(The Table of
Contents is attached)
The Commentary Idioms of
the Tamil Learned Traditions.
Edited by Suganya
Anandakichenin and Victor D’Avella. Collection Indologie n° 141 / NETamil Series n° 5,
Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient / Institut Français de
Pondichéry, 2020, iv, 603 p.
Language: English, Tamil. Rs 1000 (43 EUR). ISBN:
978-81-8470-232-3 (IFP) / 978-2-85539-236-3 (EFEO).
About the book:
This volume presents several detailed studies of
the commentary traditions of South India with a particular
emphasis on Tamil, but extended to Sanskrit and Telugu as
well. The importance of commentaries for our understanding of
classical Indian languages and their literatures has long been
acknowledged, but rarely have the commentaries themselves,
especially minor ones, been the subject of systematic study.
Contributors to this volume begin to remedy this desideratum
in several ways. Some describe the specific methods employed
by particular commentators and offer translations of passages,
many of which have never before been rendered into English.
Others examine what impact ancient commentators have had on
the development of modern philological and lexicographical
tools. More broadly, the role of the commentary in textual
exegesis is taken up by several authors, and, in one case,
this has led to an extension of the very notion of a
commentary to include translation. This volume will serve as
an important reference point for further research into
commentarial traditions both in India and around the world.
About
the editors:
Suganya
Anandakichenin, a
postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for the Study of
Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg, specialises in the
Āḻvār bhakti poetry as well as Śrīvaiṣṇava Manipravalam
literature.
Victor
D’Avella is a
postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg, working
for the international project “Texts Surrounding Texts”
(ANR/DFG) and formerly part of the ERC-funded NETamil project.
His main area of interest is the linguistic and literary
traditions of India with a focus on Sanskrit, Tamil, and
Telugu.
Institut
Français de Pondichéry
(Library
and Publication Division)
P.
B. 33, 11, St. Louis Street,
Pondicherry-605001,
INDIA
Ph:
+91-413-2231660 / 661
E-mail:
library@ifpindia.org