Tamil University will erect the statue of its first Vice-Chancellor V I Subramoniam, said G Balasubramanian, the current Vice-Chancellor of the University who presided over the 39th Foundation Day of the institution here on Monday.
He pointed out there was a proposal to install the statue of the Tamil scholar at Dravidian University, Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh — Subramoniam was the first Vice-Chancellor there as well. As that proposal could not go through, it was possible to put up the statue here, Balasubramanian said. He recalled that Tamil University was the first University for a living language established in the country for which the then Chief Minister made an announcement at the Fifth World Tamil conference held at Madurai in 1981.
"The Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam Universities were established following in the footsteps of this university. Recently, in 2018, the foundation stone was laid for the Odia University in Odisha," he added. He further added that the Tamil University was only the fifth university in the state when it was formed. He called upon the faculty, staff and the students of the university to rededicate themselves to make it a World-class university.
E Sundaramurthi, the former Vice-Chancellor of Tamil University and a renowned Tamil scholar who delivered the foundation day address pointed out that many departments like Manuscriptology, Rare Manuscripts, Marine Archaeology, Ancient Science, Lexicography were unique to Tamil University. He pointed out that G U Pope, the 19th-century Anglican Christian missionary and Tamil scholar who lived for seven years in Thanjavur commenced his work on Tamil Lexicon here.
He also spoke about the contributions of people from Thanjavur district including U Ve Saminatha Iyer. Thanjavur Kaviyarar, the Tamil writer and the personal secretary of Subramoniam, K Chinnappan, Registrar (in-charge), P Jayakumar, Dean, Faculty of Manuscriptology, R Kamarasu, Dean, Faculty of Language were also present at the event.
