuni, elaborated, on the model of the Chintdmani, a re ligious epic Tembtivaiii, which, though marred by blemishes of taste, is classed by native critics among the best productions of their literature. It treats of the history of St. Joseph, and has been printed at Pondicherry in three volumes, with a full analysis.
English influence has here, as in Bengal and elsewhere in India, greatly tended to create a healthier tone in literature both as to style and sentiment. As one of the best Tamil translations of English books in respect of diction and idiom may be mentioned the Bdlavydpdrikal, or "Little Merchants," published by the Ver nacular Text Society, Madras. P. Percival's collection of Tamil Proverbs (3rd ed., 1875) should also be mentioned.
The copper-plate grants, commonly called illsanams, and stone inscriptions in Tamil, many of which have been copied and trans lated (Archaeological Survey of Southern India, vol. iv. ; R. Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, vols. i., ii.), are the only authentic historical records. (See also Sir Walter Elliot's contribution to the International Numismata Orientalia, vol. iii. pt. 2.) As early as the time of the Chinese traveller Hsiian Tsang, books were written in southern India on talipot leaves, and Albiruni mentions this custom as quite prevalent in his time (1030. It has not died out even at the present day, though paper imported from Portugal has, during the last three centuries, occasionally been used. Madras is now the largest depository of Tamil palm-leaf mss., which have been described in Wilson's Catalogue of the Mackenzie Col lection (Calcutta, 1828, 2 vols. ), W. Taylor's Catalogue (Madras, 1857, 3 vols.), and Condaswamy Iyer's Catalogue (vol. i., 1860.
The art of printing, however, which was introduced in southern India at an early date, while it has tended to the preservation of many valuable productions of the ancient literature, has also been the means of perpetuating and circulating a deal of literary rubbish and lasciviousness which would much better have re mained in the obscurity of manuscript. Dr. Burnell has a note in his Elements of South Indian Paleography (2nd ed., p. 44), from which it appears that in 1578 Tamil types were cut by Father Joao de Faria, and that a hundred years later a Tamil and Portuguese dictionary was published at Ambalakkaclu. At present the number of Tamil books (inclusive of newspapers) printed annually far exceeds that of all the other Dravidian ver naculars put together. The earliest Tamil version of the New Testament was commenced by the Dutch in Ceylon in 1688; Fabricius's translation appeared at Tranquebar in 1715. Since then many new translations of the whole Bible have been printed, and some of them have passed through several editions.