10/13/201010/13/2010

10/13/201010/13/2010

Poet, translator, folklorist, A. K. Ramanujan has been recognized as the world's most profund scholar of South Asian language and culture. This book brings together for the first time thirty essays on literature and culture written by him over a period of four decades. It is the product of the collaborative effort of a number of Ramanujan's colleagues and friends. The four sections - General Essays on Literature and Culture, Essays on Classical Literatures, Essays on Bhakti and Modern Poetry and Essays on Folklore - are each prefaced by a brief critical introduction. The volume also contains notes on each essay included here, as well as a chronology of Ramanujan's books and essays.

Translations based on: Ettuttokai; Pattuppattu; and Tolkappiyam."

How is it that this woman's breasts glimmer so clearly through her saree? Can't you guess, my friends? What are they but rays from the crescents left by the nails of her lover pressing her in his passion, rays now luminous as the moonlight of a summer night?
These South Indian devotional poems show the dramatic use of erotic language to express a religious vision. Written by men during the fifteenth to eighteenth century, the poems adopt a female voice, the voice of a courtesan addressing her customer. That customer, it turns out, is the deity, whom the courtesan teases for his infidelities and cajoles into paying her more money. Brazen, autonomous, fully at home in her body, she merges her worldly knowledge with the deity's transcendent power in the act of making love.
This volume is the first substantial collection in English of these Telugu writings, which are still part of the standard repertoire of songs used by classical South Indian dancers. A foreword provides context for the poems, investigating their religious, cultural, and historical significance. Explored, too, are the attempts to contain their explicit eroticism by various apologetic and rationalizing devices.
The translators, who are poets as well as highly respected scholars, render the poems with intelligence and tenderness. Unusual for their combination of overt eroticism and devotion to God, these poems are a delight to read.