Vaiyapuri Pillai
Encyclopedia
Rao Sahib S. Vaiyapuri Pillai (1891–1956) was a renowned scholar and Professor of Tamil
. An advocate by profession, he edited and published several Tamil classics from original manuscripts. He is best remembered as the editor of the Tamil lexicon published by the Madras University in the 1920s. He was a voracious reader and had in his own private collection thousands of books in Tamil, English, Sanskrit and Malayalam. His collection also included hundreds of palm leaf manuscripts. This collection was later donated to the National Library at Calcutta.
. The decisions of the committee were opposed tooth and neck by activists of the Madras Presidency Tamil Sangam and were eventually reversed after Sastri's demise in 1946.
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
. An advocate by profession, he edited and published several Tamil classics from original manuscripts. He is best remembered as the editor of the Tamil lexicon published by the Madras University in the 1920s. He was a voracious reader and had in his own private collection thousands of books in Tamil, English, Sanskrit and Malayalam. His collection also included hundreds of palm leaf manuscripts. This collection was later donated to the National Library at Calcutta.
Controversies
In June 1940, the Government of Madras appointed a committee headed by V. S. Srinivasa Sastri to frame general principles for coining words for scientific and technical terms in Tamil. The constitution of the committee was opposed by Tamil purists who felt that Sastri was strongly anti-Tamil. Sastri precipitated matters further by recommending the inclusion of Vaiyapuri Pillai, who was also perceived to be anti-Tamil. The committee eventually recommended the retention of words of English and Sanskrit origin. Vaiyapuri justified the decision as a necessity for promoting national integration and cited the poetry of Manonmaniam Sundaram PillaiManonmaniam Sundaram Pillai
Manonmaniyam P. Sundaram Pillai is writer of the famous Tamil drama Manonmaniyam .-History:Born in Alapuzha in Kerala state of India to Perumal Pillai and Madathi Ammal, Pillai studied religious literature such as Devaram thiruvasagam during his childhood. Nagapatinam Narayana Samy Pillai was the...
. The decisions of the committee were opposed tooth and neck by activists of the Madras Presidency Tamil Sangam and were eventually reversed after Sastri's demise in 1946.