Vaṇṇam : tracing the ancient Tamil music tradition
Abstract
It is generally considered that early musical practices, developed by bards and employed by poets, were integral to the rituals of the ancient Tamils (THANINAYAGAM 1956: 109). The Tolkappiyam, the ancient Tamil grammatical treatise, while classifying forms of Tamil poetic conventions, discusses a set of forms called vannams, which could be understood as musical formulae followed by the bards...