Lilatilakam

Lilatilakam (IAST: Līlā-tilakam, "diadem of poetry") is a 14th-century Sanskrit-language treatise on the grammar and poetics of the Manipravalam language form, a precursor of the modern Malayalam language spoken in the Kerala 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. In 1909, Appan Thampuran published a translation of the first part of Lilatilakam in the Malayalam magazine, Mangalodhayam. Later, the whole treatise was translated and published by Atoor Krishnapisharadi.

Contents

Lilatilakam (literally "diadem of poetry") calls itself the only disciplinary treatise (shastra) on Manipravalam, which it describes as the "union" of Sanskrit and Kerala-bhasha (the regional language spoken in Kerala).

The text is written in Sanskrit language, in form of a series of verses with commentary; it also features examples of Manipravalam-language verses. The text is divided into eight parts called shilpam.

References

Bibliography

• Eva Maria Wilden (2014). Manuscript, Print and Memory: Relics of the Cankam in Tamilnadu. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-035276-4.
• Rich Freeman (2003). "The Literary Culture of Premodern Kerala". In Sheldon Pollock; Arvind Raghunathan (eds.). Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22821-4.