Programme
Alvappillai Veluppillai
Faculty Associate
Department of Religious Studies
Arizona State University
E/
alvappillai.veluppillai@asu.edu
Nature, Identity and Tamil Literature
Tamil literary texts of the Sangam Age illustrate well the close intertwining of nature and human life in Tamil society, a period referred to elsewhere as Iyarkainerikalam or the Age of Nature way. The subsequent periods of Indo-Aryan, Islamic and Christian influences, and the Tamilization of these influences, led to the incorporation of descriptions of Tamilnadu and Eelam nature into literary texts.
The part played by the Saiva bhakti movement, especially the work of Campanthar in the 7th century and the way he described nature as connected to the location of different shrines throughout Tamilnadu and Eelam; the place of nadduppadalam in the beginning of each book of the genre of kaviyam incorporating descriptions of natural features of the Tamils' environment; Beschi's Tempavani in the 17th and 18th centuries describing Christ's place of birth to suit the ecology of Tamilnadu and Umaruppulavar's cirappuranam describing the Prophet Mohammed's native land also to reflect the environment of the Tamils, are all noteworthy in this interrogation. Aracakecari’s Irakuvamicam in 16th or 17th century in Jaffna is made up of a long nadduppadalam very closely resembling description of landscapes among the Tamils.
The paper argues that what appears as part of a long literary tradition should be interpreted as reflecting a deeply felt need of the Tamil people to construct their identity through nature and landscape in a way not seen in the historical literary texts of other South Asian peoples.
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Dr. Velupillai's research interests are historical studies of Tamil language,
literature, culture and people. His publications include Tamil Ilakkiyattil
Kalamum Karuttum (1969), Study of the Dialects in Inscriptional Tamil
(1976) and co-editor (with Peter Schalk) of Buddhism among Tamils in
Pre-colonial Tamilakam and Ilam (2002).