Early Modern Tamil Prose: A Note on Some Manuscripts of the Tiruvāvaṭutuṟai Ātīṉam
Résumé
The paper examines early Tamil prose manuscripts preserved at the Tiruvāvaṭutuṟai Ātīṉam monastery to argue that freestanding prose in Tamil, especially Śaiva theological and didactic works, existed well before colonial and missionary influence. It shows that from the 16th to 18th centuries, non-Brahmin Śaiva monasteries like Tiruvāvaṭutuṟai produced prose texts (often in little-known genres like aṭṭavaṉai and kaṭṭaḷai) used for teaching and devotional instruction. These works shows that Tamil prose developed internally within religious and pedagogical contexts, challenging the common view that it originated with European missionaries.
Domaines
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Fait partie de hal-05297836 Ouvrage Margherita Trento, Constantine V. Nakassis, Sascha Ebeling, Navaneethakrishnan Govindarajan (Dir.). For the Love of Tamil. UniorPress. , 2025, Series Minor, 978-88-6719-338-7. ⟨10.6093/978-88-6719-338-7⟩. ⟨hal-05297836⟩