The Naladiyar Or Four Hundred Quatrains In Tamil

The author reveals that the term Naladiyar is derived from the Tamil terms Naalu, a colloquial form of Naangu meaning “four”, adi meaning metrical feet or poetic metre, and aar referring to a honorific suffix. Thus Naladiyar refers to the work that contains four-lined verse. The Naladiyar is next only to the Tirukkural in fame among the Tamil literary works. Along with the Tirukkural, it is one of the first books published in Tamil, when it came to print from palm leaf manuscripts for the first time in 1812. The main purpose of this book is to make popular Tamil Classic. It was undertaken mainly with a view of assisting foreigners to acquire some acquaintance with classical Tamil. It is also intended to be a companion volume to the Tamil Classic the Kural. This book was first published in 1893.'With an introduction and critical notes, philogical and explanatory, to which is added a concordance and lexicon.