V.G Suryanarayana Sastriar

V.G Suryanarayana Sastriar was a greet visionary, a Tamil scholar, and a prolific writer. He was born on 06.07.1870 to Govinda Sastrikal and Lakshmi Ammal  on July  1870  at  Vilacheri, Madurai. He completed his school education from Zilla High School, Madurai. He learned Tamil, Sanskrit and Maths from his father. He did his graduation from Madras Christian College, Chennai with financial assistance of King Bhaskara Sethupathy during 1890. He was gold medalist both in Tamil literature and Philosophy. He translated Merchant of Venice into Tamil without change of meaning as narrated by Shakespeare. Though he was offered work as Professor in Philosophy in Madras Christian College, he selected Tamil department without minding the lower pay. During February 1893, he joined as Asst. Professor in Tamil at the age of 23. In 1895, he was promoted as Head of Department in Tamil Department.

He changed his name as Parithimar­ kalaignar without change of meaning in his original name as Suryanarayana Sastriyar is in Sanskrit (Scoria means Parithi, Narayana-mal, Sasthriyar stands for Kalaignar).

In 1902 there was a decision taken by Madras University to include Sanskrit and French as languages and to exclude Tamil language from syllabus. He strongly objected to the decision and put-up strong arguments citing various examples. Ultimately the council dropped the proposal. In November 1902 in Chenthamil publication he wrote in the editorial that Tamil is a classical language (Uyar thani chemozhi). He was Editor-in-Chief for Gnanapothini. He wrote many novels, prose, essays, poems such as Roopavathy, Srimaniya Sivanar-history, Chithirakavi Vilakkam, Kalavathy, Pavalar Virunthu. Mathivanan, Tamil Pulavar history and Tamil Viyasankal  etc.

He died on 2nd November, 1903 but his contribution to the enrichment of Tamil language and literature remains his legacy.