His main work is Sefer ha-yashar (Vienna, 1811), which
includes his halakhic responsa (annotated Berlin, 1898) and
his novellae, or comments, on the Talmud (annotated Jerusa-
lem, 1959). The book as we have it is a later unedited collec-
tion from the original with additions from other authors.
However, the greater part of his teachings are not included
in this work but are scattered throughout the tosafot and the
collections of responsa and decisions of his time.
SEE ALSO Tosafot.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
No monograph on YaEaqov ben MeDir Tam has appeared in En-
glish. Three important discussions of Tam’s life and influ-
ence are my own “Yah:aso shel Rabbenu Tam le-beEayot ze-
mano,” Zion 19 (1954): 104–141; Viktor Aptowitzer’s
MavoD le-sefer RaDavyah (Jerusalem, 1938), pp. 357–366; and
chapter 3 of E. E. Urbach’s BaEalei ha-tosafot, 4th ed. (Jerusa-
lem, 1980).
New Sources
Langer, Ruth. “Kalir Was a Tanna: Rabbenu Tam’s Invocation of
Antiquity in Defense of the Ashkenazi Payyetanic Tradi-
tion.” HUCA 67 (1996): 95–106.
SHALOM ALBECK (1987)
Revised Bibliography
TAMIL RELIGIONS. The term Tamil religions de-
notes the religious traditions and practices of Tamil-speaking
people. Most Tamils originated and continue to live in
India’s southernmost area, now known as the state of Tamil
Nadu; however, millions of Tamils have migrated to other
parts of India, especially to its large cities, as well as abroad,
particularly to Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Madagascar,
Australia, Great Britain and, more recently, to the United
States and Canada. Many emigrant Tamils retain elements
of a cultural, linguistic, and religious tradition that predates
the Christian era and has experienced a complex interaction
of influences from Dravidian, Sanskritic, and heterodox
sources. At its apex between the eighth and fifteenth centu-
ries, the Tamil region was the major center of Hindu civiliza-
tion and, indeed, one of the major centers of civilization in
the world. Today, while most Tamils remain essentially
Hindu, some Tamils have embraced elements of Islam and
Christianity.
EARLY TAMIL RELIGION. A Neolithic cattle-herding culture
existed in South India several millennia prior to the Christian
era. By the first century, a relatively well-developed civiliza-
tion had emerged, still largely pre-Hindu and only marginal-
ly sanskritized. It is described in some detail in Tamil texts
such as the Tolka ̄ppiyam (a grammar written around the start
of the Christian era) and by the “Can ̇ kam” poets—an “acad-
emy” of poets who wrote in the first two centuries CE. This
culture was essentially Dravidian in nature.
The origins of the Dravidians are still a matter of dis-
pute, but the South Indian culture known to current re-
searchers by the first century was probably based largely on
the Neolithic cultures that developed in the area. However,
these cultures were influenced in prehistoric times to varying
degrees by the filtering of some remnants of a Negroid cul-
ture originating in East Africa; by migrations from the east-
ern Mediterranean world refracted through the Elamite and
Indus civilizations; by a megalithic culture that made its way
into Southwest India by the eighth century BCE; and by a
people sometimes called “Proto-Australoid” who came into
the subcontinent by way of northeastern India from the
Malay peninsula.
The religious life of the Tamil civilization of Cankam
times gave evidence of no significant mythological or philo-
sophical speculation nor of any sense of transcendence in a
bifurcated universe. Rather, it was oriented by a fundamental
veneration of land and a sense of the celebration of individual
life. Colorful flora and fauna were extolled and ascribed a
symbolic significance that bordered on the sacred; for exam-
ple, peacocks, elephants, and the blossoms of various trees
were used as images for the basic realities of individual and
cosmos. Earth’s color and fertility were affirmed. Indigenous
deities were venerated in field and hill, reflecting the attri-
butes of the people in that zone and presiding over functions
typical to their respective areas; thus, the god Murukan
̄pre-
sided over hill and hunt and battled the malevolent forces
of the hills, while Ve ̄ntan
̄oversaw the pastoral region and af-
forded it rain.
“Possession” is one of the most common ways in which
the gods were believed to manifest themselves—both in their
priests and in young women. Worship of the gods sometimes
occurred in a special place—in the clearing of a field or the
bank of a river, for example, where a small pillar or kantu
was set up to represent the deity. The cult of the hero was
a common feature of this period as evidenced by the erection
of numerous hero stones (nat:ukkals) over the graves of fallen
heroes, be they hunting warriors or tribal chieftains. Urn
burial, a remnant of megalithic culture, was used occasional-
ly, especially after the death of the chieftain or hero.
The city was not foreign to this early culture and by the
third century CE, at least, religious imagery reflected an urban
setting. Poets likened the urban chieftains and warriors to the
gods and spoke of urban festivals. Some of the earlier gods
were merged together in an urban setting, even while contin-
uing their earlier functions in extra-urban contexts. Rituals,
however, often continued to reflect a seasonal or folk charac-
ter: In the hills, garlanded young women are said to have
danced, intoxicated, with priests (v ̄elan
̄s) of Murukan
(Cilappatika ̄ram 24), while in the plain, at the onset of mon- ̄
soons, after harvests and transplantings, bathers gambolled
in the waters, were garlanded and smeared with sandal, often
astride elephants or horses, and drank intoxicating beverages
(Pa
̄ripa ̄t:al 6, 7, 10).
The early character of Tamil religion, in sum, was cele-
brative and relatively “democratic.” It embodied an aura of
sacral immanence, sensing the sacred in the vegetation, fertil-TAMIL RELIGIONS 8973