About Tamil University

The Tamil University was established with the aim of to provide higher research in Tamil Language and advanced study in various other allied branches such as Linguistics, Translation, Lexicography, Music, Drama and Manuscriptology. But this pure research-oriented University introduced academic research by offering M.Phil and Ph.D programmes in 1992 for a few disciplines such as Language, Literature, Translation, Sculpture. The University has six Science Departments namely Industries and Earth Sciences, Computer Science, Environmental and Herbal Science, Siddha Medicine, Ancient Sciences and Architecture. The Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences and Technology Cell, an autonomous body supported by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, New Delhi is functioning in the Department of Industries and Earth Sciences.
The Tamil language, in the south of India is known for its antiquity, its richness of vocabulary and its great classical literature. For a long time, its depth, uniqueness and glory were not known to the world outside. Great orientalists such as Max Mueller, Keith and even Edwin Arnold identified the literature of India with Sanskrit only. It is this woeful neglect of Tamil in the British period that motivated a confluence of veteran Tamil scholars at Thanjavur to think in terms of starting an exclusive university for the development and growth Tamil as early as 23rd of August, 1925. These scholarly samaritans opened an account also in the Imperial Bank at Trichinopoly in the name of the proposed Tamil University. But perhaps due to the lack of official patronage of the government, this glorious plan did not materialise.

That noble aspiration in post-independent India was given a concrete shape in September, 1981. The Location of the Tamil University was chosen to be in the outskirts of Thanjavur. This ancient capital of the later Chola dynasty and the granary of the South as it is known from time immemorial, was happily accepted as the site of the University. The Tamil Nadu State Assembly unanimously passed the Tamil University Act in the second week of September 1981 and the first Vice-Chancellor took office a week later, The University Grants Commission accorded a statutory recognition to the university in 1983.