Love In Sanskrit And Tamil Literature

A Major Activity Of The Sahitya Akademi Is The Preparation Of An Encyclopaedia Of Indian Literature. The Venture, Covering Twenty-Two Languages Of India, Is The First Of Its Kind. Written In English, The Encyclopaedia Gives A Comprehensive Idea Of The Growth And Development Of Indian Literature. The Entries On Authors, Books And General Topics Have Been Tabulated By The Concerned Advisory Boards And Finalised By A Steering Committee. Hundreds Of Writers All Over The Country Contributed Articles On Various Topics. The Encyclopaedia, Planned As A Six-Volume Project, Has Been Brought Out. The Sahitya Akademi Embarked Upon This Project In Right Earnest In 1984. The Efforts Of The Highly Skilled And Professional Editorial Staff Started Showing Results And The First Volume Was Brought Out In 1987. The Second Volume Was Brought Out In 1988, The Third In 1989, The Fourth In 1991, The Fifth In 1992, And The Sixth Volume In 1994. All The Six Volumes Together Include Approximately 7500 Entries On Various Topics, Literary Trends And Movements, Eminent Authors And Significant Works. The First Three Volume Were Edited By Prof. Amaresh Datta, Fourth And Fifth Volume By Mohan Lal And Sixth Volume By Shri K.C.Dutt.

Love, as a force in human affairs, is still not given much attention or credency by social scientists. With Notes on Love in a Tamil Family, Margaret Trawick places the notion of love prominently in social scientific discourse. Her unforgettable and profusely illustrated study is a significant contribution to anthropology and to South Asian studies. Trawick lived for a time in the midst of one large South Indian family and sought to understand the multiple and mutually shared expressions of anpu--what in English we call love. Often enveloping the author herself, changing her as she inevitably changed her hosts, this family performed before the young anthropologist's eyes the meaning of anpu: through poetry and conversation, through the not always gentle raising of children, through the weaving of kinship tapestries, through erotic exchanges among women, among men, and across the great sexual boundary. She communicates with grace and insight what she learned from this Tamil family, and we discover that love is no less universal than selfishness and individualism.

This is the first complete English translation of an important work of Tamil poetics. Composed in southern India around the eighth century CE, this is a commentary structured around 60 verses of uncertain origin on the poetry of love. The commentary also includes hundreds of illustrative poems drawn from various Tamil literary periods ranging from the very earliest through the eighth century.