No. 4. — 1848.] CATALOGUE OF TAMIL BOOKS. 67 



nearly four times as many as are found in the whole of the 

 Chatur Akardti. 



25. Manual Lexicon, English and Tamil, giving in Tamil 

 all important English words, and the use of many in phrases : 

 by the Rev. J. Knight and the Rev. R. Spaulding, Madras, 

 1844. 



26. A Dictionary, Latin, French, and Tamil : Pondi- 

 cherry, 1846. 



SECTION" II. —Mythology, Histoky, and Biogkaphy. 



1. Irdrndyanam. 

 A poem in seven books, which are again divided into 128 

 cantos, comprising 12,016 stanzas. It narrates the adven- 

 tures of Rama, the conqueror of Ceylon, as told originally 

 by the sage Vdlrmki in Sanskrit,but with far greater poetical 

 embellishments. The author, Kampan, has left nothing on 

 record respecting his personal history, except that he was a 

 native of Tiruvaluntur in the Tanjore country, and undertook 

 and finished his voluminous composition under the patronage 

 of Chadaiyan, a wealthy farmer of Venneynellur, in the year 

 of Ckaka 808 (886 a,d.). A tradition, however, is current 

 that he enjoyed high favour at the court of Kulottunka Ckola, 

 and was honoured by that king with the title of Kavick- 

 chahkaravartti, or " Prince of Poets," but that proving 

 himself inconsolable at the death of his son Ampikdpati, 

 who was impaled alive for an attempt to seduce the king's 

 daughter, he incurred the royal displeasure, and eventually 

 perished by the hand of the executioner. 



2. Kanta Purdnmn. 

 This poem, like the preceding, consists of seven books, 

 but is divided into 141 cantos, and contains 10,305 stanzas. 

 It has for its subject principally the conflict between the 

 demons and the gods, and the final overthrow of the former 



