occurring in the Tamil language may be classified into four groups, viz., (1) common native words, (2) literary words, (3) words of foreign origin (ticai-c-col) and (4) words of Sanskrit origin.  This rough classification gives us an idea of the sources of Tamil vocabulary at that remote time.

Etymology is another salient feature of lexicography; but, of this, Tolkƒppiyar only says that the origin of words is beyond ascertainment.  Indeed, with the exception of Dr. Caldwell's attempts, etymologizing in Tamil has been for the most part speculative and fanciful. 

 The centuries following the age of Tolkƒppiyam witnessed intense literary activity.  Religious propaganda had a large share in the life of the people.  Buddhism, Jainism, šaivism and Vai™-avism, each tried in its own way to obtain supremacy in the Tamil country, and to influence and direct the culture of the people.  Sanskrit, than as ever the language of national religion in India, exerted a powerful influence and increased the vocabulary of Tamil.  Hence a need arose for works of reference which would serve at once as dictionaries and as encyclopedias.

The first attempt to meet this need was Tivƒkaram 1. The author of this work was Tivƒkara, and as it was composed under the patronage of C„nta‹, a chieftain of Ambar,  it was named C„nta‹ Tivƒkaram. There is a reference in this work to the chalukyas; and amoung the petty chieftains, ara--ar, who may be identified with the Rƒ™-rak‡-as, are mentioned.  These facts lead to the inference that the work must have been written before the Rƒ™-rak‡-as rose to power about the middle of the eighth century.

This work consists of twelve sections, each called a tokuti.  This name strongly reminds one of the Sanskrit term nigha--u 2 which is explained by SaŒkara-Namašiv ƒyar in his commentary on Na‹‹‡l (sutra 460) as k‡--am or collection. 

The first ten sections of Tivƒkaram deal with class-vocabularies, that is to say vocabularies divided into sections according to subject-matter.  Names of gods and heavenly bodies, insects, etc., names names of plants, trees, etc., names of places and countries, names of actions, terms connected with sounds and words all these are separately treated in various sections.  

The eleventh section deals with homonyms and the twelfth with groupnames.  These two sections and their corresponding sections in the other nika‹-us will be considered later on.

The first edition of this work (1835 A.D) by Tƒ-davarƒya Mudaliyar covers the first ten sections only and contains many sutras, admittedly com-

¹ Some hold that there was another work, by name ati-tivƒkaram, far earlier in date.  But this opinion has no foundation in fact.  There is absolutely no reference to such a work anywhere in literature.

² The world uri-c-col was in use as a generic name for works of this type. Though how completely forgotten, it has been applied to many lexical works in Tamil, like piŒkalantai, Uri-c-col-nika-tu, Kayƒtaram.