As a language Saurashtra has an interesting
history. Once spoken in the region of Saurashtra,
now a part of Gujarat, the language survives through a few
Saurashtrians settled in parts of Tamil
Nadu. It is only natural that the
Saurashtrians settled in the state have translated the Kural into this
language of Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of
the Indo-European language family.
The only translation known to us is ‘Tirukkural
Payiram,’ by S.S. Ram published from
Madurai. The idea here is to present the translation in the Saurashtra
script as well as in the modified Tamil script, which most Saurashtrians
are familiar with. Saurashtrian language is perhaps the only Indo-Aryan
language employing a Dravidian script.
Thanks to the dedication of N.G. Sivamurugan, currently working at
Bangalore, I could obtain soft copies of the complete translations using
Tamil and Saurashtra scripts. |