This collection of essays aims to trace the exchanges, responses,
affinities and fissures between the worlds of Sanskrit and Tamil literary
cultures in the medieval period. The literati who produced the works in these
languages moved freely between domains that earlier Indological scholarship has
tended to compartmentalise. The eleven studies presented in this volume strive
to move beyond this narrow perspective and thus do justice to the richness and
complexity of the cultural synthesis that took shape in South India in this
period. By looking at the articulation of identities, practices, and discourses
in texts of a range of genres composed in Tamil and Sanskrit (as well as Prakrit
and Malayalam), these essays supply a picture of South India in the medieval
period that is unique in its historical depth and conceptual complexity and
demonstrate innovative ways to investigate and problematise cross-cultural
phenomena, while suggesting how much work yet remains to be
done.
This collection of essays aims to trace the exchanges, responses,
affinities and fissures between the worlds of Sanskrit and Tamil literary
cultures in the medieval period. The literati who produced the works in these
languages moved freely between domains that earlier Indological scholarship has
tended to compartmentalise. The eleven studies presented in this volume strive
to move beyond this narrow perspective and thus do justice to the richness and
complexity of the cultural synthesis that took shape in South India in this
period. By looking at the articulation of identities, practices, and discourses
in texts of a range of genres composed in Tamil and Sanskrit (as well as Prakrit
and Malayalam), these essays supply a picture of South India in the medieval
period that is unique in its historical depth and conceptual complexity and
demonstrate innovative ways to investigate and problematise cross-cultural
phenomena, while suggesting how much work yet remains to be
done.