stanzas in the veṇpā metre. (2) Raṇa Vākaṭam. In this also there are 100 verses. Venkatachala Pillai published it in 1900.

We are not definite, whether these two works came from Beschi’s pen. But in the Kāppu of the second work the authorship is assigned to “Virāmāmunivar”. A sample from this work will show the style and the methods used to explain:

The best known of Beschi’s poems is the famous Tēmpāvaṇi which eclipses the other poems of his. Caldwell reflects thus “.......... his (Beschi) poems in the classical dialect, especially his great poem, the Tēmpāvaṇi, a long and highly wrought religious epic in the style of the Cintāmaṇi are so excellent-from the point of view of Hindu ideas of excellence; that is they are so elaborately correct, so highly ornamented, so invariably harmonious-that I have no doubt, he may fairly claim to be placed by the votes of impartial native critics themselves in the very first rank of the Tamil poets of the second class............”⁸

M. S. Puranalingam Pillai says that the Tēmpāvaṇi is equval to the Civaka cintāmaṇi.⁹

The Tēmpāvaṇi, many thought, should not to be taught by Dr. U. V. Swaminatha Iyer because of its Christian grab. However, the great Tamil scholar could not omit it, since the Tamil of its verses was both good and pleasing.¹⁰

8. Caldwell: op. cit. P. 238

9. Puranalingam Pillai, M. S.: History of Tamil Literature; 1929, P. 329

10. Swaminatha Ayer, U. V.: Miṉāṭcicuntaram Piḷḷai Avarkaḷ Carittiram; I Part, P. 149