Tamil

Tamil
Author: David Shulman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2016-09-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674974654

Spoken by eighty million people, Tamil is one of the great world languages, and one of the few ancient languages that survives as a mother tongue. David Shulman presents a comprehensive cultural history of Tamil, emphasizing how its speakers and poets have understood the unique features of their language over its long history.

Colonizing the Realm of Words

Colonizing the Realm of Words
Author: Sascha Ebeling
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2010-09-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1438432011

A true tour de force, this book documents the transformation of one Indian literature, Tamil, under the impact of colonialism and Western modernity. While Tamil is a living language, it is also India's second oldest classical language next to Sanskrit, and has a literary history that goes back over two thousand years. On the basis of extensive archival research, Sascha Ebeling tackles a host of issues pertinent to Tamil elite literary production and consumption during the nineteenth century. These include the functioning and decline of traditional systems in which poet-scholars were patronized by religious institutions, landowners, and local kings; the anatomy of changes in textual practices, genres, styles, poetics, themes, tastes, and audiences; and the role of literature in the politics of social reform, gender, and incipient nationalism. The work concludes with a discussion of the most striking literary development of the time—the emergence of the Tamil novel.

The Primary Classical Language of the World

The Primary Classical Language of the World
Author: Devaneya Pavanar
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2017-09-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9781976310638

'Tamil' is one of those words whose origin and root-meaning are wrapped up in mystery. All that we can say at present without any fear of contradiction is, that it is a pure Tamil word being current as the only name of the language of the Tamils, from the days that preceded the First Tamil Academy established at Thenmadurai on the river pahruli in the submerged continent. After some of the Vedic Aryans migrated to the South, Tamil got the descriptive name 'Tenmoli' lit. 'the southern language', in contradistinction to the Vedic language or Sanskrit which was called 'Vadamoli', lit. 'the northern language'. The word 'Tamil' or 'Tamilan' successively changed into 'Dramila', 'Dramila', 'Dramida' and 'Dravida' in North India and at first denoted only the Tamil language, as all the other Dravidian dialects separated themselves from Tamil or came into prominence one by one only after the dawn of the Christian era. That is why Sanskrit and Tamil came to be known as Vadamoi and Tenmoli respectively. This distinction could have arisen only when there were two languages standing side by side, one in the North and the other in the South, both coming in contact with each other. The Buddhist Tamil Academy which flourished in the 5th century at Madurai went by the name of 'Travida Sangam'.

Tamil Literature

Tamil Literature
Author: K.V. Zvelebil
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004492984

Women and the Puranic Tradition in India

Women and the Puranic Tradition in India
Author: Monika Saxena
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2018-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429826397

This book analyses the diverse ways in which women have been represented in the Purāṇic traditions in ancient India – the virtuous wife, mother, daughter, widow, and prostitute – against the socio-religious milieu around CE 300–1000. Purāṇas (lit. ancient narratives) are brahmanical texts that largely fall under the category of socio-religious literature which were more broad-based and inclusive, unlike the Smṛtis, which were accessible mainly to the upper sections of society. In locating, identifying, and commenting on the multiplicity of the images and depictions of women’s roles in Purāṇic traditions, the author highlights their lives and experiences over time, both within and outside the traditional confines of the domestic sphere. With a focus on five Mahāpurāṇas that deal extensively with the social matrix Viṣṇu, Mārkaṇḍeya Matsya, Agni, and Bhāgavata Purāṇas, the book explores the question of gender and agency in early India and shows how such identities were recast, invented, shaped, constructed, replicated, stereotyped, and sometimes reversed through narratives. Further, it traces social consequences and contemporary relevance of such representations in marriage, adultery, ritual, devotion, worship, fasts, and pilgrimage. This volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars in women and gender studies, ancient Indian history, religion, sociology, literature, and South Asian studies, as also the informed general reader.

Kannagi Through the Ages

Kannagi Through the Ages
Author: Prabha Rani
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2022-12-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9354355390

Kannagi and Silappatikaram are important parts of the cultural landscape of Tamil Nadu-the story has been told in many genres of literature and continues to be told. Every narrative, however, carries the imprint of the times it was released in. Kannagi through the Ages: From the Epic to the Dravidian Movement aims to understand the ways in which representations of Kannagi in the epic Silappatikaram differ in every new narrative. Looking at the portrayals of Kannagi in plays, commentaries and folk narratives, the book examines how representations of gender and culture have evolved over time. Focusing on the interrelationships between a text and a society as well as between society and the way it moulds the category of 'woman' at different times through symbols and icon, the author analyses the social, cultural and political processes that contributed to the emergence of Kannagi as an icon of Tamil culture and epitome of Tamil womanhood.

Authority, Anxiety, and Canon

Authority, Anxiety, and Canon
Author: Laurie L. Patton
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 1994-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1438415605

Authority, Anxiety, and Canon elucidates a principle fundamental to Hinduism's self-understanding—the Veda—while at the same time examining the methodological issues of the role of canon in religious tradition. Spanning the early periods of Indian religious history up to the twentieth century, the book combines theoretical sophistication and detailed scholarship to produce one of the first comprehensive works on Vedic interpretation since Louis Renou's Le Destin Du Veda.