George L. Hart

Songs of experience : the poetics of Tamil devotion

Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration Abbreviations Introduction Part I. Poems, Poets, and Poetics Chapter One Poet, God, and Audience in the Poetry of the Tamil Saints Chapter Two The DevoteeOs Experience of the Sacred Tamil Hymns Chapter Three The Poetics of Bhakti Part II. Tamil Classicism and Bhakti: Conflict and Accommodation Chapter Four A Devotional Poem in the Classical Mode Chapter Five A Tamil Allegory of Love Conclusion Part III. Poems Karaikkalammaiyar Poykai, Putam, and Pey: The First Three Alvars Nammalvar Namikkavacakar Notes to the Poems Appendix A The SaintsO Hymns in Present-Day Temple Ritual Appendix B Index of Mythological/Iconographic Allusions and Proper Names Occurring in the Poems Appendix C Index of Motifs Bibliography Index

Woman and the Sacred in Ancient Tamilnad

W tTE possess in ancient Tamil a large body of poetry which antedates for all intents and purposes the incursion of Sanskrit culture into Tamilnad. This poetry, found in the eight anthologies and the Pattupp4.ttu, dates from the first and second centuries A.D. The culture which produced it was a continuation of the megalithic culture which dominated the Deccan for the millenium before Christ. The special importance of early Tamil poetry for cultural history is that it describes this civilization, which according to the Allchins was characterized by a very conservative and unchanging culture,1 before it was appreciably influenced by Sanskritic culture from the North. Thus a study of early Tamil reveals elements which were contributed to India by this culture and which were later assimilated by the rest of India. Other sources for this culture-the Sattasai in Mdh5r5strl, for example-show the influence of Sanskrit culture, so that it is not possible to determine from them which elements belonged originally to the Deccan culture and which to the culture of the North. A study of the sources in early Tamil reveals a dual focus of the sacred: the king and woman. The subsequent influence of both of these elements on Indian civilization was very great. This paper concentrates on one of them: woman. It should be remarked here that this dual focus is mirrored in the poems themselves, which are divided into two great branches, puram, comprising those poems which deal with life outside the family (and usually with the king) and akam, comprising those poems dealing with life inside the family (and specifically the love between man and woman). It should also be remarked that the nature of divinity for the early Tamils was primarily malevolent. Spiritual powers were thought to be immanent, lurking within anything imbued with a special sacred importance, and they were thought to be potentially destructive. They had to be propitiated lest they cause harm, but they

Poets of the Tamil anthologies : ancient poems of love and war

The poems of ancient Tamil are one of Indias most important contributions to world literature. Presented here in English translation is a selection of roughly three hundred poems from five of the earliest poetic anthologies of classical Tamil literature. These lyrical poems are intimately related to the agricultural society that produced them, and their direct connection with the earth as well as their use of ornament and suggestion give them a quality unlike that of any other poetic tradition.Originally published in 1979.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Poems of Ancient Tamil. Their Milieu and Their Sanskrit Counterparts

This text presents a study of the earliest poems (written between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD) in the Tamil language, and also contains translations of many classic Tamil poems. It is intended for students of Tamil and Sanskrit, and those interested in Indian literature and South Asian culture.