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Print, Religion, and Canon in Colonial India: The publication of Ramalinga Adigal's Tiruvarutpa*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2014

RICHARD S. WEISS
RICHARD S. WEISS*
Affiliation:
Religious Studies Programme, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In India in the 1860s, print was becoming the primary medium for the reproduction of religious texts. The accessibility of print, and its ready uptake within a highly stratified and competitive religious landscape, had a significant effect on the ways in which groups contended for textual, and thus spiritual, authority. In 1867, the popular Tamil Shaiva mystic Ramalinga Adigal and his followers published Tiruvarutpa, a book of Ramalinga's poems that would help establish his reputation as a great Shaiva saint. Ramalinga and his disciples chose to publish the work in a form that shared the content and the material features of contemporaneous publications of Tamil classics, thereby claiming a place for his poems alongside the revered Shaiva canon. They showed an acute awareness that it was not solely the content of religious texts, but also the materiality of the printed object in which texts appeared, that sustained assertions for authority. This article argues that leaders on the margins of established centres of religious power in South India sought authority by exploiting the material aspects of print as the new medium of religious canons.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , May 2015 , pp. 650 - 677
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank V. Rajesh, Susann Liebich, and Ravi Vaitheespara for providing expert and critical comments on an earlier version of this paper.

References

1 Navalar's attack initiated a debate that continued at least into the 1980s. P. Saravanan has completed the arduous task of collecting the most important works of this debate, including Navalar's polemical text, in Pa. Caravaṇaṉ, Aruṭpā Maruṭpā: Kaṇṭaṉattiraṭṭu [Verses of Divine Grace, Verses of Delusion: A Collection of Condemnation Literature] (Nagarkovil: Kalaccuvatu Patippakam, 2010). I have not used diacritical marks in rendering Tamil personal names in the main text of this paper, but I have included diacritics in footnote references. Ramalinga's name appears in a variety of forms in different editions of Tiruvarutpa, so I have simplified these by using ‘Ramalinga Adigal’ as author for all editions, while retaining the original name cited in the extended titles for each work.

2 Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe, 2 volumes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)Google Scholar. See also Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, pp. 362–363.

4 Ibid, pp. 353–354.

5 For a critique of Eisenstein along these lines, see Pettegree, A. and Hall, M., ‘The Reformation and the Book: A Reconsideration’, Historical Journal 47, no. 4 (2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Walsham, Alexandra, ‘Preaching Without Speaking: Script, Print and Religious Dissent’, in Crick, Julia C. and Walsham, Alexandra (eds), The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 212Google Scholar. In the same volume, David d’Avray argues that Luther might have done very well without print. See David d’Avray, ‘Printing, Mass Communication, and Religious Reformation: The Middle Ages and After’, in Crick and Walsham (eds), The Uses of Script and Print.

7 On the reformulation of the Tamil literary canon at the end of the nineteenth century, see Venkatachalapathy, A. R., ‘The Making of a Canon: Literature in Colonial Tamilnadu’, in Venkatachalapathy, A. R., In Those Days There Was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

8 One exception is Stark, Ulrike, ‘Publishers as Patrons and the Commodification of Hindu Religious Texts in Nineteenth-Century North India’, in Pauwels, Heidi Rika Maria (ed.), Patronage and Popularisation, Pilgrimage and Procession: Channels of Transcultural Translation and Transmission in Early Modern South Asia; Papers in Honour of Monika Horstmann (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009)Google Scholar. Works that look at the impact of print on Islam in South Asia include: More, J. B. P., Muslim Identity, Print Culture, and the Dravidian Factor in Tamil Nadu (Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman, 2004)Google Scholar; Robinson, Francis, ‘Technology and Religious Change—Islam and the Impact of Print’, Modern Asian Studies 27, no. 1 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Perkins, C. Ryan, ‘From the Mehfil to the Printed Word: Public Debate and Discourse in Late Colonial India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 50, no. 1 (2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Long's data for works published between 1853 and 1867 show a greater diversity of content and genres than in the earlier period, but religious—and especially Hindu—works still represented a significant percentage of all titles published. See Roy, Tapti, ‘Disciplining the Printed Text: Colonial and Nationalist Surveillance of Bengali Literature’, in Chatterjee, Partha (ed.), Texts of Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp. 39, 51Google Scholar.

