Book Review: An Update on AIT (Part 1)

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

Sumathi Ramaswamy says,

 <First, although it has been transformed into a subject of sustained 
devotion fairly recently, Tamil attracted praise from at least the second 
half of the first millennium C.E. But much of this praise was episodic, 
scattered, even oblique. The language was rarely the primary subject of such 
eulogies, for the fundamental concern of even its most ardent admirer was 
with ensuring the literary worth of its poetry, or the salvational potential 
of its hymns, rather than with Tamil per se..> p. 10

But, having included neo-Shaivites (who consider both Tamil and zaivism as 
important) among her subject of study, Ramaswamy has no basis to dismiss 
those instances where Tamil was not the primary subject of prais, if she 
wants to be consistent. 

Let us look at the real role of Tamil in Tamil zaivism. 

An analysis of the works of Tamil zaivite saints shows how conscious they 
were of their Tamil identity. Consider the following  translation of a hymn 
from page 50 of "Poems to ziva" by Indira Petersen.

<Moved by intense love for ziva
JAn2acampantan2, the Tamil poet

  
worships in song
the Lord who dwells in ArUr 
.
He who can recite these ten verses
and listen to them
will wipe his life clean of sorrow.       campantar 1.105.11> 

Note how the saint, campantar, identifies himself as a Tamil poet. This is 
not a sporadic occurrence. He does it many times. In fact, verse 1922 from 
periyapurANam (12th century) describes some of the reasons for campantar's 
birth to be that the southern direction would exceed others in fame, and 
Tamil usage will triumph over that of other language/s.

Another verse, periyapurANam 1942, calls campantar as the leader who was born 
so that the zaivite canon and Tamil will flourish (" tirumuRaiyum tIm tamizum 
ciRakkavaru nAyakan2") 

On Tamil zaivite hymns, Indira Petersen says,
<The power of the saints songs has indeed moved generations of Tamil zaivas 
to treasure and to love them, to know and sing and listen to them. The 
sequence of identifications made by the poet-saints, that love of ziva is the 
love of Tamil places, Tamil landscapes, the Tamil language and music, ends 
with the inclusion of the tEvAram hymns, the songs of the nAyan2Ars, as the 
final element. The text becomes a symbol for the bhakti experience in its 
entirety: Love of the tEvAram hymns is love of ziva. > (Petersen, p. 50)

Regards
S. Palaniappan