Dr Indra Manuel
- A critical edition, study and English translation of the Meyppāṭṭiyal of the Poruḷatikāram of the Tolkāppiyam together with the Commentary by Pērāciriyar.
- A critical edition, study and English translation of the Uvamaviyal of the Poruḷatikāram of the Tolkāppiyam together with the Commentary by Pērāciriyar.
- A Survey of the extant manuscripts of Poruḷatikāram of the Tolkāppiyam.
- A study of Pērāciriyar’s commentarial techniques and commentarial language.
- A Study of meyppāṭu in the Tamil grammars
- Preparation of comparative charts of the glosses of the two commentators, Iḷampūraṇar and Pērāciriyar on the sūtras of the Meyppāṭṭiyal.
- A survey of the concept of simile in the Tolkāppiyam and the later Tamil grammars.
- Rules of Tamil sandhi used in the commentary.
- Quotations used in the commentary
- Glossary of literary terms used in the Meyppāṭṭiyal and the Uvamaviyal.
Indra MANUEL (b. 1951) has a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry (1971), a Master’s degree in Tamil (1973) , a Bachelor’s degree (1974) and a Master’s degree in Education (1985) and a Ph.D in Tamil Literature (1985) from the University of Kerala, Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
She worked under Prof. V.I.Subramoniam in the Cognate Project for teaching Languages in the Department of linguistics (1975-1977), University of Kerala, India, was Principal Investigator in the Regional Centre of International School of Dravidian Languages, Pondicherry, India (1981), India and was Associate Professor in the Department of Tamil, Bishop Heber College (1985 to 2010), Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India.
She has done two projects in Tamil for the Central Institute of Classical Tamil, Chennai.
- Tradition and Innovation in Kalittokai (2010-2012) and
- The PuṟamLiterary Genre in the Classical Caṅkam Corpus (2013-2014).
From 2016 to 2019 she was a postdoc researcher in the NETamil group C Tolkāppiyam.
Current research: Tolkāppiyam, Caṅkam literature, Literary Theories and Short Stories. Theory of literature as gleaned from Tamil works on Poetics is her special area. Analysis of Sangam literature from a theoretical perspective is another area.
She has written four books and has published about 60 papers.
Publications
- "Salient Features of a Grammatical Commentary in Tamil (With reference to Peraciriyar’s Commentary on Meyppāṭṭiyal of Tolkāppiyam). In: Anandakichenin, Suganya and Victor D'Avella (eds.). The Commentary Idioms of the Tamil Learned Traditions. Pondichéry: Institut Français de Pondichéry/ École française d’Extrême-Orient, 2019.
- Tolkāppiyam-Poruḷatikāram(English Translation with Critical Notes), International School of Dravidian Linguistics, Thumba 2010. (co author – Dr. L. Gloria Sundramathy)
- Cevviyal āyvukkalaṅkal, Grace-Vedham Pathippakam, Tiruchirappalli 17, 2009, pp. 304+20.
- Literary Theories in Tamil (with special reference to Tolkappiyam), Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, Pondicherry 1997.
- Pālai Pāṭiya Peruṅkatuṅkō, Jayakumari Stores, Nagercoil Tamilnadu, 1973, pp.204+60.