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“Dearth of competent scholars to take up research in classical Tamil”

PUDUCHERRY: There is a dearth of competent scholars to undertake research programmes in classical Tamil, fellow at Centre of Excellence for Classical Tamil, The Central Institute of Indian Languages at Mysore, R.Kothandaraman, said on Friday.

Speaking at the inauguration of an international seminar on Tamil grammar on ‘Towards an internal chronology of theories in Ilakkanam,’ Mr. Kothandaraman said the centre was working on various research programmes but it was difficult to identify competent scholars.

“We identified retired eminent professors for the programmes but most of them have not submitted their works. We have spent nearly Rs.70 lakh on them but have got nothing in return. This is the trend in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry,” he said.

Several universities, particularly in Tamil Nadu, have restricted to modern literature in the research programmes leading to doctoral degrees. In the last 30 years, universities had failed to produce eminent scholars, Mr. Kothandaraman said.

The Centre was involved in creating awareness of classical Tamil among the public and had spent Rs. one crore so far in the last year.

“During the second phase, we want to re-structure the academic programme. We are planning to introduce post graduate degree in classical Tamil, at least in select centres. We need to seriously think of re-structuring the academic programmes,” he said.

However, the teaching community was against innovative programmes. “The mindset of the teaching community is that of opposing all the innovative programmes. They are not prepared to learn new things or give new things to the students. We are now working to bring out episodes of Sangam literature in film forms. Several selected poems are being filmed now,” Mr. Kothandaraman added.

A Central Institute of Classical Tamil would be established in Chennai in four or five months, he added.

The seminar, organised by the French School of Asian Studies along with the Central Institute of Indian Languages, will look at Tamil grammatical theories and their development. It would be held on Saturday and Sunday.

Topics such as the internal coherence of Tolkappiyam and Yapparunkalam and contributions of individual grammarians would be part of the seminar.

Consul-General of France in Puducherry Joelle Rayet said the Tamil grammatical tradition embraced rich and detailed treatment of poetics and contained a crucial evidence of the earliest surviving literature in a Dravidian language.

Head of Pondicherry Centre of French School of Asian Studies Dominic Goodall and Eva Wilden of EFEO, Paris, spoke.

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