Abstract
This chapter explores the complex, evolving role of Dandin’s Mirror in the story of Tamil literature. The chapter focuses on three key moments, beginning with a profound shift in thinking about literary language that occurred between the sixth and ninth centuries in Tamil. This transformation had no single point of origin, yet clearly resonated with the discussion of figuration found in the Mirror, itself a product of this South Indian literary milieu. By the twelfth century, the Mirror had emerged as the dominant model for Tamil scholarship on figuration, while Tamil poets continued to explore new figures that played with increasingly complex linguistic relationships. The chapter concludes with a set of sixteenth-century texts that integrated Dandin’s poetics with other Tamil poetic systems, reflecting a move toward synthesis characteristic of this later period. By revisiting the Mirror’s key role in Tamil literary culture, the chapter complicates the standard narrative of the relationship between Tamil and Sanskrit, as well as the relationship between the translocal and vernacular more generally.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | A Lasting Vision |
Subtitle of host publication | Dandin’s Mirror in the World of Asian Letters |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 202-252 |
Number of pages | 51 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780197642924 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780197642924 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jan 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Oxford University Press 2023.
Keywords
- Comparative poetics
- Dandin
- Figuration
- Indian literature
- Indian poetics
- Kāvyādarśa
- Tamil literary culture
- Tamil literature
- Tamil poetics
- Taṇṭiyalaṅkāram