10 About 38 per cent of the total were Christian, and 2 per cent were Islamic. Murdoch, John, Classified Catalogue of Tamil Printed Books, with Introductory Notices (Madras: The Christian Vernacular Education Society, 1865), Preface, p. vGoogle Scholar.

11 Charri, V. Kristnama, Return of the Publications Registered in the Madras Presidency During the Year 1875 (Madras: Madras Government, 1876), pp. 73, 75Google Scholar.

12 Murdoch, Classified Catalogue of Tamil Printed Books, p. 81. Octavo, or 8vo, or is about eight by ten inches, or 20cm x 25cm.

13 All translations from Tamil are my own. Mutaliyār, Kāñcipuram Capāpati (ed.), Periya Purāṇam (Chennai: Kalvi Vilakka Press, 1859), Vol. 1, title pageGoogle Scholar. The Kalvi Vilakka Press played a significant role in the publication of Tamil classics. See V. Rajesh, ‘The Reproduction and Reception of Classical Tamil Literature in Colonial Tamilnadu, 1800–1920’, PhD thesis, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, 2010, pp. 112–116.

14 Kamil Zvelebil places Ramalinga in the lineage of Kancipuram Sabhapati Mudaliyar, but I have not yet come across evidence that Mudaliyar taught Ramalinga, and unfortunately Zvelebil does not cite a source for his claim. See Zvelebil, Kamil, Companion Studies to the History of Tamil Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1992), p. 262Google Scholar.

15 Mutaliyār, Periya Purāṇam.

16 Murdoch, Classified Catalogue of Tamil Printed Books, p. 118. There were 16 annas in a rupee, and 12 pies in an anna. Octodecimo size, or 18 mo, is about four by six inches, or 10 cm x 15 cm.

17 Blackburn, Stuart H., Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003), p. 90Google Scholar.

18 Stark, Ulrike, An Empire of Books: The Naval Kishore Press and the Diffusion of the Printed Word in Colonial India (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2007), p. 11. Italics in originalGoogle Scholar.

19 This does not mean that all printed works were simply accepted as authoritative. As Adrian Johns has shown, printed works have not always been associated with veracity, let alone canonicity, and the association of print with truth develops through specific histories. Johns, Adrian, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The great Tamil poet-scholar Minakshisundaram Pillai (1815–1876) expressed misgivings about print, warning his star pupil U. V. Swaminatha Iyer that, ‘Print does not validate everything. People who are not proficient in the [Tamil] language may print anything.’ Quoted in Venkatachalapathy, A. R., ‘Reading Practices and Modes of Reading in Colonial Tamil Nadu’, Studies in History 10, no. 2 (1994), p. 275CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 There are many biographies of Ramalinga's life. The earliest account with details of his life is Toluvur Velayuda Mudaliyar's ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, which was appended to Ramalinga's verses in the 1867 publication of Tiruvarutpa. R. Ilakkuvan guided me in the reading of this difficult work. Mutaliyār, Toḻuvūr Vēlāyuta, ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, in Mutaliyār, Toḻuvūr Vēlāyuta (ed.), Citamparam Irāmaliṅkapiḷḷai Avarkaḷ Tiruvāymalarntaruḷiyatiruvaruṭpā (Madras: Asiatic Press, 1867)Google Scholar. The most authoritative of recent biographies is that of Uran Adigal. Aṭikaḷ, Ūraṉ, Irāmaliṅka Aṭikaḷ Varalāṟu[Biography of Ramalinga Adigal], 3rd edition (Vadalur: Samarasa Sanmarga Araycchi Nilayam, 2006)Google Scholar.

