Passages: Relationships Between Tamil And Sanskrit.

Edited by Kannan M., Jennifer Clare, IFP / Tamil Chair, DSSEAS, University of California (Berkeley), IFP - Publications Hors série n° 11, 2009, xxxvi, 380 p.
Language: English (except 1 article in Tamil). 700 Rs ( 30 €)
ISBN: 978-81-8470-176-0

This volume is the outcome, independent, extended and enlarged, of an international conference, "Affinities and Oppositions: Relationship Between Tamil and Sanskrit" held on September 12th-14th, 2007 at the French Institute of Pondicherry.

The history of South Asia is in a large measure the story of the interaction of the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages and their cultures. These two families have been in close contact at least since the times of the Rg Veda – about 1500 BCE – and have borrowed so much from one another that it is often impossible to determine which is source. All the articles presented in this book offer testimony to the plurality, multiculturalism, multilingualism, bilingualism which has animated the two living classical languages of India; parallel streams which have gone on influencing and nourishing each other throughout the centuries. These testimonies provide some lessons and questions for the present younger generation of students and scholars on both sides.

Keywords: Tamil literature, Sanskrit literature, Indian literature, South Asian studies, comparative literature