C. W. Thamotharampillai

C. W. Thamotharampillai
Born	(1832-09-12)12 September 1832 Siruppiddy, Jaffna District, British Ceylon
Died	1 January 1901(1901-01-01) (aged 68) Purasawalkam, Madras Presidency, British India
Education	BA (University of Madras, 1857) BL (Law)
Occupation	Advocate, high court judge
Title	Rao Bahadur
Children	Francis Kingsbury

Cirupitty Wyravanathar Thamotharampillai (Pillai) (Tamil: சி. வை. தாமோதரம்பிள்ளை; 12 September 1832 – 1 January 1901)), sometimes referred to by the initials as C. Y., devoted his energies to the work of editing and publishing some of the oldest works of classical Tamil poetry and grammar.

Jaffna born Pillai was the earliest scholar to systematically hunt for long-lost manuscripts and publish them using modern tools of textual criticism. These included:

• Viracoliyam (1881)
• Iraiyanar Akapporul (1883)
• Tolkappiyam-Porulatikaram (1885)
• Kalittokai (1887) - the first of the Eight Anthologies (Eṭṭuttokai).

Pillai, along with his contemporaries such as U. V. Swaminatha Iyer, was responsible for collecting and cataloguing numerous old Sangam manuscripts and preparing them into compilations and modern form.

Both Iyer and Pillai printed and published Tholkappiyam, Nachinarkiniyar urai (1895), Tholkappiyam Senavariyar urai, (1868), Manimekalai (1898), Cilappatikaram (1889), Pattupattu (1889), and Purananuru (1894), all with scholarly commentaries. Between them, they published more 100 works in all, including minor poems.