Manuscript, Print and Memory: Relics of the Cankam in Tamilnadu

Description

The ancient Tamil poetic corpus of the Caṅam ("The Academy") is a national treasure for Tamilians and a battle-ground for linguists and historians of politics, culture and literature. Going back to oral predecessors probably dating back to the beginning of the first millennium, it has had an extremely rich and variegated history. Collected into anthologies and endowed with literary theories and voluminous commentaries, it became the centre-piece of the Tamil literary canon, associated with the royal court of the Pandya dynasty in Madurai. Its decline began in the late middle ages, and by the late 17th century it had fallen into near oblivion, before being rediscovered at the beginning of the print era. The present study traces the complex historical process of its transmission over some 2000 years, using and documenting a wide range of sources, in particular surviving manuscripts, the early prints, the commentaries of the literary and grammatical traditions and a vast range of later literature that creates a web of inter-textual references and quotations. Contents Preface List of Abbreviation I Introduction 1 Sources, Methods and Aims 2 The Corpus 2.1 Its Constitution 2.2 Its Fate 3 Research History and Programme 3.1 The Tamil Renaissance 3.2 Tamil Manuscripts II The Manuscripts 1 Surviving Caṅkam Manuscripts: Descriptive Catalogue 1.1 Libraries of Origin 1.2 Manuscript list 1.3 Manuscript Catalogue 2 Manuscripts Reported in Catalogues and Editions 2.1 Catalogues 2.2 Manuscript Descriptions in the Editions 3 Colophons and Library Information 3.1 List of Available Colophons 3.2 Scribal Colophons and/or Information on Title Pages 4 Summary: Age and Distribution of the Remaining Witnesses III Transmissional History 1 The Invocation Stanzas (kaṭavuḷ vāḻttu) 1.1 Kuṟuntokai 1 1.2 The Series by Pāratam Pāṭiya Peruntēvaṉātr 2 Traditional Colophons 2.1 Eṭṭuttokai 2.2 Pattupāṭṭu 2.3 Information from the Traditional Colophons 3 Mnemonic Stanzas 3.1 Eṭṭutokai (14 Verses) 3.2 Pattupāṭṭu (19 Plus 12 Verses) 4 The Caṅkam Legends 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Preamble to Nakkīraṉ and Its Late Metrical Echo 4.3 Academicians Infiltrating the Saiva Canon 4.4 Siva’s Sports in Maturai 4.5 The Tiruvaḷḷuvar Branch 4.6 Legend Merging into “History” 5 Reception in the Grammatical Tradition 5.1 The Legend Reflected in the Commentaries 5.2 The Corpus Reflected in the Commentaries Appendix 1: Tables of Quotations from the Poetological Commentaries Appendix 2: The Distribution of Quoted Poems in Poetological Commentaries Appendix 3: The Distribution of Quoted Poems in Grammatical Commentaries 5.3 Glimpses from Discussions of Literature Coda: The Maturaic Cokkanātar Aruḷiya Tamiḻ Viṭutūtu 6 Summary: The Rise and Fall of a Canon IV The Editing Process 1 Notes on the Development of the Tamil Script 2 The Path from Palm-Leaves to Paper to Printed Editions 3 The Early Caṅkam Editions 4 Case Studies: The Kuṟuntokai, the Naṟṟiṇai and the Akanāṉūṟu 5 Later Caṅkam Editions Appendix: Manuscripts Containing Exegetical Material 6 Summary: Decipherment, Standardisation, Popularisation V Conclusion: The Restitution of a Canon Literature List of Acknowledgements for the Illustrations Index