Preface

This volume of Readings on Tamil Culture and Civilization arose out of the reading prescribed to undergraduates enrolled for the course in Tamil Culture and Civilization which I gave at the Univer­sity of Malaya. The preparation of this volume on the classical period proved to be an interesting voyage of discovery.

The selections have been made so as to provide, not a text-book, but a background reading which will stimulate further reading in fields in which the student may be interested. Some of the selections represent the limitations of research at the period in which they were written, and some are controversial, but the writers, all of them, are able to pick out the main trends of the Tamil story during its ancient period. Not all books by scholars provide an unbroken or even narrative or argument so as to attract the student who is bored by the repeated reading of a textbook. These selections have been made so as to provide general introductions to various divisions of the subject, but without any intention of offering an exhaustive work of reference.