Imagining a Place for Buddhism: Literary Culture and Religious Community in Tamil-speaking South IndiaWhile Tamil-speaking South India is celebrated for its preservation of Hindu tradition, other religious communities have played a significant role in shaping the region's religious history. Among these non-Hindu communities is that of the Buddhists, who are little-understood because of the scarcity of remnants of Tamil-speaking Buddhist culture. Here, focusing on the two Buddhist texts in Tamil that are complete (a sixth-century poetic narrative and an eleventh-century treatise on grammar and poetics), Monius sheds light on the role of literature and literary culture in the formation, articulation, and evolution of religious identity and community. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
1 Reading Manimekalai as Buddhist Literature | 13 |
2 The Manimekalais Community of Readers and Listeners | 58 |
3 The Manimekalais Buddhist Community Envisioned | 87 |
Language Literary Theory and Religious Community | 116 |
5 Imagining Community through Commentary | 137 |
Conclusion | 156 |
Notes | 161 |
| 227 | |
| 245 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic almsbowl Amutacurapi Aputtiran Aravanan ascetic Asian audience Avalokitan Avalokiteśvara birth bowl relic Branch Stories Buddha Buddha-to-be Buddhadatta Buddhaghosa Buddhavamsa Buddhist community Buddhist text Buddhist world Cañkam Căvakam century chapter characters Cilappatikāram cited classical Tamil Coliya commentary compassionate composed in Tamil context corpus Cutamati Dandin Dhammapada dharma discussion doctrine early medieval envisioned étu example Faxian future Buddha goddess grammar History human Ibid images imagined inscriptions interdependent origination Jain Jātaka Käficanan Käficipuram Kannaki karma karmic Kāyacantikai king Kövalan landscape literary culture literary language lives Madras Mahāvamsa Manimékalai Manipallavam Mātavi Maturai monastic monks Nāgas notes ornate poetic Pāli Pali Text Society Pallava Peruntēvanār Poems poetic ornamentation poetry previously Pukär Rāmāyana region renunciation Richman Saiva Sanskrit South India Southeast Asia Sri Lanka Studies Tamil language Tamil literary Tamil Literature Tamil text Tamil-speaking teachings text's themes tion Tirukkural Tolkāppiyam tradition trans translation University Press Utayakumaran Vañci verse Viracóliyam vision Xuanzang Zvelebil