'INDEX OF EARLY MANIPRAVALA WORKS' is the second part of my Ph. D. dissertation "Descriptive Grammar of Early Manipravala Works" submitted to the University of Kerala in 1975. The first part of this work explores the linguistic characteristics of Manipravalam. The second part deals with the data used in preparing the grammatical features analysed in the former part.
The impact of Aryan culture on the cultural life of Kerala is very great. Every field of art, literature and language bears a deep stamp of it.
The very beginning of literature in native style is strikingly marked with a parallel style known as Manipravalam the origin of which is due to heavy borrowing from Sanskrit, both lexical and grammatical. The new style known as Manipravalam is defined as "bhasa samskṛta yogo manipravalam", the happy union of bhasa elements with Sanskrit. Later on, manipravalam has developed into a genre of poetry rich in literature. The importance of this school is evident from the bulk of works written in this style and a separate treatise namely Lilatilakam has been written on it. Lilatilakam describes the details of its linguistic and stylistic peculiarities. This treatise is written in Sanskrit. It is noteworthy that the term Malayalam has never been used in this treatise either as a name of language or as a name of the people. But two forms malayalaruta (people of Malayalam, Kerala with) and malayalikal, (people of Malayalam, Kerala) are present in Unniyaccicaritam and Unniyaticaritam, two poetic works dated around 13th -15th century A.D. respectively. Malayalam attained its own linguistic identity due to its affinity with Sanskrit language.
Early Manipravalam here refers to the works written in Manipravala style before the first half of 15th century A.D. So the data has been restricted to the following ten works.
Manipravala is a harmonious blend of Sanskrit and Malayalam. It is the style of language in which Sanskrit case ending nouns and verbs are admixed. Its history in Malayalam literature has a span of 700 years commencing from 9 century C.E. Historians of Malayalam literature treated it as a school of literature. Lilatilakam, a 14th century C.E treatise on Malayalam language and rhetoric is the first text which provides a detailed discussion on this school of literature. This school of poetry was patronized by the upper classes especially the Brahmins.
Index of Early Manipravalam is the second part of Dr. N. Gopinathan Nair's Ph.D dissertation entitled 'Descriptive Grammar of Early Manipravala Works submitted to the University of Kerala in 1975. The growth of Malayalam language was analyzed and studied on the basis of vocabulary used in Manipravala works during the Early Malayalam Classical Period (800-1300 C.E) and the Middle Malayalam Classical Period (1300-1600 C.E). Early Manipravala here refers to the poetical works written in Manipravala style before the first half of the 15th century C.E. Unniyaccicaritam, Unniccirutevicaritam, Unniyaticaritam, Unnunilisandesam, Anantapuravarnnanam, Vasudevastavam, Vaisikatantram, Lilatilakam, Padyaratnam, and Candrolsavam are the works chosen for the preparation of this index.
I am thankful to Dr. N. Gopinathan Nair for giving permission to publish this index. I hope this grammatical index along with other indices published from ISDL will supply sufficient data for the compilation of historical Grammar and Dictionary for Malayalam.
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