and origins of words. Except for this outstanding work, etymologizing in Tamil had been to a large extent merely speculative. Dr. T. Burrow and Dr. M.B. Emeneau recently have done work in this field.

In the wake of Tolkāppiam followed the rivalry of various religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Saivism and Vaishnavism, each trying to assert itself at the expense of the others. Sanskrit was now playing a predominant part and to a large extent increased Tamil vocabulary. This resulted in a need for works of reference.

Tivākaram named after the author Tivākarar was one of the earliest attempts to satisfy this need. The chief of Ambar called Cēntaṉ sponsored this work, hence it was called Cēntaṉ Tivākaram. This work was probably written during the middle of the eigth century A.D.

It is divided into 12 sections, each called a tokuti. The first ten sections deal with class vocabularies and treat separately vocabularies regarding (i) names of gods and heavenly bodies, (2) names of ranks and orders of men, (3) names of parts of the body, (4) names of birds, beasts and other insects etc., (5) names of plants, trees etc., (6) names of places and countries, (7) names of tools, weapons, (8) names of natural products, (9) names of qualities and names of actions and (10) terms connected with sounds and words. The eleventh division deals with homonyms and the twelfth with group names.

Tāṇṭavarāya Mutaliār in A. D. 1835 edited the first edition of Tivākaram but covered only the first ten chapters. He admitted that he had included many of his own Cūttirams.There were about 9,500 words in the original work must have been of a smaller size, nevertheless catering to the requirements of that period. It is no doubt much larger and more exhaustive than the vocabulary of Tolkāppiam.

The next work is Piṅkalantai by Piṅkalar, the son of a certain Tivakarar and hence the latter is very frequently confused with the author of Tivākaram. This work is earlier than Naṉṉūl since,