Physical Object
Kanakkatikara Rattina Surukkam
The following description is from a recently published volume of KaαΉakkatikΔrarattiαΉac curukkam edited by Muthu V Prakash and Gunasekaran Babu.
Kanakkatikara rattinac curukkam, written in late medieval South India by Valathuruvakkum Perumal, is a compilation of mathematical problems. These problems pertain to practices concerning village accounting, agriculture and other artisanal occupations. This text is part of the genre of mathematical texts in Tamil, called the Kanakkatikaram. While the text does not fit neatly into modern categories of a manual or a textbook, it is a compilation of computational procedures at the workplace of different practitioners, such as the revenue accountant, the peasant, the artisan and the trader. The explicitly pedagogical overtones to the text also help us understand the significance of the spheres in which such a text could have been in circulation in early modern south Tamil country.
The manuscript is partially damaged but readable.