Publisher's Preface

It is with great pleasure, we place before the public our edition of Ilakkana Kothu, a concise treatise on many of the minute points of grammar which ordinarily evade the understanding of the students. This work contains criticisms and observations on linguistics in general and it will be interesting to know many of the modern trends in linguistic studies, consciously or unconsciously, find their germe in these observations exhibiting the underlying unity of human mind in deeper levels. The author of this work is a venerable ascetic of great learning and austerity belonging to Thiruvaduthurai monastery bent on making the people to aspire for higher values leading virtuous life spreading real happiness. For him grammar is not a set of laws in accordance with which men and women frame their speech, but rather a codification of rules drawn up from observation of the language habitually used in speech and writing of the educated people and thinkers of higher order - not in conformity with the whims and fancies of the ignorant and vulgar.

The author Swaminatha Desigar known also as Isana Desigar is one of the three great