Extraordinary Child: Poems from a South Indian Devotional Genre

Notes

237 N O T E S chapter 1: Extraordinary Child 1. A. K. Ramanujan, “Where Mirrors are Windows: Toward an Anthology of Reflections,” History of Religions 28, no. 3 (February 1989): 197. 2. The figure of sixty-nine million Tamil speakers is an approximation . Although the majority of Tamil speakers (about forty-eight million) live in the Indian state of Tamilnadu, many have also settled outside the state in the cities of Mysore, Bangalore, Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta. Outside India, the largest community of Tamil speakers lived in the northern section of Sri Lanka (approximately four million), but in the past decade many of them have become refugees. Tamil-speaking communities also exist in Southeast Asia (about one million in Malaysia alone), the Americas, and the United Kingdom, with smaller communities elsewhere. See the discussion of Tamil in David Crystal, An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992). For comparison’s sake it is worth noting that there are more Tamil speakers than Italian speakers (approximately sixty-three million) in the world. 3. The secondary literature on pillaittamils remains relatively limited, except for short summaries found in the histories of Tamil literature that delineate the characteristics of medieval poetic genres (see appendix). One of the first book-length studies of the genre is Cirrilakkiyaccorpolivuka ∏—Ira»πâvatu Mânânπu (Tirunelveli: SISS, 1959), which contains the presentations from a Saiva Siddhanta-sponsored conference designed to foster an appreciation of the various genres of Tamil poetry. A number of such conferences were held, among which this one focused solely notes 238 on pillaittamils in the Ùaivite tradition. A more recent Tamil critical analysis of selected examples of the genre focuses on pillaittamils to Hindu gods, goddesses, and cultural or political heroes. See Ku. Muttur âcan, Pi∏∏aittamil Ilakkiyam (Chidambaram: Manivacakar Patippakam, 1984). Surveys of Tamil literature tend to isolate Muslim pillaittamils, placing them in separate sections dealing with Muslim literature, thereby obscuring their links with Hindu pillaittamils. For example, the survey by Mu. Varadarajan, A History of Tamil Literature (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1980), deals with all Islamic literature in a separate chapter and all Christian literature in yet another chapter. The chapter called “Religious Works” does not, however, include any Muslim or Christian literary texts. Similarly, in most cases when scholars focus on Muslim pillaittamils, they treat them separately rather than placing them in the context of Hindu and Christian pillaittamils. See, for example, the article on pillaittamils in Aptur-Rahîm, Islâmiyak Kalaikka∏añciyam, vol. 3 (Madras: Yunivarsal Pap∏ishars A»π Puk Cellars [Universal Publishers and Book Sellers], 1979), 559–560. A notable exception to this pattern is found in Cai. Pâttimâ, Napika∏ Nâyakam Pi∏∏aittamil: Òr Âyvu (Madras: Amina Press, 1990), which compares literary features in pillaittamils addressed to the Prophet Muhammad with Hindu pillaittamils. To my knowledge, no comprehensive study of Christian pillaittamils exists in any language. 4. I have seen or found reference to more than 250 examples of pillaittamils (not all of them extant). The chart at the end of Ku. Mutturâcan’s monograph lists sixty-six pillaittamils addressed to gods, fifty-five to goddesses, thirty-one to poets or learned men (including monastic abbots and venerated gurus), three to kings, and five to political leaders. A list of 227 pillaittamils is found in the editor’s introduction to Vaittiyanâta Tècikar, Kamalâlaya Amman Pi∏∏aittamil, ed. Vî. CokkaliΩkam (Srirangam: Srî Vâ»i Vilâca Accakam, 1969), 18. Also see the list in the introduction to Mu. Ca»mukam Pi∏∏ai, Ayyanar Pi∏∏aittamil (Madras: Cennaip Palkali Kalakam, 1975), following p. 19. For a list of twenty-three Muslim pillaittamils, see Aptur-Rahîm, Islâmiyak Kalaikka∏añciyam, vol. 3, 559–560. 5. For a discussion of these five modes of bhakti, see Edward C. Dimock, “Doctrine and Practice Among the Vai∂»avas of Bengal,” in Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes, ed. Milton Singer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 49. notes 239 6. Notable works of scholarship have been written about vâtsalya devotional poetry in Hindi literature, addressed to K∑∂»a. See, for example , John Stratton Hawley, Krishna, The Butter Thief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). Hawley explores connections between this Hindi poetry and Tamil pillaittamils on pp. 35–45. Also see Kenneth Bryant’s Poems to the Child-God: Structures and Strategies in the Poetry of Sûrd...