Akanāṉūṟu

Critical Edition and Annotated Translation with Glossary of the Akanāṉūṟu: Maṇimiṭaipavaḷam and Nittilakkōvai

Prof. Dr. Eva Wilden

The Akanāṉūṟu is part of the old Akam anthologies within the eight collections of the Eṭṭuttokai. A critical edition and translation of book one, the Kaḷiṟṟiyāṉainirai, was published in 2018, and now books two and three, the Maṇimiṭaipavaḷam and the Nittilakkōvai, have been critically edited and are currently undergoing revision and encoding. Together with the Kuṟuntokai and the Naṟṟiṇai, they form the first fundamental layer of the nascent Tamilex dictionary. Since an old commentary only exists for the first 90 poems of the Akanāṉūṟu, there is only a very limited number of old glosses for the rare words. However, there are many first occurrences and a good stock of multiple occurrences which help in understanding the basic meanings for many current words.

The critical edition is based on a total of 18 manuscripts, not all of which cover the full text, but, unlike for the Kuṟuntokai and the Naṟṟiṇai, the palm-leaf representatives of two transmission strands are still available. These two strands, apparently handed down in Śaiva- and in Vaiṣṇava surroundings respectively, appear to have remained comparatively separate until they were integrated into the paper manuscripts, which were produced at the time when the first editions were under preparation. This means that, for the first time, it is possible to reconstruct with a reasonable amount of certainty the shape of the text in the 17th and 18th centuries, when those palm leaves were produced, and to identify the interpretations, corrections, and emendations made by the scholars of the late 19th century. 

This is the reason why this edition will continue to represent two strands, with the primary palm-leaf readings, as was done for the Kaḷiṟṟiyāṉainirai. Readings from the paper manuscripts and the early editions will be integrated into the apparatus. They have to be consulted, in the first place, in the many cases where the transmitted text does not make sense, either because the earlier manuscripts were damaged or left a blank space, or because the text they copied was corrupted. This means that many of the footnotes which the earlier editors did not write (because that was not the custom of the period) are now being written, so that the decisions that had and have to be made become transparent.