21 Vēlāyuta Mutaliyār, ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, verse 4. A. R. Venkatachalapathy notes that Ramalinga's detractors would frequently call him ‘Kanakku Iramalingam’, or ‘Calculation Ramalinga’, to stress that his caste status was lower than that of the Vellalar castes that dominate established Shaiva institutions in South India. Vēṅkaṭācalapati, Ā. Irā, ‘“Tappai Oppeṉṟu Tāpittalum, Oppait Tappeṉṟu Vātittalum”; Tamiḻil Kaṇṭaṉa Ilakkiyam [“Establishing Wrong as Right, and Arguing That Right Is Wrong”: Condemnation Literature in Tamil]’, in Pa. Caravaṇaṉ (ed.), Aruṭpā Maruṭpā, p. 36Google Scholar.

22 Āṟumuka Nāvalar (under the name of Māvaṇṭūr Tiyākēca Mutaliyār), ‘Pōliyaruṭpā Maṟuppu [Critique of the Pseudo-Divine Verses]’, in Pa. Caravaṇaṉ (ed.), Aruṭpā Maruṭpā.

23 Ramalinga's verses, which would come to form Tiruvarutpa, were published in three instalments—the first in 1867, the second in 1880, and the last in 1885. Uran Adigal gives a useful sketch of the publication of these three volumes in his introduction to his edition of Tiruvarutpa. Aṭikaḷ, Ūraṉ (ed.), ‘Introduction’, in Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpirakācavaḷḷalār Irāmaliṅka Aṭikaḷ Aruḷiya Tiru Aruṭpā (Vadalur, India: Samaraca Sanmarga Araycci Nilayam, 1972), pp. 43–53Google Scholar.

24 Stock, Brian, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 3Google Scholar.

25 Ibid, p. 90.

26 Adigal, Ramalinga, Citamparam Irāmaliṅka Cuvāmikaḷ Tiruvāymalarntaruḷiya Tiru Aruṭpā, ed. Piḷḷai, Ā. Pālakiruṣṇa, 2nd edition, 12 volumes (Chennai: Nam Tamilar Patippakam, 2010), Vol. 5Google Scholar.

27 Ibid, Vol. 5, p. 30.

28 Ibid, Vol. 5, pp. 31–32. The verse is from the poem ‘Tiruvaruṇmuṟaiyīṭu’ in Adigal, Ramalinga, Citamparam Irāmaliṅkapiḷḷai Avarkaḷ Tiruvāymalarntaruḷiya Tiruvaruṭpā, ed. Mutaliyār, Toḻuvūr Vēlāyuta (Madras: Asiatic Press, 1867), Tirumurai 1, p. 123Google Scholar. This is verse number 2260 in Uran Adigal's edition.

29 See Uran Adigal's introduction to his edition of Tiruvarutpa. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Uran Adigal edition], pp. 58–62.

30 Vēlāyuta Mutaliyār, ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, verse 43; Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Uran Adigal edition], p. 59.

31 See, for example, the images of Ramalinga's handwritten verses in Uran Adigal's introduction to his edition of Tiruvarutpa. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Uran Adigal edition].

32 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Balakrishna Pillai edition], Vol. 5, pp. 38–39.

33 Ibid, Vol. 5, p. 39.

34 Ibid

35 Ibid.

36 Vēlāyuta Mutaliyār, ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, verses 46–48.

37 Ibid, verses 48–53, p. 57.

38 Cited in Uran Adigal's introduction to his edition of Tiruvarutpa. See Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Uran Adigal edition], p. 45.

39 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Balakrishna Pillai edition], Vol. 9, pp. 136, 169.

40 Murdoch, Classified Catalogue of Tamil Printed Books, p. xlii.

41 Quoted in Roy, ‘Disciplining the Printed Text’, p. 55.

42 Copies of the 1867 edition are extant. I consulted a copy held by the Maraimalai Adigal Library in Chennai.

43 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Balakrishna Pillai edition], Vol. 5, pp. 59–60.

44 See, for example, Sivagnanam, Dr Ma. Po., The Universal Vision of Saint Ramalinga, Vallalar Kanda Orumaippadu, trans. Ganapathy, R. (Annamalainagar: Annamalai University, 1987), p. 136Google Scholar.

