There is a tradition of belief that it was written by a single author named Tolkappiyar, a disciple of Vedic sage Agastya mentioned in the Rigveda (1500–1200 BCE).
The surviving manuscripts of the Tolkappiyam consists of three books (atikaram), each with nine chapters (iyal), with a cumulative total of 1,610 (483+463+664) sutras in the nūṛpā meter.
[4][note 1] It is a comprehensive text on grammar, and includes sutras on orthography, phonology, etymology, morphology, semantics, prosody, sentence structure and the significance of context in language.
Iravatham Mahadevan dates the Tolkappiyam to no earlier than the 2nd century CE, as it mentions the puḷḷi being an integral part of Tamil script.
[22][23] The tradition and some Indian scholars favor an early date for its composition, before the common era, and state that it is the work of one person associated with sage Agastya.
Tholkapiyam, some traditionally believe, was written by a single author named Tolkappiyar, a disciple of Vedic sage Agastya mentioned in the Rigveda (1500–1200 BCE).
According to the traditional legend, the original grammar was called Agathiam written down by sage Agastya, but it went missing after a great deluge.
[48] According to Kamil Zvelebil, the earliest sutras of the Tolkappiyam were composed by author(s) who lived before the "majority of extant" Sangam literature, who clearly knew Pāṇini and followed Patanjali works on Sanskrit grammar because some verses of Tolkappiyam – such as T-Col 419 andT-Elutt 83 – seem to be borrowed and exact translation of verses of Patanjali's Mahābhāṣya and ideas credited to more ancient Panini.
[29] According to Hartmut Scharfe and other scholars, the phonetic and phonemic sections of the Tolkappiyam shows considerable influence of Vedic Pratishakhyas, while its rules for nominal compounds follow those in Patanjali's Mahābhāṣya, though there is also evidence of innovations.
The text has a cumulative total of 1,610 (Eluttatikaram 483 + Sollatikaram 463 + Porulatikaram 664) sutras in the nūṛpā meter, though some versions of its surviving manuscripts have a few less.
[52] The phonetic and phonemic sections of the first book show the influence of Vedic Pratisakhyas, states Hartmut Scharfe, but with some differences.
[53] According to Peter Scharf, the sutras here are inspired by the work on Sanskrit grammar by Panini, but it uses Tamil terminology and adds technical innovations.
[54] "Porul" meaning "subject matter", and this book deals with the prosody (yappu) and rhetoric (ani) of Old Tamil.
According to Zvelebil, this arrangement suggests that the entire Tolkappiyam was likely a guide for bardic poets, where the first two books led to this third on how to compose their songs.
[56] The commentary by Perasiriyar, which is heavily indebted to the Nannūl, frequently quotes from the Dandiyalankaram and Yapparunkalam, the former being a standard medieval rhetorica and the latter being a detailed treatise on Tamil prosody.