Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. PDF Download

Author: Iravatham Mahadevan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 772

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Book Description
This book presents the earliest South Indian inscriptions (ca. second century B.C.E. to sixth century A.D.), written in Tamil in local derivations of the Ashokan Brahmi script. The work includes texts, transliteration, translation, detailed commentary, inscriptional glossary, and indexes.

Author: Iravatham Mahadevan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 769

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Book Description
The Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT), Chennai, was established in 2007 to implement the Central plan schemes for promoting research in Classical Tamil. One of the first, and still the largest, projects implemented by CICT is the documentation of the earliest Tamil inscriptions and heritage monuments on HD Video and High Resolution still imagery, indexed, catalogued and held as a digital archive by CICT. Even as this long-term programme got under way, I was invited by CICT to prepare a revised edition of my book, Early Tamil Epigraphy (first published in 2003), dovetailing it with the ongoingdocumentation of Tamil-Brāhmī and Vaṭṭeḻuttu stone inscriptions. I need hardly add that I accepted the offer with alacrity as it would bring to fruition the project I had only dreamt about for long. I am thankful to the Director, CICT, for implementing the scheme for documentation of the earliest Tamil inscriptions and for including the revised edition of my book within its scope.The CICT entrusted the execution of the project to the Centre for Plants, People and Ecosystems (CPPE), Chennai, a non-profit organisation working in this field. The CICT project team constituted by CPPE started the work in December 2007 and successfully completed most of the field work by the end of 2010. I am thankful to M. V. Bhaskar, Project Coordinator, and his colleagues for the efficient execution of the project. I was happy to inaugurate the work at Mamandur, but could not participate in further field work due to health problems except once at Pulankurichi in 2010. The team led by Bhaskar completed the field work on its own with a copy of Early Tamil Epigraphy to serve as the guide to locate the caves andinscriptions.I was shown the results of the photographic survey for verification of the in situ delineations, enlarged on the computer screen. I could hardly believe my eyes, looking at the amazingly clear photographs of the caves and the remarkable accuracy of the delineations. I could sense that it is not only the superior technology but also the total involvement of the team in the project, which produced such excellent results. I am proud to have been a member of the team, though working from only behind the scenes. It has taken me more than two years (2010 - 12) to complete editing the present publication whichincludes only the Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions. I must again thank Bhaskar for personally undertaking the laborious and time-consuming task of typesetting the revised edition afresh in Unicode.The present publication marks the culmination of my study of Tamil epigraphy extending over more than half a century (1958 - 2012). Looking back over this long period, I remember with gratitude Dr. C. Sivaramamurti, who initiated me into the discipline of epigraphy, Prof. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, who suggested to me to take up the research on the cave inscriptions of Tamilnadu, and K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyer, the founder of Tamil-Brāhmī epigraphy, whom I had the good fortune to meet in 1966 and receive his blessings for my successful decipherment of the Tamil-Brāhmī cave inscriptions of the Caṅkam Ageat Mangulam and Pugalur. It is time to hand over the baton to younger scholars in the field.Iravatham Mahadevan

Author: R. Umamaheshwari
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 8132237560
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
This book provides a social history of the Tamil Jainas, a minority community living in Tamil Nadu in south India. It holds special significance in the method of studying the community, living in villages of Tamil Nadu and retrieving their perspectives on their past. This is a new approach in terms of historiography from extant works on Jainism in south India. A major feature of this book is the hitherto uncovered aspect of the question of language and identity, caste and the modern socio-political movements in Tamil Nadu, such as the Self-Respect Movement (initiated by ‘Periyar’), in which some Tamil Jainas were active participants. Special features in the book include photographs of the community and monuments, maps, and a unique style, which combines a journalistic approach and academic historical research. This book is of interest to readers of Tamil language and history, and to anyone working on the idea of politics of marginalisation of religious identities, ide as of memory, and community narratives of shared history in the face of religious persecution.

Author: Pierre-Yves Manguin
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
ISBN: 9814345105
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 533

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Book Description
This book takes stock of the results of some two decades of intensive archaeological research carried out on both sides of the Bay of Bengal, in combination with renewed approaches to textual sources and to art history. To improve our understanding of the trans-cultural process commonly referred to as Indianisation, it brings together specialists of both India and Southeast Asia, in a fertile inter-disciplinary confrontation. Most of the essays reappraise the millennium-long historiographic no-man's land during which exchanges between the two shores of the Bay of Bengal led, among other processes, to the Indianisation of those parts of the region that straddled the main routes of exchange. Some essays follow up these processes into better known "classical" times or even into modern times, showing that the localisation process of Indian themes has long remained at work, allowing local societies to produce their own social space and express their own ethos.

Author: Sheldon Pollock
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520932021
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 705

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Book Description
In this work of impressive scholarship, Sheldon Pollock explores the remarkable rise and fall of Sanskrit, India's ancient language, as a vehicle of poetry and polity. He traces the two great moments of its transformation: the first around the beginning of the Common Era, when Sanskrit, long a sacred language, was reinvented as a code for literary and political expression, the start of an amazing career that saw Sanskrit literary culture spread from Afghanistan to Java. The second moment occurred around the beginning of the second millennium, when local speech forms challenged and eventually replaced Sanskrit in both the literary and political arenas. Drawing striking parallels, chronologically as well as structurally, with the rise of Latin literature and the Roman empire, and with the new vernacular literatures and nation-states of late-medieval Europe, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men asks whether these very different histories challenge current theories of culture and power and suggest new possibilities for practice.