45 A Balakrishna Pillai notes that we know nothing about this verse preface that Ramalinga promised. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Balakrishna Pillai edition], Vol. 5, p. 61.

46 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], title page.

47 Ibid. ‘Asiatic Press’ is a popular name for presses in India, and indeed throughout Asia, from the nineteenth century to the present day. I was not able to find specific information on this Chennai-based ‘Asiatic Press’, but at least a few other Tamil works were published by an Asiatic Press in Chennai at the time, including: Teraiyar's Nīrniṟakkuṟi Neykkuṟic Cāstiraṅkaḷ, ed. Kanci Sabhapati Mudaliyar (Chennai, 1868); Pillai, Minakshisundaram's Tirunākaikkārōṇap Purāṇam (Chennai, 1869)Google Scholar; Pillai, Vedanayagam's Peṇmatimālaiyum Peṇkalviyum Peṇmāṇamum, 2nd edition (Chennai, 1870)Google Scholar; and Tiruvōṟṟiyūr Purāṇam (Madras, 1869). This last work was cited in Shulman, David, ‘The Enemy Within: Idealism and Dissent in South Indian Hinduism’, in Eisenstadt, S. N., Kahane, Reuven and Shulman, David Dean (eds), Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy, and Dissent in India (Berlin: Mouton, 1984), p. 54Google Scholar. If all of these books were indeed published by the same Asiatic Press, it would indicate that the Press did not adhere to a single ideological or sectarian position, since these works include a siddhar text; a conventional temple puranam composed by perhaps the most celebrated Tamil poet-scholar of the nineteenth century; and a work on women's reform by a well-known Christian poet and author.

48 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], front matter.

49 Stark, ‘Publishers as Patrons’, pp. 193–194.

50 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], front matter.

51 For a poignant account of the efforts of authors to win patronage, see Venkatachalapathy, A. R., The Province of the Book: Scholars, Scribes and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu (Ranikhet, India: Permanent Black, 2012). On p. 33Google Scholar, Venkatachalapathy specifically describes the prominent role of Chettiyars in the publication of Tamil classics.

52 Murdoch, Classified Catalogue of Tamil Printed Books, pp. 75–106.

53 The Tēvāram is a collection of devotional verses to Shiva that is the earliest and probably the most important part of the Shaiva Tirumurai canon.

54 Cited in Roy, ‘Disciplining the Printed Text’, p. 44.

55 Darnton, Robert, ‘Book Production in British India, 1850–1900’, Book History 5, no. 1 (2002), p. 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Other works from this period that I have seen marked as copyright are the Periya Purāṇam and part of the Tēvāram. Mutaliyār, Periya Purāṇam; Mutaliyār, Kāñcipuram Capāpati (ed.), Tirunāvukkaracucuvāmikaḷ Aruḷicceyta Tēvārappatikattirumuṟaikaḷ(Chennai: Kalaniti Press; Kalaratnacuram Press, 1866)Google Scholar.

57 Murdoch, Classified Catalogue of Tamil Printed Books, p. lxii. See also A. R. Venkatachalapathy's discussion of copyright in Tamil publishing in his The Province of the Book, pp. 184–187.

58 Vēlāyuta Mutaliyār, ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, verse 57.

59 Velayuda Mudaliyar includes these details in an account of Ramalinga's life that he wrote for a Theosophical publication, Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. This is reproduced in Ūraṉ Aṭikaḷ, Irāmaliṅka Aṭikaḷ Varalāṟu, pp. 648–660. Srilata Raman gives a detailed analysis of Velayuda Mudaliyar's work in Srilata Raman, ‘Departure and Prophecy: The Disappearance of Irāmaliṅka Aṭikaḷ in the Early Narratives of His Life’, Indologica Taurinensia 28 (2002). For a brief biography of Mudaliyar, see Cāminātaiyar, U. Vē, Piṟkālap Pulavarkaḷ[Latter-Day Poets], ed. Vaittiyanātaṉ, Ec. (Chennai: U. V. Saminatha Iyer Library, 2000), p. 288Google Scholar.

