Folding Figures: Tamil Tandi and the New Poetic Language of Ornaments

Jennifer Clare, David Shulman

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

2 Scopus citations

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 languageEnglish
Title of host publicationA Lasting Vision
Subtitle of host publicationDandin’s Mirror in the World of Asian Letters
PublisherOxford University Press
Pages202-252
Number of pages51
ISBN (Electronic)9780197642924
ISBN (Print)9780197642924
DOIs
StatePublished - 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

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