కె.ఎ.నీలకంఠ శాస్త్రి: కూర్పుల మధ్య తేడాలు

In 1915, a [[Bengali people|Bengali]] historian [[Jadunath Sarkar]], wrote an essay ''Confessions of a History Teacher'' in the ''Modern Review'' regretting the lack of acclaimed historical works in [[Vernacular|vernacular languages]] and stressed that efforts should be made to write history books and teach history in vernacular languages.<ref name="coffeep2">{{cite book | title=In Those Days There was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History| last=Vēṅkaṭācalapati|first=Ā. Irā | year=2006| publisher=Yoda Press|pages=2|id={{ISBN|81-902272-7-0}}, {{ISBN|978-81-902272-7-8}}}}</ref> Nilakanta Sastri, who was then a young teacher in Thirunelveli, wrote a letter to the newspaper opposing Sarkar's suggestion by saying that "English serves me better as a medium of expression than Tamil – I mean in handling historical subjects. Perhaps the vernacular is not so well off in this part of the country as it should be".<ref name="coffeep2" /> Sastri's comments evoked sharp criticism from the nationalist poet [[Subramanya Bharathi]].<ref name="coffeep2" /><ref name="coffeep3">{{cite book | title=In Those Days There was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History| last=Vēṅkaṭācalapati|first=Ā. Irā | year=2006| publisher=Yoda Press|pages=3|id={{ISBN|81-902272-7-0}}, {{ISBN|978-81-902272-7-8}}}}</ref> According to Venkatachalapathy, Sastri's Tamil proficiency was not good and he relied on Tamil scholar [[S. Vaiyapuri Pillai]] for understanding Tamil literary works. Thus he was not able to analyse the changing meaning of words over time. Venkatachalapathy says, ''the professional historiography in Tamil Nadu practised during K. A. Nilakanta Sastri's period there was rarely any interrogation of sources (except in terms of authenticity and chronology''<ref name="coffeep4">{{cite book | title=In Those Days There was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History| last=Vēṅkaṭācalapati|first=Ā. Irā | year=2006| publisher=Yoda Press|pages=4–5|id={{ISBN|81-902272-7-0}}, {{ISBN|978-81-902272-7-8}} | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tk-KZmcUEvAC | authorlink=A R Venkatachalapathy}}</ref>

 

 

 

* {{cite book | title=The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century| last=Sastri|first=K. A. Nilakanta| year=1929| publisher=Luzac|pages=|id=}}