60 On the role of pandits in nineteenth-century Tamil publishing, see Blackburn's chapter ‘Pundits, Publishing and Protest’, in Blackburn, Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India, pp. 73–124. On pandits, patronage, and printing, see Rajesh, ‘The Reproduction and Reception of Classical Tamil Literature’; Venkatachalapathy, The Province of the Book.

61 Blackburn, Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India, pp. 74–75. On the role of Tamil pandits in the philological work of the College of Fort St George, see Trautmann, Thomas R., Languages and Nations: The Dravidian Proof in Colonial Madras (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006)Google Scholar; and Trautmann, Thomas R. (ed.), The Madras School of Orientalism: Producing Knowledge in Colonial South India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

62 Cāminātaiyar, Piṟkālap Pulavarkaḷ, p. 145.

63 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition].

64 Venkatachalapathy, The Province of the Book, pp. 28–29.

65 Prentiss, Karen Pechilis, The Embodiment of Bhakti (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 143–144Google Scholar; Peterson, Indira Viswanathan, Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Vēlāyuta Mutaliyār, ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, verses 37–39. Uran Adigal reads these three verses differently than I do, linking the six Tirumurai to the six syllables [ōm civāya nama], to the six religious systems, and to the six paths of liberation. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Uran Adigal edition], p. 43.

67 Indira Peterson translates Tirumurai as ‘sacred tradition’. Peterson, Poems to Siva, p. 15.

68 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], title page.

69 In his ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, Velayuda Mudaliyar frequently refers to Ramalinga as ‘aruṭpirakāca’ (‘radiant with grace’). Vēlāyuta Mutaliyār, ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, verses 28, 33, 34, 42, 56, 60, 61.

70 Ibid, verses 34, 35, 36.

71 Āṟumuka Nāvalar, ‘Pōliyaruṭpā Maṟuppu [Critique of the Pseudo-Divine Verses]’.

72 On ciṟappuppāyiram (‘special preface’) conventions in the nineteenth century, see Ebeling, Sascha, Colonizing the Realm of Words: The Transformation of Tamil Literature in Nineteenth-Century South India (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010), pp. 62–73Google Scholar.

73 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], front matter.

74 Ūraṉ Aṭikaḷ, Irāmaliṅka Aṭikaḷ Varalāṟu. This book won a prize from the Tamil Nadu government in 1975, presented by DMK Chief Minister K. M. Karunanidhi. There is a certain irony in the DMK, the main Dravidianist party, with a history of anti-Hindu agitation, presenting an award for a biography of a Hindu leader. Ramalinga, however, has long been accepted by Dravidianist political leaders because of his anti-caste verses. See Caravaṇaṉ, Pa., Vāḻaiyaṭi Vāḻaiyeṉa. . .Vaḷḷalār Kaṟṟatum Vaḷḷalāril Peṟṟatum[At the Base of a Plantain Tree, a Plantain: The Teachings of Vallalar and His Heritage] (Chennai: Cantiya Patippakam, 2009), pp. 13–26Google Scholar.

75 Ūraṉ Aṭikaḷ, Irāmaliṅka Aṭikaḷ Varalāṟu, pp. 303–304.

76 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], Tirumurai 2, p. 141.

77 Āṟumuka Nāvalar, ‘Pōliyaruṭpā Maṟuppu [Critique of the Pseudo-Divine Verses]’.

78 Madras Mail, 5 July 1871, p. 3.

79 See especially the poems that were specifically addressed to the Nālvar. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], Tirumurai 4, pp. 33–38.

80 Āṟumuka Nāvalar, ‘Pōliyaruṭpā Maṟuppu [Critique of the Pseudo-Divine Verses]’.

81 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], back matter.

82 There is no date for this letter, but it is likely that it was written in 1866. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Balakrishna Pillai edition], Vol. 5, p. 85.