Author: Patrick Olivelle
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199775071
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
This volume is the result of an international conference organized by the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas. Patrick Olivelle has collected and edited the best papers to emerge from the conference. Part I of the book looks at what can be construed from archeological evidence. Part II concerns itself with the textual evidence for the period. Taken together, these essays offer an unprecedented look at Indian culture and society in this distant epoch.

Author: William J. Hardcastle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135625182
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
Throughout the world, there are phoneticians who have been influenced by the teaching, research, and writings of John Laver. Many have worked with him personally, and most of the contributors to this book are people with whom he has had special links or whose involvement represents an appreciation of the breadth of Laver's interests. While the book is meant to be a tribute to John Laver, the topics have been chosen to provide an overview of some key issues in phonetics, with illuminating contributions from some of the most influential academics in the field. Contributing to this festschrift are William Hardcastle, Janet Mackenzie Beck, Peter Ladefoged, John J. Ohala, F. Gibbon, Anne Cutler, Mirjam Broersma, Helen Fraser, Peter F. MacNeilage, Barbara L. Davis, R. E. Asher, E. L. Keane, G. J. Docherty, P. Foulkes, Janet Fletcher, Catherine Watson, John Local, Ailbhe Ní Chasaide, Christer Gobl, John H. Esling, Jimmy G. Harris, and Francis Nolan.

Author: Himanshu Prabha Ray
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317341295
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
This volume breaks new ground by conceptualizing landscape as a dynamic cultural complex in which the natural world and human practice are inextricably linked and are constantly interacting. It examines the social and cultural construction of space in the early medieval period in South Asia, as manifest in society, religious architecture and as shaped through trade and economic transactions.

Author: Chandrashekar B U
Publisher: Chandrashekar B U
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
A perspective that origins of ancient Gods of India are based on sky constellations The ancient Gods of India have been worshipped through several millennia and have infused faith, spirituality, and mystique in humankind. The Gods come fully equipped with their divine vehicles, weapons and elaborate belief systems. Billions of devotees all around the world follow many of these beliefs even in this present era. The puzzling belief systems generate wonder/curiosity, and they pose questions. Where is Mount Mēru, where the churning of the ocean occurred? From this churning arose Kāmadhēnu, the holy cow and the pot of Amrita. What signifies Amrita, the heavenly nectar? Where are Amrita and Kāmadhēnu now? Where did the book of Ayurveda originate from? Why do we see Lord Vishnu in a sleeping posture on the Giant serpent Ādishēsha & Lakshmi Devi floating in an ocean? Why are rivers holy? How did Ganga travel from Heaven to Earth? What is Akasha Ganga’s meaning? Why do we celebrate Basant Panchami by flying kites? Why are Shiva and Parvati represented together in iconography with a single body? Why is Akshaya Tritiya called so? Whom does Keerthimukha, the demon head depicted on the Gopura/peak of a temple entrance represent? What is the strange hybrid fish/ crocodile/ creature coming out of Keerthimukha’s mouth? What does the Nataraja dance posture indicate? Why is the Lord of wealth Kubēra not worshipped anymore? Why is Shiva wearing the moon on his head and associated with his drum, the Damaru? Why does Lakshmi have eight forms (Ashtalakshmi)? Why is Vishnu called Padmanābha, The Lord Who Has A Lotus Shaped Navel? What is Thōrana, the set of mango leaves tied together hanging on the top of Indian doors? How really did all these ancient Gods of India and belief systems originate? Did the Indians alone perceive it? Did the beliefs of ancient civilizations In the Indus valley, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc. have shared origins? Can some of these answers be found in Astronomy? Yes, read this book to find out further!

Author: Sita Anantha Raman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0429535686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
This book looks at the first eight Sanskrit law codes written in India, between 600 BCE and 570 ACE. It focuses on the legal, religious and ethical customs which were codified in this period and their impact on the social and political life of women. The volume analyzes texts such as the Dharma Sūtras, the Arthaśāstra, the Manu Smŗiti, the Yājňyavalkya Smŗiti, and Nārada Smŗiti, amongst others. It studies discourses on justice, conduct, virtues and duties, and how early laws were used to systematize patriarchy and the varna caste system in South Asia. It examines how patrimonial laws and male property rights highlighted social anxieties about female chastity and varna lineage, which led to the subordination of women and the lower varnas. These anxieties are most evident in codes from the late Vedic and early classical eras when diverse new settlers arrived upon the subcontinent. At this time, kings decentralized governance and allowed local groups to practice communal laws, while they meted out court justice with a specific law code. As the state became prosperous from trade conducted by merchants of diverse castes, sects, and classes, and social peace was ensured by officials from disparate backgrounds, kings began to rely upon a law code that aspired for equity above intolerance. These chapters examine heterodox Therāvada Buddhism and Jainism, their origins in the oligarchic state, their impact on the royal Sanskritic state, as seen in canonical literature. They especially focus on women’s roles in heterodox sects, and the emergence of new spaces for women, as such changes were adopted in disparate ways and degrees by other South Asian communities. The volume will be a useful resource for students and researchers of history, women and gender studies, social anthropology, sociology, and law. It will also serve as an information guide for readers who are interested in the political, and social life of women in early India