SCIENTIFIC NATURE OF THE CLASSICAL TAMIL MINDS

The history of ancient Tamils and their great ideas of science are returning seen the world of science today. Tamil is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world. It has been described as “the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past” and having “one of the richest literatures in the world”. The earliest epigraphic records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from around the 2nd century BCE in caves, rock edicts, and hero stones and on pottery. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil Brahmi. Tholkāppiyam itself as a whole may be considered as a literature though it deals with the Science of Language and the Science of Literature. A large number of literary works in Classical Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature. These poems are usually dated to between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, which makes them the oldest extant body of secular literature in India. Other literary works in Old Tamil include Thirukural, Silappatikaram and Manimēkalai, and a number of ethical and didactic texts, written between the 5th and 8th centuries. So far discovered pottery inscriptions, rings, coins, seals, in Tamil Nadu are deciphered in Tamil Language. Pottery inscriptions available from the various excavated sites as capitals of Madurai, Karur, Korkai, ports like Woraiyur, Alakankulam, Arikkametu, and small towns of Alakarai, Poluvampatti. The Pandyan port city of Korkai was the center of pearl trade. Written records from Greek and Egyptian voyagers give details about the pearl fisheries off the Pandyan coast. Ancient Tamils had deep knowledge in fields of geology, hydraulic, metallurgy, astronomy, engineering, agricultural science and genetic medicines, etc