Manimekalai being translated into 18 Eastern languages

TIRUCHY: Manimekalai, one of the five great epics of Tamil literature, has been translated into 18 eastern languages and scheduled to be completed by May 2022. The Central Institute of Classical Tamil has undertaken responsibility to translate it.

Manimekalai, written by Seethalai Satanar, is widely considered an important text providing insights into the life, culture and societal reforms of the Tamil region 1,500 years ago. It also embodies ideologies of Buddhism and Jainism and apart from teaching abolition of starvation, the epic discusses importance of prevention of crimes, social justice, prohibition and tolerance. Among the 18 languages, the epic text will be translated into Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Burmese, Malay, Vietnamese, Singhalese, Cambodian, Indonesian and Mongolian.

“The Centre has already translated Thirukkural into 95 languages. Initially, the epic would be translated into the Thai language for which an order was issued on August 15 and another order for it to be translated into 10 languages was received on August 19,” said R Chandrasekaran, Director, Central Institute of Classical Tamil.

R Kurinjinathan, Head, Department of International Tamil Language, Tamil University, said, at present, the translation into Thai has been undertaken by Suwit Vibulsrath who is an expert in both Tamil and Thai. The Japan Tamil Sangam would take responsibility of translating it into Japanese while Niraimathi, a Chinese University student who learnt Tamil would translate the text into Chinese.