through time. Tamil was itself unique in being the earliest Dravidian language
to emerge into literacy, and the only regional speech to develop a “classical” lit-
erature (in terms of a formalized grammar, poetics, distinctive genres, and sup-
porting cultural institutions) largely independent of Sanskritic models (Zvelebil
1973).^2 Early Kerala co-authored this Tamil tradition, but then began diverging
from it around the twelfth century, to embrace both Sanskrit literary registers,
and to develop its own Dravidian poetic and linguistic heritage in different direc-
tions. Most of this, however, was prosecuted through textual projects either
directly reworking the Sanskrit Epics, Pura ̄n.as, and philosophical treatises of
pan-Indic Hinduism, or through local romances that were themselves com-
pletely immersed in the temple-culture of Kerala’s Hindu social formation
(Freeman forthcoming).
In the present chapter, I will attempt to chart the major developments of
Kerala’s Hindu literature in the local language of Tamil-Malayalam, as a reflec-
tion of the particular regional and socio-cultural context of its literary culture.^3
While the particulars of these developments are unique to Kerala, the general
task of relating language and literature to those socio-religious cultures we club
together under the modern rubric “Hindu” should hold comparative interest for
a wider South Asian scholarship.
The Cultural Legacy of the Tamil Tradition in Kerala
The linguistic, cultural and political formation calling itself Tamil, today associ-
ated with the modern linguistic state of Tamil Nadu, first emerged in the far
south of India in the early centuries, ce, as a triumvirate of territorially based
kingdoms. Two of these lines, the Pa ̄n.d.yas and the Co ̄l
̄
as, divided up what is
today Tamil Nadu. The third, the Ce ̄ras, ruled the narrow strip of territory today
called Kerala along India’s southwest coast, comprising the steep, verdant decliv-
ities of the Western Ghats, and reaching down from their peaks to the rich lit-
toral rice and coconut tracts along the Arabian Sea. Though comparatively
isolated geographically by its formidable mountain borders, this land of the
Ce ̄ras, (whence, modern Ke ̄ral.am), was a vital partner in the wider cultural ter-
ritory of the Tamils (Tamilakam). It is around the courts of these Tamil and Ce ̄ra
kings that India’s earliest regionally vernacular literature emerged, the bardic
corpus known as Can.kam literature, after the conclaves (<Skt.san.gha) of royal
poets (Hart 1975, Marr 1985, Zvelebil 1973). In keeping with the division
of language families between Dravidian southern India and the Indo-Aryan
north, the thematic and poetic conventions of this earliest and most southerly
Dravidian speech community were markedly different from the productions of
classical Sanskrit literature. Representing what is essentially the rapid promotion
and codification of an oral tradition into a written corpus, this poetry was the-
matically bifurcated into domestic themes of romantic love, the “interior” (akam)
of social life, versus the “exterior” (pur
̄
am) of heroism, conquest and warfare.160 rich freeman