Narrinai: Text and Translation

N. Kandasamy (1898-1977) a versatile, multidimentional Tamil scholar was an editor, translator, essayist, lexicographer, humorist, landlord, building contractor and film producer, rolled into one.  During the period 1962 to 1967 in which he worked with the IFP, one of the works he undertook was an English translation of the classical Tamil Text Narrinai, from the best edition of the text then available.  We present in this book that translation of Narrinai which appears for the first time in print here.  The translation is recommended to today’s reader as a rare example of what a so-called linguistic translation can be when written by a real Tamil scholar whose doubts and obscurities arise out of the text itself and not from any limited capacity to understand it.  This publication gives occasion, moreover, for the publishers to pay homage not only to N.K. himself but also to a generation of Tamil scholars, who were not professional Tamil Pulsavars, or Pandits and had other occupations but who nevertheless shared a genuine passion for the language and its literary monuments, amongst whom N.K. was one of the most versatile.