Guest guest Posted February 20, 2003 Report Share Posted February 20, 2003 Dear Alexandra There are many epics in Tamil -Hindu Jain and Buddhists- that go by the name the Five Great Kavyas and Five Small Kaviyas. Of these some are lost however the major ones are still available. The Sillapatikaaram, maNimekali Ciivaka Cintanamani PeruGkatai CuudamaNi SripuraNam and so forth come to my mind. Perhaps Dr Naga Ganesan can enlighten us more on this. I just want to mention that there is Kanta PuraNam, an epic on Muruka, comparable to RamayaNam and whose roots are as deep as RamayaNam and Maha Bharatam and very popular among the Saivites especially the Sri Lankan Tamils whose culture is known as KantapuRaaNam culture. The final epic version was written by Kacciyapa Sivacariyar (c. 14th AD) and which is replete with the metaphysics of Saiva Siddhanta. Now about women poets and scholars. At least among Tamils there has quite a number of famous women scholars throughout the ancinet history of Tamils though I cannot think of any who wrote epics. During the CagKam times ( 300 BC-300 AD) we have Naccellaiyaar Auvvaiyaar etc. During Bakti Period we have Punitavatiyar( Karaikkaal Peyar, 5th-6th cent AD)) who revolutioned Saivite thinking and set the very model for the Tevaram corpus. She wrote three texts and now I am posting English translations of ARputat Tiruvantati in akandabaratam etc. During the post Cagkam period we have linguists, Kaakkai Paadiniyaar who wrote a grammatical treatise Kaakkaip Paadiniyam which has been recovered by collecting the various quatations of the texts in various books. We cannot forget al;so Sri Andal placed as one of the Alwars and whose very read even today. Among the Siddhas we have another Auvvaiyaar who wrote the Auvvai kuRaL, still available in full and studied quite actively now. In addition to that there are many Auvvaiyars from the Chola Period who wrote Atticcuudi KonRaiveeNtam etc more as texts books for children. The Atticcuudi is reputed to be the oldest extent school text book. All this just from memory. I hope the other scholars would correct me if I am wrong. Loga - "Alexandra Kafka" <alexandra.kafka <INDOLOGY> Thursday, February 20, 2003 10:06 AM [Y-Indology] epics > Everyone knows about the two great epics of India, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. > However, I wonder whether there are also other, lesser well-known epics of India? > I have the impression that Indology mainly deals with material from North-India, forgetting very much that originated in South-India and in other parts of India. > Who has information? > Is there any epic composed by a woman? > Is there at all existing literature from Indian women before the 20th century? > > Kind regards, > A.K. > > > > > > > indology > > > > Your use of is subject to > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 At 03:06 AM 2/20/03 +0100, you wrote: >Everyone knows about the two great epics of India, the Mahabharata and the >Ramayana. >However, I wonder whether there are also other, lesser well-known epics of >India? Hi I'm currently working on performances of three Rajasthani kathas: Gopicand, Bhatri, and Mahadevji ka byavla: I'm not sure that these qualify as epics, but then I'm not convinced of the clarity of demarcation between "epic" and other genres. Ann Gold has produced translations and studies of the first two. John Napier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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