of its bearings on the question of Dravidian comparative grammar, I shall here adduce a few of the evidences on which this conclusion rests.”

      “Classical Tamil, which not only contains all the refinements which the Tamil has received, but also exhibits to some extent the primitive condition of the language, differs more from the colloquial Tamil than the classical dialect of any other Dravidian idiom differs from its ordinary dialect.......... As the words and forms of classical Tamil cannot have been invented all at once by the poets, but must have come into use slowly and gradually, the degree in which colloquial Tamil has diverged from the poetical dialect, notwithstanding the slowness with which languages, like everything else, changes in the East, seems to me a proof of the high antiquity of the literary cultivation of Tamil.”¹

      “The higher antiquity of the literary cultivation of Tamil may also be inferred from Tamil inscriptions. In Kar-ƒ-aka and Telingƒna, every inscription of an early date and the majority even of modern inscription are written in Sanskrit......... In the Tamil country, on the contrary, all inscriptions belonging to an early period are written in Tamil.......”²

      “From the various particulars mentioned above, it appears clear that the Tamil language was of all the Dravidian idioms the earliest cultivated; it also appears highly probable that in the endeavour to ascertain the characteristics of the primitive Dravidian speech, from which the various existing dialects have divaricated, most assistance will be furnished by Tamil.”³

      The literary cultivation of Kanarese, Telugu and Malayalam dates only from the 9th, 10th and 14th centuries A.D. respectively.

(iii)    The extraordinary copiousness of the Tamil vocabulary

      “Another evidence of the greatness of Tamil” consists in the extraordinary copiousness of the Tamil vocabulary, and the

1.D.C.G.Introduction,p.81
2.Ibid.pp.85&86
3.Ibid,p.87.