Thani NayagamDigital Archive
தமிழ்English

Archival Records

Preserved Archival Documents

This section presents preserved historical documents connected to his work. External records are linked directly to their respective library or encyclopaedia pages.

Early Tamil Print

The following documents represent significant sixteenth-century Tamil publications recovered through his European archival research. The Luso-Tamil Catechism was discovered in Lisbon in 1950, while Thambiran Vanakkam is another major recovery attributed to his efforts.

A bilingual page from the Luso-Tamil Catechism printed in Lisbon in 1554, with Tamil written in Roman script above Portuguese translations
Luso-Tamil Catechism, Lisbon, 1554A page from the first printed Tamil book, which Thani Nayagam brought back into scholarly view through library research in Lisbon in the 1950s.Public-domain scan via Wikimedia Commons
A page from Thambiran Vanakkam, the 1578 Tamil doctrinal book, set in Tamil script
Thambiran Vanakkam, 1578A page from the 1578 Tamil doctrinal book by Henrique Henriques, one of the early Tamil printed works associated with his European library research.Public-domain scan via Wikimedia Commons

Initiated Publications

Title pages from the Tamil Culture quarterly he founded and the published proceedings of the 1966 conference he organized. The corresponding library records are listed below.

Title page of Tamil Culture volume I, 1952, naming Thani Nayagam Adigal as editor, with Tamil and English institutional text
Tamil Culture, volume I, 1952Title leaf of the English-language quarterly he founded and edited—named on the page as ஆசிரியர்: தனிநாயகம் அடிகளார்.Scan via Internet Archive (CC0 1.0)
Title page reading Proceedings of the First International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 1966, Volume One, International Association of Tamil Research
First International Conference-Seminar of Tamil Studies, 1966Title page of the published proceedings of the conference he organised in Kuala Lumpur in April 1966 for the International Association of Tamil Research.Scan via Internet Archive / Tamil Virtual Academy

Online Records and Citations

Below is a list of accessible online records, biographies, and publications related to Thani Nayagam Adigal.

In addition to the documents above, his archival research is associated with several other significant historical texts. These include early Tamil Christian publications, lexicographical works, and the first Tamil grammar authored by a foreign scholar:

  • Kiristiani Vanakkam (1579)
  • The Tamil–Portuguese dictionary of Antão de Proença, which he reprinted and released at the 1966 Kuala Lumpur conference
  • Arte da Lingua Malabar (1549), Henrique Henriques’s grammar manuscript, published in English translation by Jeanne Hein in 2013

See also the contributions page for how these finds fit his wider archival work, and the sources page for full citations.