commencing from Sri Nathamuni (A. D. 905—1025) and ending with Manavala-Mamuni (15th century). It is to Ramanuja and Vedanta Desika (14th century) that Vaishnavism owes its stability and greatness, while the other acharyas only popularized it by their lectures and comments. Thus, Dr. Pope's statement that the 'Vaishnava system has been a formidable rival of Saivism since the twelfth century,' and Dr. Caldwell's assertion that the alvars were the disciples of Ramanuja are either perversions of the true history of Vaishnavism, probably put into their heads by interested Tamil Saivas, or hasty and one-sided views formed without regard to historical accuracy.
In Tamil there is no literature unconnected with ethics or religion and there is no ethics or religion in India without the Aryan influence. The earliest literary work in Tamil to which any definite date could be assigned is the Kural of Tiruvalluvar, which goes up to the opening years of the Christian era. There must have surely existed some works anterior to that period, since the age of the first Tamil grammar is believed to be the third or fourth century B. C., and the Tamilians have been acquainted with the art of writing at least from the sixth or seventh. But none of the pre-Tolkapyam works are now extant, probably with the exception of a few short poems included in the Agananuru and the Purananuru.
The history of Tamil literature may be divided
