Buddhism and Tamil
$87.14
- Paperback
152 pages
- Release Date
27 August 2026
Summary
First published in 1940, Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy’s Buddhism and Tamil was one of the pioneering attempts to trace the history of Buddhism in the Tamil country. With judicious exploitation of archaeological, linguistic, and historical sources, Venkatasamy delineates how Buddhism flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 13th century CE and traces its residual presence in contemporary Tamil culture. The book challenges the then-prevalent belief that Tamil is synonymous with Saivism and problematises the simplistic understanding that Hinduism had always been the religion of India. Venkatasamy’s stylistic and literary analysis of Pali and Tamil texts, his careful study of inscriptions, and his extensive fieldwork identify the role of Buddhism in shaping the language, literature, and ethics of Tamil society.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781032482293 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 103248229X |
| Author: | Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy, S. Thillainayagam, Aadhavan Pazhani, G. Udhayaraj |
| Publisher: | Taylor & Francis Ltd |
| Imprint: | Routledge |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 152 |
| Release Date: | 27 August 2026 |
| Weight: | 310g |
| Dimensions: | 152mm x 229mm |
Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy
Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy (1900-1980) was a prominent Tamil scholar known for his interdisciplinary research in history, literature, and religion. Some of his renowned works include:
- Christianity and Tamil (1936)
- Samanam and Tamil (1954)
- Tamil Literature in the Nineteenth Century (1962)
- History of the Kongu Region (1974)
- Tamil Country under the reign of the Kalabhras (1976)
In honour of his contributions to Tamil Studies, the Tamil Nadu government nationalised his works in 2000.
S. Thillainayagam is a retired professor of English. He has authored a book containing precise and easy-to-understand meanings for Thirukural couplets in Tamil and English. His other works include editing Sundara Ramasamy’s Selected Essays and translating Vallikannan’s Tamil Prose after Bharathi (Routledge). He has several Tamil to English translations to his credit. His translation of Pichamurthy’s Selected Short Stories received the Nalli-Thisai Ettum Award for the best Tamil to English translation of the year 2019. He is the recipient of the A. Muttulingam Translation Award 2024 for his contributions to Tamil to English translation.
Aadhavan Pazhani is a doctoral candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London, researching the emergence of modern Tamil prose and the novel in nineteenth-century Colonial Tamil Nadu. His writings and translations in English and Tamil have appeared in various publications. He is currently editing a volume of Stalin Rajangam’s translated essays in English.
G. Udhayaraj is Assistant Professor of English at Madras Christian College. Specialising in New Historicism, regional literature, and translation, he is pursuing his PhD in the cross-cultural study of Enlightenment.
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