Vedagiri Mudaliar was a
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
scholar best known for his work on publishing the Tamil classical work of the
Tirukkural
The ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'' ( ta, திருக்குறள், lit=sacred verses), or shortly the ''Kural'' ( ta, குறள்), is a classic Tamil language text consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each. The tex ...
with commentaries for the first time.
Biography
Vedagiri Mudaliar hailed from Kalathur, originally called Ponvilaintha Kalathur, a small town near
Chengalpattu
Chengalpattu, previously known as Chingleput, is a city and the headquarters of Chengalpattu district of the state Tamil Nadu, India. The town is located near to the industrial and IT hub. It is the headquarters of the district and is away fro ...
in
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
. Mudaliar taught Tamil in
Madurai Tamil Sangam
Madurai Tamil Sangam, also known as the fourth Tamil Sangam, was a language academy founded by Prince Pandithurai Thevar and other Tamil language scholars to promote the use of Tamil language and Tamil culture in the late 19th century in British ...
. He also established a printing press exclusively for the purpose of printing Tamil materials.
In 1850, Mudaliar published the entire Kural text with commentaries for the first time in history. Though the work had been published with commentaries a few years earlier by Mahalinga Iyer, that work only had the first 24 chapters of the classical work published. A revised edition of the publication was released posthumously in 1853 by Mudaliar's sons Arumuga Mudaliar and Kandasamy Mudaliar. Mudaliar's work has the distinction of being used by Ramalinga Adigal, who launched a movement to teach the classic to the masses. Mudaliar had also written commentaries on the
Naladiar, another ancient didactic work similar to the Kural text.
Mudaliar died in 1852. Mudaliar's 1850 work was republished after 168 years in 2018 by Sivalayam J. Mohan.
See also
*
Tirukkural
The ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'' ( ta, திருக்குறள், lit=sacred verses), or shortly the ''Kural'' ( ta, குறள்), is a classic Tamil language text consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each. The tex ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vedagiri Mudaliar
1852 deaths
Tamil scholars