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Page 5
ACIRIYA-NIKANTU
ƒciriya-Nika-tu was composed in ƒciriya-viruttam, another popular metre well-known to students of Tƒyumƒ‹avar. The author of this work was ƒ-di Pulavar of ‡ŠŠaŒgƒl in To-dai-nadu. He was the son of one Pƒvƒdai Vƒttiyƒr and disciple of Jƒna-prakƒsar. In a prefatory verse he says that he has exhausted all the words found in Tivƒkaram, PiŒkalantai, Uri-c-col-nika--u, Kayƒtaram, and Akarƒti-nika--u. So, he must have composed his work after Kayƒtaram the lastest of the above Nika--us and the probable date would. therefore be the end of the 17th century. There are eleven sections in this work and the total number of stanzas is 263 the words dealt with in the first ten sections being about 12,000. The first two sections alone have been printed.
POTIKAI-NIKANTUThe first part of another work Potikai--nika--u was in the same popularmetre but with a smaller number of `c…r' to a foot. Its author was Swƒ minƒtha Kavirƒyar of Kallidai-k-Kuricci in Tinnevelly District. He was a šaivite V„˜ƒ˜a. He must have lived in the second half of the 18th century, as his son Subrahmanya kavirƒyar mention that he composed his p‡vai-p-purƒ-am in Kollam 985,i.e.,in 1810 A.D. The work consists of about 500 stazas, distributed in 10 sections. The first nine sections deal with about 14,500 words, and among these are found many local terms current in the Tinnevelly District.
APITANA-T-TANI-C-CEYYUL-NIKANTU
Yet another work which tried to gain popularity by adopting meters of different types was Apitƒ‹a-t-ta‹i-c-ceyya‰-nika--u. Its author was one G†pƒlasƒmi Naicker, son of Virƒsƒmi Naicker, of Ki‰v„˜‡r The first section alone is available in print ; it was published in 1878, during the life-time of the author.
KANTACUVAMIYAM
Mention must be made of another work, kantacuvƒmiyam, which, reverting to the sutra style, tried to enlarge its vocabulary by a study of all the previous nika--u works. Its author was Subramanya D„šikar. of K…‰v„‡r. It set firtg 24 principles of nika--u-making and tried to follow them systematically. Each of these principles was called a ka--a˜ai. The first two sections were published by in the author in 1844 and they treated of 1318 and 1425 words respectively
KAILACA-NIKANTU COLAMANIHitherto we have been considering nikantu works which followed tivƒkaram in the classification of the vocabulary. We shall now deal with works which gave up that scheme as unsatisfactory and attempted fresh classifications. Of these, the foremost is kailƒca-nika--u-c‡˜ƒma-i1. The only manuscript available to us, being in completed, does not bear the author's name ;but it may be conjectured that kailƒsa was his name and that he was a šivite. He called his work after nika--u-c‡-ƒma-i of ma-dala-puru-a‹ and so he must have lived long after the 16th century. The cadjan manuscript above
1 Not published.
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