Tamil
Tamil

Author: David Shulman

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2016-09-26

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0674974654

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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.

The Primary Classical Language of the World
The Primary Classical Language of the World

Author: Devaneya Pavanar

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-09-12

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 9781976310638

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'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'.

The Circle of Six Seasons
The Circle of Six Seasons

Author: Martha Ann Selby

Publisher: Penguin Books India

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9780141007724

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A Selection From Old Tamil, Prakrit And Sanskrit Poetry While The Striped Frogs Croak And The Toads Peep, The Rains Have Begun. And Now, He Will Be The Monsoon Guest Of Your Fine Wrists And Ample Shoulders. Driving His Tall Chariot With Its Tinkling Bells, Our Lover Will Come Back Today. Ainkurunuru 468 Dating From The First To Late Fourteenth Centuries Ce, This Collection Of 188 Poems Is Gleaned From The Three Literary Languages Of Classical India Old Tamil, Prãkrit And Sanskrit. Martha Ann Selby Combines Her Unique Mastery Of These Languages With Her Scholarship And Poetical Skills To Offer A Pan-Indian Flavour Of The Changing Seasons. The Poems Celebrate The Rhythm And Beauty Of The Cycle Of Time: Summer, The Rainy Season, Autumn, Early Winter, Late Winter, And Spring. Nature Is Portrayed Through A Range Of Sensual, Sexual And Colourful Images And Allegories. The Autumn Poems, For Example, Depict A World Washed Clean By Rains, Ready For Love, Specifically, Clandestine Love, Set In The Hills Among Mists And Blooming Wild Cane At Night. Readers Will Appreciate The Collection S Fine Poetic Quality And Be Spellbound By The Unique Beauty Of India S Six Seasons.

Colonizing the Realm of Words
Colonizing the Realm of Words

Author: Sascha Ebeling

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2010-09-28

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 1438432011

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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.

Kāvya in South India
Kāvya in South India

Author: Herman Tieken

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-12-28

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9004486097

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Old Tamil Caṅkam poetry consists of eight anthologies of short poems on love and war, and a treatise on grammar and poetics. The main part of this corpus has generally been dated to the first centuries AD and is believed to be the product of a native Tamil culture. The present study argues that the poems do not describe a contemporary society but a society from the past or one not yet affected by North-Indian Sanskrit culture. Consequently the main argument for the current early dating of Caṅkam poetry is no longer valid. Furthermore, on the basis of a study of the historical setting of the heroic poems and of the role of Tamil as a literary language in the Caṅkam corpus, it is argued that the poetic tradition was developed by the Pāṇṭiyas in the ninth or tenth century. This volume deals with the identification of the various genres of Caṅkam poetry with literary types from the Sanskrit Kāvya tradition. Counterparts have been found exclusively among Prākrit and Apabhraṁśa texts, which indicate that in Caṅkam poetry Tamil has been specifically assigned the role of a Prākrit. As such, the present study reveals the processes and attitudes involved in the development of a vernacular language into a literary idiom.

The Epic World
The Epic World

Author: Pamela Lothspeich

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-01-30

Total Pages: 661

ISBN-13: 1000912167

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Reconceptualizing the epic genre and opening it up to a world of storytelling, The Epic World makes a timely and bold intervention toward understanding the human propensity to aestheticize and normalize mass deployments of power and violence. The collection broadly considers three kinds of epic literature: conventional celebratory tales of conquest that glorify heroism, especially male heroism; anti-epics or stories of conquest from the perspectives of the dispossessed, the oppressed, the despised, and the murdered; and heroic stories utilized for imperialist or nationalist purposes. The Epic World illustrates global patterns of epic storytelling, such as the durability of stories tied to religious traditions and/or to peoples who have largely "stayed put"; the tendency to reimagine and retell stories in new ways over centuries; and the imbrication of epic storytelling and forms of colonialism and imperialism, especially those perpetuated and glorified by Euro-Americans over the past 500 years, resulting in unspeakable and immeasurable harms to humans, other living beings, and the planet Earth. The Epic World is a go-to volume for anyone interested in epic literature in a global framework. Engaging with powerful stories and ways of knowing beyond those of the predominantly white Global North, this field-shifting volume exposes the false premises of "Western civilization" and "Classics," and brings new questions and perspectives to epic studies.