Viruttam has been the most popular Tamil prosodic form from the days of silappathikaram. This volume draws the attention of the Tamil scholarly world to the pioneering studies of E.N. Thanikachala Mudaliar on viruttam. Consisiting of two studies, the first is a lecture titiled ‘The Evolution of Tamil Viruttams’ delivered in 1991-probably the first lecture on Tamil prosody ever to be delivered before a learned audience – and serialized in 1913-14 in Siddhanta Dipika. Twenty-five years later, in 1938,he rewrote it afresh recalling his earlier study.