| Veeramanunivar – Birth date: 8th November
Born at Castiglione in the Venetian Republic, 8th November 1680 He entered the Society of Jesus in 1698 nearly forty years of apostolic life proving himself a worthy successor of the founder of the Mandura Mission, the celebrated Roberto de’ Nobili. he is better known as one of the classical writers of Tamil literature. No sooner had he arrived in India than he began the study of Sanskrit, Telugu, and especially of Tamil. he mastered the Tamil grammar in five years, and for the next twenty years made so thorough a study of the whole field of Tamil literature. He composed a grammar of High Tamil, and was the first to write a grammar of Low Tamil (the common dialect) which still remains the foundation of scientific Tamil philology. He is also the compiler of several Tamil dictionaries, among them the quadruple lexicon containing words, synonyms, categories of words, and rhymes; a Tamil-Latin and Latin-Tamil-Portuguese dictionary. His greatest poetical work is the “Tembavani” (The Unfading Garland), one of the Tamil classics. In a poem of 1100 stanzas, “Kittêri ammalle saritiram” he sings the praises of the martyr St. Quiteria In 1744, he was rector of the mission of Manapar, where he died (1746). His memory lives to this day in the form of his works especially Tembavani in Southern India. |
