ACADEMY

KAMBAN TAMIL ACADEMY

Tamil Savant Late Kamban Adippodi Saw.Ganesan founded Kamban Academy in 1939 to propagate the greatness of Tamil Poet Kavichakravarthi Kamban and his Tamil work “Ramavatharam” (known as Kamba Ramayanam).To achieve this he started celebrating Kamban Thirunal (Festival) annually at Karaikudi for three days and at the Samadhi of Kamban at Nattarasankottai (about 30 kms away from Karaikudi) on the fourth day. Rasikamani T K C inaugurated the festival in 1939 and from then on he celebrated it till his life time (1982) for 44 years continuously. From 1983 the mantle was passed on his senior disciple Kamban Adisoodi Pala Palaniappan as per the wish of the founder. Kamban Adisoodi continues the celebration for the past 30 years. A weeklong Platinum Jubilee (75th year) Kamban Festival will be celebrated from March 21 to March 27, 2013 in a grand manner.

• This is the only literary association celebrating the Platinum Jubilee by conducting annual festival during particular days every year without any break. • Kamban Adippodi built a traditional six sided (shatkona) stone temple for the Goddess of Tamil language along with statutes for Tholkappiar, Agaththyar, Thiruvalluvar, Ilango Adikal, Kambar, Oliththai and Variththai. Sirpa Guru Dr V Ganapathi Sthapathi helped saw Ganesan in crystallizing the idols. This is the one and the only temple, in the world, built for Goddess of a Language.

• He also brought out, with the help of his friend Murray S Rajam and a few other scholars,the complete text of Kamba Ramayanam, with a separate book for each canto,after extensive and deligent analysis of old editions and ancient palm leaf manuscripts.The poems were printed with each word spelt separately so that they could be read and understood by ordinary people.

• Two endowment research lectures are being held every year in January and June in Kamba Ramayana and they are brought out in the same year in book form.

• Oratorical and essay competitions are also conducted for college students all over Tamilnadu in Kamba Ramayanam and Thirukkural and the prize awarded students are trained and given chances to speak in the Kamban Festival, thereby creating a second line of scholars.

• Literary Meeting is conducted every month on the evening of the first Saturday with an eminent speaker and one such young orator.

• Arrangements are being made to compile a research oriented library for Tamil Literature to facilitate research scholars and to start a school of scholar students encouraging post graduate students and public in the study of Tamil Literature study.

• As a part of these attempts, international conferences will be held once in two years commencing from the ensuing 2013 conference and literary workshops in between years.