The author avowedly follows TivÆ’karam in the scheme of his work; but in preference to sutra, he adopts viruttam as being easier to memorizes. The work takes stock of words that must have got into currency during the troublous times following the dismemberment of the later Chola Empire. There are twelve sections and the number of words treated in the first ten sections is about 11,000. The present edition of NÆ’valar contains 1197 stanzas; but an old verse gives the total as 1125. Therefore, 72 stanzas must have been interpolated in later times.  This became the most popular of all the

URI-C-COL-NIKANTU

Nika--u-c‡-Æ’ma-i was followed by a succession of lexical works in popular meters. The first of these is Uri-c-col-nika--u It is in ve-pÆ’ which is popularly believed to be the most easily remembered of all stanzas. The author was one KÆ’Å’kâ€சீya‹ and except that he was a Å¡aivite, nothing else is known of him. He is mentioned immediately after V…rai Ma-dalava‹ in ArumporuËœ - viËœakkanika--u (18th century) and, in all probability, he composed his work about the beginning of the 17th century. Uri-c-col is very short Nika-tu, and, in print, it consists of 287 stanzas distributed under twelve sections. But in an old cadjan manuscript, dated kollam 950 (1775 A.D), a verse is found which says that ParÆ’krama PÆ’-dya Dâ€சீva, a Vaisya of Tiru-k-kƒ‹ai arranged this work in ten sections. Probably the last two sections of the printed edition were added by later authors. 

This was first printed in 1840 at Pondicherry and in 1858 in Jaffna. The editor of PiÅ’kalantai, Mr. Sivan Pillai; brought out another edition in 1890, and Mr. A, KumÆ’raswÆ’mi Pillai of Jaffna edited it again in 1905. The first 10 sections of this work treat of nearly 3200 words.

KAYATARAM

Another metre which was very popular was ka--aËœai-k-kali-t-tuÅ ai and this was adopted in KayÆ’taram1 KayÆ’tarar, its author, was a native of Tâ€சீvai or Rameswaram and son of a certain S†mâ€சீsa, a BrÆ’hmin Å¡aivite. He is mentioned, in ArumporuËœ-viËœakka-nika--u, immediately after Râ€சீva-a Siddhar, the author of AkarÆ’ti-nika--u(1594 A.D), and perhaps he wrote his work about the middle of the 17th century. There are 11 sections and 975 stanzas. The verses are in antÆ’ti-t-to-ai, a mechanical device intended to help the memory. The first 10 sections treat of about 10,500 words

Another work in kali-t-tuÅ ai is PÆ’rati- t…pam². Its author was Tiruvâ€சீnkata BhÆ’rati alias ParamÆ’nanda BhÆ’rati, a Brahmin ascetic of Te‹kadambai. It was, probably. composed shortly after KayÆ’taram and so about the end of the 7th century.  There are 12 sections in it, and according to PÆ’valar-carittira-tipam (page 211) the total number of stanzas is 737. The number of words dealt with in the first ten sections may be about 13,000 calculating from the fragment available to us.3

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¹ Not published.
² Not published.
³ The entire work must have been available to the Rev. M. Winslow as he quotes this work frequently in his Dictionary.