the “text” is a more fluid entity. Manuscripts of plays and bow song texts circu-
late among performers, but these serve more as training tools for performers
than as authoritative cultural objects in there own right. While performances
are based more on what Stuart Blackburn has called “prior preparation” rather
than spontaneous composition in performance, still the conventions of these
genres leave much room for improvisation, and the “texts” of given narrative
may change and have changed over time. We thus find that the material forms
of Tamil Hindu literary works are as diverse as their contents.
Notes
1 For a discussion of pur
̄
am elements in Tamil Vais.n.ava bhakti poetry see Ramanujan
and Cutler 1983.
2 This distinction roughly parallels the traditional distinction which is made between
sagun.a and nirgun.a bhakti traditions, that is, traditions which conceptualize god as
being “with qualities” and those which conceptualize god as being “without quali-
ties.” The Tamil bhakti tradition predominantly conforms to the former model, while
the Vı ̄ras ́aiva tradition found in the neighboring Kannada-speaking region conforms
to the latter.
3 The most famous text in the first group is Tirukkur
̄
al.(ca. fifth century ce), which is
sometimes referred to as “the Tamil Bible.” Though in modern scholarly circles it is
thought to be likely that the text’s legendary author, Tiruval.l.uvar, was a Jain, this
compendium of poetically terse aphorisms on public and domestic life is largely free
of specifically sectarian elements. Most famous of the early long narrative poems
in Tamil is Cilappatika ̄ram, “The Story of the Anklet” (ca. fifth century ce). This text,
attributed to the Jain renouncer Ilan.ko ̄, combines themes of earlier akam and pur
̄am
poetry, goddess worship, and a political vision of a Tamil imperium. In modern times
both of these texts have been adopted as emblems of Tamil cultural identity.
4 The paradigm of 63 nayan ̄ma ̄r begins with a list of saints included in a poem of
Cuntaramu ̄ rtti (eighth century ce), who predates Ma ̄n.ikkava ̄ cakar (ninth century).
5 Richman includes examples of Muslim and Christian pil.l.aittamil
̄
poems in her study
of this genre (Richman 1997).
6 Kenneth Bryant has explicated a very similar dynamic in the Kr.s.n.aite poetry of
the north Indian bhakti poet Su ̄rda ̄ s (Bryant 1978). Richman points out that, con-
trary to expectations, there are few Tamil pil.l.aittamil
̄
devoted to the subject of baby
Kr.s.n.a.
7 Historically, the term ka ̄ ppiyam is usually applied to a corpus of long narrative
poems composed by Buddhist and Jain authors between the fifth and tenth centuries,
whereas the preeminent ka ̄ vyam poem is Kampan ̄’s twelfth-century Tamil version
of the Ra ̄ma ̄yan.a.Many Tamil scholars consider the two terms to be etymologically
cognate, though some scholars dispute the etymologically link between Sanskrit
“ka ̄ vya” and Tamil “ka ̄ ppiyam.”
8 This relationship may be thought of as a mirror image of the relationship between
the Sanskrit epic and the many Sanskrit maha ̄ka ̄ vyas which aim to transform the
epic text into refined poetry. For an insightful discussion of the latter relationship see
Yigal Bronner’s Ph.D. dissertation (Bronner 1999).
tamil hindu literature 157