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The ancient Tamil poetic corpus of the Caṅam ("The Academy") is a national treasure for Tamilians and a battle-ground for linguists and historians of politics, culture and literature. Going back to oral predecessors probably dating back to the beginning of the first millennium, it has had an extremely rich and variegated history. Collected into anthologies and endowed with literary theories and voluminous commentaries, it became the centre-piece of the Tamil literary canon, associated with the royal court of the Pandya dynasty in Madurai. Its decline began in the late middle ages, and by the late 17th century it had fallen into near oblivion, before being rediscovered at the beginning of the print era. The present study traces the complex historical process of its transmission over some 2000 years, using and documenting a wide range of sources, in particular surviving manuscripts, the early prints, the commentaries of the literary and grammatical traditions and a vast range of later literature that creates a web of inter-textual references and quotations.

The book focuses on the changes in the trading world of the Tamil merchants in the southern Coromandel region, with the arrival of European trading companies and the concomitant creation of European port enclaves and the rapid expansion of demand for Coromandel cotton textiles. The author uses impressive range of original sources literary, inscriptional and archival to cover a long period of history (beginning with the maritime trade in the Sangam period) to argue that the merchants evolved over the centuries into a distinct class of merchant capitalists with a conscious perception of their identity as an economic and social class.

There is a number of problems connected with the study and teaching of any Oriental literature in general and of Tamil literature specifically which have to date been mostly ignored, although they are indispensable for solid knowledge and correct interpretation and understanding of the literature in question. These include problems of authenticity and authorship, of transmission and tradition, writing tools and materials, of relationship of orality to literacy, of Sanskrit to Tamil, the prehistory of Tamil written literature, the numerous texts that have been lost, scholarly lineages and the rediscovery of ancient Tamil literature etc. The book deals with all these problems as well as with some specific Tamil cultural phenomena such as the concept of "threefold Tamil" or the relationship of literature ('marked') to grammar ('marker'), with the derivation of the term "Tamil" and with the history of Tamil literary historiography. It will be indispensable as an introduction to the study of the more than 2000 years of Tamil literary history. By addressing questions which have thus far been almost completely neglected, it has also decisive impact on the interpretative comprehension of Tamil literature and on the teaching of this very rich heritage of verbal art.

This indispensable work for Tamil love poetry of South India deals with the relationship between the oldest grammar and poetics, Tolkāppiyam, and the ancient literature (Sangam literature) of the 1-3 C. A.D., providing the original meanings and historical changes of many technical terms of love poetry.

This indispensable work for Tamil love poetry of South India deals with the relationship between the oldest grammar and poetics, "Tolk ppiyam," and the ancient literature ("Sangam" literature) of the 1-3 C. A.D., providing the original meanings and historical changes of many technical terms of love poetry.