The Tamil Nadu State Assembly unanimously passed the Tamil University Act in the second week of September 1981 and the first Vice-Chancellor took office a week later, The University Grants Commission accorded a statutory recognition to the university in 1983.The aims and objectives of this unitary type of university comprise a higher research in Tamilology and advanced study in various other allied branches such as Linguistics, Translation, Lexicography, Music, Drama and Manuscriptology. But this pure research-oriented University introduced academic research by offering M.Phil and Ph.D programmes in 1992 for a few disciplines such as Language, Literature, Translation, Sculpture, History and Architecture. Due to the public demand, even Post graduate programmes had to be included in June 2003.