''Lilatilakam'' (

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during ...

: ''Līlā-tilakam'', "diadem of poetry") is a 14th century

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

-language treatise on the grammar and poetics of the

Manipravalam Manipravalam (Malayalam: മണിപ്രവാളം, Tamil: மணிப்பிரவாளம்) is a macaronic language found in some manuscripts of South India. It is a hybrid language, typically written in the Grantha script, which combi ...

language form, a precursor of the modern

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

language spoken in the

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

state of India.

Date and authorship

''Lilatilakam'' is an anonymous work, and is generally dated to the late 14th century. It is attested by two (possibly three) manuscripts, and is not referred to by any other surviving pre-modern source.

''Lilatilakam'' (literally "diadem of poetry") calls itself the only disciplinary treatise ('' shastra'') on

, which it describes as the "union" of Sanskrit and Kerala-bhasha (the regional language spoken in Kerala). The text is written in

language, in form of a series of verses with commentary; it also features examples of Manipravalam-language verses.

References

Bibliography

* * Grammar books 14th-century books Indian books Sanskrit literature Malayalam language {{Grammar-book-stub

Date and authorship

Contents

References

Bibliography