A Guide to Searching the Thirukkural

This guide consists of the following sections:

1. Features of the Search Program

The input string must be in the Madurai transliteration scheme.
The input string may contain spaces.
The default search location is "Anywhere".
Hitting the "Return" key after typing your string is equivalent to clicking on the "Submit" button.
For those experts on Madurai: do not type the \bt and \et tags in the string.

Caveat: The following rules of thumb are just that. They may not always work.

Example:
Suppose you want to search for the Tamil word and you input the string ka_N. Consider other Tamil words such as (ka_Ni) and (ka_Na). Their transliterations also contain the string ka_N.
Solution: Use the string ka_N_.
Rule of Thumb: Protect the dangling with an underscore.
If you don't want a to be conjugated, then type an underscore character after it.
Exception: There is no way to search for kal without also finding kala and other conjugations. Typing kal_ does not work.

Example:
Suppose you want to search for the Tamil word and you type in the string kokku. This word is not found in any verse in this form. However, in verse 490, it occurs in the conjugated form (kokkokka).
Solution: Use the string kokk. This will match verse 490, and 1100 which contains the word (n^Okkokkin).
Rule of Thumb: Leave a dangling to catch all the conjugations.
If you are interested in a word that ends in an and its conjugated forms, then leave out the last from the string.

 siddhart@cs.utk.edu