SOURCE: THE HINDU
A dictionary on Kambaramayanam with 22,000 words and phrases launched
First brought out in 1970 by A.S. Sundararajan Iyengar, a reprint of the dictionary in four volumes and as two books was launched recently
Kamban, the author of the Ramayanam, says his attempt to write the story of Rama is akin to the greed of a cat that seeks to drink the entire mythical ocean. Compiling a dictionary as a gateway to Kambaramayanam could be no less task, and the first scholar to achieve it was A.S. Sundararajan Iyengar, a native of Tamil Nadu, who worked as a teacher at Ramanathan College in Sri Lanka.
“I started compiling the dictionary for the benefit of those who want to delve into the entire work or some parts of Kambaramayanam,” says Sundararajan mentioning the objective behind the compilation.
Glossaries have always been an integral part of all great literary works. But few can boast of having an exclusive dictionary. There’s a dictionary for Periyapuranam, and Sundararajan compiled an exhaustive one for Kambaramayanam with a team of eight scholars including the late A. Srinivasa Raghavan and K. Vellaivarananar.