The unique ideas embedded in Tamil were for the first time startlingly released to the western world by translations. The various translations of the great Tamil works into the different tongues of the occident exhibited the peerlessness of the Kuṟaḷ, the exquisitiveness of the Tiruvācakam and other major works which had hitherto remained occult. Natives recognised the value of such translations and began to emulate their methods.

The elusive nature of “floating literature” refused to baffle them. Proverbs and folksongs were collected, edited and translated, saving them for subsequent research and posterity.

A catalogue of the printed Tamil books showed the development and retardation of the language in each branch of literature. It was an eye-opener to the natives.

Manuscripts which would have perished but for the ceaseless efforts of European scholars like Tavarnier, Mackenzie and Brown were unearthed and edited adopting western methods of punctuation. They were later printed and many a work emerged into the limelight.

Inscriptions were read by the scholars like Keilhorn, Fleet and Burnell with a historical sense for the first time. Then the scholars began to decipher and detect from them many an obscure historical facts.

Prose literature was given a new impetus. Geography, science, history and short stories found expression in Tamil. The mighty engine of literature, the press hastened the spread of literature and brought works until then inaccessible within easy reach. Newspapers, dailies, magazines, periodicals etc., began to exert a remarkable influence. Methods of education changed and modern but advantageous changes followed. Selections from various works compiled in one work for academic use began to be introduced.

Religious ideas belonging to their own Christian faith were remarkably introduced, garbed in Tamil. Here again, Beschi’s Tēmpāvaṇi has and will stand the test of times.

The non-chalant native attitude towards Tamil and their indiscriminate attraction towards English was mercilessly denounced

62. Robert Charles Caldwell, Tamil Popular Poetry, in The Tamilian Antiquary, No. 2; July 1872