Ancient and Modern Tamil Poets by Maraimalai Adigal alias Swami Vedachalam was first published in 1937.

The first conference of the Madras Presidency Tamilian Association was held in Tirunelveli on the 10th and the 11th June, 1934, and I had to preside over the deliberations of its scholars’ meeting held on the second day. Appropriate to the occasion I wished to read a paper in Tamil dealing with the relative merits of the ancient and the modern Tamil poets, but a fortnight’s time that was then avail¬able for me for the preparation of the theme from the date on which the invitation of the secretary came, rendered it quite impossible for me to write anything more than the mere preliminary portion of the Tamil treatise, of which the following is a somewhat abridged trans¬lation. Hence at the meeting I read only the written fragment for an hour and afterwards gave an oral delivery of some important points, I thought, pertinent to the subject.