long poems whose verses are embedded in a story line, and in many instances
the latter is borrowed from the itiha ̄sa-pura ̄n.acorpus.
Some of the Tamil texts which bear the appellation pura ̄n.am are based
directly on Sanskrit prototypes, but as David Shulman has observed, “they differ
greatly from the Sanskrit originals both in style and in their perspective on the
mythological materials; unlike the Sanskrit pura ̄n.as, the Tamil adaptations
are polished and compressed, and thus belong, in effect to the ka ̄vyagenre”
(Shulman 1980: 30). The most celebrated of all Tamil ka ̄vya narratives is
Kampan
̄
’s twelfth century rendering of the Ra ̄ma ̄yan.a. While Kampan
̄was famil-
iar with Valmı ̄ki’s Sanskrit Ra ̄ma ̄yan.a, and his telling of the story corresponds
to Valmı ̄ki’s fairly closely, some episodes are substantially different in the two
versions. But more importantly, Kampan
̄
distingished himself as a consummate
master of the poetic resources of the Tamil language, and in his hands the
Ra ̄ma ̄yan.astory became a vehicle for a literary tour de force. Consequently
Kampan
̄
’s Tamil Ra ̄ma ̄yan.ahas, for centuries, been honored as much, if not
more, for its literary merits as for its choice of subject. This accounts for the
attention the text has long received from Tamil literary scholars irrespective of
their sectarian affiliations.
Another group of Tamil narratives categorized as pura ̄n.am are closely asso-
ciated with particular geographical locations, specifically the sites of temples.
These texts, known generically as sthalapura ̄n.a(“place pura ̄n.a”), relate legends
associated with these sites and the local embodiments of S ́iva, Vis.n.u, and other
deities enshrined there. The Tamil “place pura ̄n.as” constitute a very large corpus,
and the literary quality of these texts is uneven. Many temple sites in Tamilnadu
are the subjects of both a Tamil “place pura ̄n.a” and a Sanskrit counterpart,
usually assigned to the genre of maha ̄tmya (“greatness”). Traditionally the
Sanskrit maha ̄tmya is usually considered to be the source of the Tamil “place
pura ̄n.a,” but in fact, in many instances the Tamil version may in fact predate
the Sanskrit. While the influence of Brahmanic Hinduism is clearly apparent in
both Tamil and Sanskrit versions, these texts also include much material that
is regionally distinctive. In his landmark study of Tamil S ́aiva “place pura ̄n.as”
David Shulman describes the myths related in these texts as being “part of the
wider world of Hindu mytholgy,” while he also points out that the authors of
these texts took many of the classical myths “and adapted them to their own pur-
poses, often transforming them considerably in the process” (Shulman 1980: 4).
The Literature of Village Temple Festivals
For the most part, the genres and texts discussed above were originally associ-
ated with the culture of the courts of kings and local rulers or with Brahmanic
temples. But this is by no means the only literature associated with Tamil
Hinduism, broadly defined. The cults of Tamilnadu’s village deities are rich in
stories, many of which are regularly performed as dramas or as oral discourses,
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