83 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition]. Later editions of Tiruvarutpa diverge from the ordering of verses in the first edition. A. Balakrishna Pillai's edition mostly follows Velayuda Mudaliyar's ordering, but reversed the fourth and fifth Tirumurai, and added six volumes of other writings not included in the original publications, including prose works, letters, and scattered verses. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Balakrishna Pillai edition]. Uran Adikal, in his 1972 edition, attempted to order the verses chronologically by matching verses to details of Ramalinga's biography. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Uran Adigal edition]. Auvai C. Duraisami Pillai, in his 1980s edition with commentary, followed Uran Adikal's arrangement of verses. Adigal, Ramalinga, Tiruvaruṭpā Mūlamum Uraiyum, ed. Piḷḷai, Auvai Cu. Turaicāmi, 10 volumes (Chidambaram: Annamalai University, 1988)Google Scholar. On the various editions of Tiruvarutpa, see Uran Adigal's introduction in Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Uran Adigal edition], pp. 52–58. Also see the useful overview by Caravaṇaṉ, Pa., Navīna Nōkkil Vaḷḷalār[A New Perspective on Vallalar] (Nagarkovil: Kalaccuvatu Patippakam, 2010), pp. 216–232Google Scholar.

84 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], front matter. For commentary, see Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [Duraisami Pillai edition], Vol. 4, p. 201. In the latter volume, the verse appears as the first verse of the third Tirumurai, and number 1959 of the collection.

85 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], p. 1.

86 Annamalai, S. P., The Life and Teachings of Saint Ramalingar, 2nd edition (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1988), pp. 36–38Google Scholar. On the literary virtuosity of Minakshisundaram Pillai, see Ebeling, Colonizing the Realm of Words.

87 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], Tirumurai 2, p. 15. I was helped in my translations by the commentary of Duraisami Pillai. See Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [Duraisami Pillai edition], Vol. 2, verse 653.

88 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], Tirumurai 1, p. 118; Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [Duraisami Pillai edition], Vol. 6, verse 2218.

89 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], Tirumurai 4, p. 21; Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [Duraisami Pillai edition], Vol. 8, verse 3162.

90 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], Tirumurai 4, pp. 33–38.

91 Tamil prose was emerging at the time as a literary form and as a form of religious communication, and Ramalinga himself used prose to communicate with his followers. In Shaiva contexts, prose was used as a form of communication between co-religionists, or to enter into a debate with one's adversaries, but not as speech addressed to Shiva.

92 On prosody in the Tēvāram, see Peterson, Poems to Siva.

93 Ramalinga Adigal, Tiru Aruṭpā [Balakrishna Pillai edition], Vol. 5, pp. 59–60.

94 Adigal, Ramalinga, Tiruvaruṭpā Tiruttaṇikai Patikam (Madras: Memorial Press, 1880)Google Scholar.

95 Gros also notes the influence of the Tēvāram on Ramalinga. Gros, François, ‘Towards Reading the Tēvāram’, in Kannan, M. and Clare, Jennifer (eds), Deep Rivers: Selected Writings on Tamil Literature (Pondicherry; Berkeley: Institut Francais De PondicheryGoogle Scholar; Tamil Chair, Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, 2009), pp. 213, 216.

96 One exception is a verse of the poem ‘Civanēca Veṉpā’, in which Ramalinga praises Shiva for cutting through the shackles of caste and bringing light to the world. However, this verse lacks the radical message of social change of the verses in the sixth Tirumurai. Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [1867 edition], Tirumurai 1, p. 84; Ramalinga Adigal, Tiruvaruṭpā [Duraisami Pillai edition], Vol. 5, verse 1972.

97 Adigal, Ramalinga, Citamparam Irāmaliṅkacuvāmikaḷ Tiruvāymalarntaruḷiya Tiruvaruṭpā, Āṟāvatu Tirumuṟai (Madras: Authikalanithi Press, 1885)Google Scholar.

98 Vēlāyuta Mutaliyār, ‘Tiruvaruṭpā Varalāṟu’, verse 45.

99 The exception is the Tirumantiram of Tirumular, but this work is very different from the work of other siddhar poems.