Dating of Sangam literature:

[NVK Ashraf]

[tscii:600220e3dd]I am not sure if any of you have heard about Herman Tieken, a dutch scholar in Indology, who wrote a 'revolutionary' book called "Kavya in South India: Old Tamil Cankam Poetry" wherein he argued that the Tamil Sangam classics are nothing but a reflection of Sanskrit and Prakrit works (e.g. Natyasastra and Hala's Sattasai or Gathsaptasati, for instance) and that they were not bardic poems but written by poets who were commissioned by the Pandya Kings of the 8th and 9th Centuries AD to write in imaginary archaic form of Tamil with fictious characters! Dr. Herman's profile is available here: Herman Tieken’s profile is available here: http://www.hum.leiden.edu/lias/staff/tiekenhjh.html

I have glanced through this book (burrowed from a library in Delhi) for most part, though I did spend some time on certain issues raised by him. Well, Herman has been strongly criticized by many foreign Tamil scholars, prominent among them being Robert Hart. Two of his articles of refutation are available on the net.

(i) Some Remarks by George Hart on Herman Tieken's Kavya in South India: http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Research/Articles/TiekenRemarks.html

(ii) Book Review by Hart: Kavya in South India: Old Tamil Cankam Poetry: Published in Journal of the American Oriental Society
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2081/is_1_124/ai_n29149938/?tag=content;col1[/tscii:600220e3dd]