Instructors: Dr. Eva Maria Wilden
Event type: Seminar
Displayed in timetable as: Kallatam
Hours per week: 2
Credits: 3,0
Language of instruction: English
Min. | Max. participants: - | -
Comments/contents: The Kallatam is one of the notoriously difficult Kaavya-texts in Tamil, dating perhaps back to the 12th century C.E. and clearly archaising in style and language. It's one hundred poems of uneven length combine the conventions of Akam poetry with those of bhakti in that every verse also contains a part in praise of lord Siva. Like many classical texts it is generally supposed to have been transmitted without a (very necessary) commentary, but in the manuscript collection of the BnF in Paris recently a manuscript has turned up that contains a premodern commentary, possibly for something like the first 40 poems. Goal of the seminar will be to read and assess that commentary from the manuscript, on the one hand introducing into manuscript reading and on the other hand furthering our knowledge of the types of premodern commentaries and the ways they were transmitted. Hopefully this work will also help to improve the root text and our understanding of it.
