review of the history of the holy servants of the lord siva- a translation of the periya purânam of...

8/11/2019 Review of the History of the Holy Servants of the Lord Siva- A Translation of the Periya Purânam of Cêkkilar

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117

acteristics (in order to borrow from each other, entities must be absolutely separate, pp. 21-22), and

then to reject the position because of those same characteristics. Ruegg's proposal is not helped by his

change of attitude about borrowing, first affirming its inadequacy (pp. 21-2 2), then its intermittent

application (p. 109), and then its complementarity to substratum theory (p. 113). Throughout, Ruegg

often relies

on

metaphysical formulae,

and it is

indicative

of his

procedure that, when

he

tries

to

refute

my own analysis of the structuralism I see inherent in his theory (p. 41 n. 65), he proliferates undefined

metaphysical entities, with the implication that somehow th ese previously unreferenced elem ents

should

all be

understood

by

learned scholars.

His

consistent invocation

of the

term sym biosis

is

similarly unclear (title,

x, xi, 1, 2, 5,

15, etc.); while there

are

ongoing conversations between biolo-

gists

on

symb iosis systems and mod els (e.g., Steven A. Frank, M odels

of

Symbiosis,

The American

Naturalist

150 [supplement] [1997], 580-99), Ruegg makes no reference

to

any discuss ion

of

empirical

biology and does not explore significantly his own metaphor.

Overall—despite the interesting observations made throughout the text—Ruegg's book is bur-

dened with grand metaphysics and is in need of a close shave with Oc cam 's razor, for it bristles with

unacknowledged suppositions and implied form ulae. Most distinctively, he proposes that we take

seriously

the

Buddhist theological position

of

worldly gods

as a

socio-historical fact,

a

difficult

ar-

gument at best. No tests of this paradigm or its falsification are possible, no quantification is imagin-

able,

and we are left to contemplate a metaphysical scheme without either a distinctive time or a

specific place. Consequently, the use of a theological model in social history provides liule sense that

the relationships of Buddhist to non-Buddhist traditions necessarily changed according to the vagaries

of history and the needs

of

individual com munities.

It is

inconceivable,

for

example, that monasteries

in Nagapattinam

in

eleventh-century South India would have

had the

same relationships

to

Hindu

cults that were evinced

by the

Buddha's immediate disciples

in

Magadha fifteen centuries before, irre-

spective of the theological strategies prom oted by the elite representatives cited by Ruegg. Indeed, it

may be pertinent to observe that the same qualities of theological and philosophical acumen formerly

displayed by Ruegg to such advantage in his extensive body of work on Buddhist doctrine are now

revealed here

to be

less app licable

in

socio-historical analysis. When

we

contrast R uegg's work w ith

the historically and geographically focused and finely tuned recent studies of Johannes Bronkhorst

Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India [Leiden: Brill, 2007]) or John Holt The

Buddhist Visnu: Religious Transformation, Politics, and Culture [New York: Colum bia Univ. Press,

2004]),

we see what can be achieved by well-defined micro studies of religious interactions.

RONALD DAVIDSON

FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY

The History of the Holy Servants of the Lord Siva: A Translation of the Periya Purânam of Cêkkilar.

By ALASTAIR MCGLASHAN. Victoria, British Columbia: TRAFFORD PUBLISHING, 2006. Pp. xii -i-

417, illus. $51.50 (cloth), $32.44 (paper).

With his new translation of the medieval Tamil Periyapurätiam, Alastair McGlashan has accom-

plished an admirable feat. Often called the national epic of the Tamils or the fifth Veda, the Peri-

yapurätiam ( The G reat Purana ) is a magnificent narrative poem of 4,281 stanzas (in the standard

edition by C. K. Cuppiramaniya Mutaliyar, Periyapurätiam enrium tiruttontar puratiam

[1

vols.],

Coimbatore, 1937ff.).

In its

complexity, literary perfection, multi-layered symbolism, and grand scale

it may be compared

to

Dante's

Commedia or

the

Roman de la Rose. A

key text

in the

history

of

Tamil

Saivism,

it is

also known

as the

Tiruttotitar puratiam

The

Purana

of the

Holy Servants,

or, if one

wanted

to

render

the

notoriously untranslatable term puratiam

The

History

of the

Holy Servants,



118 Journal of the Am erican Oriental Society 129.1 (2009)

and it remains one of the important

Saiva bhakti

texts of South India. The author of this massive

hagiography is generally know n as Cêkk ilâr and is believed to have lived during the reign of the Cola

king KulSttunka n (113 3-115 0 c.E.) and to have been connected in some way to the Cola court, perhaps

as a minister.

McGlashan's new translation of the

Periyapuranam

is the first full-length English translation (or

indeed translation into any W estern language) that can be read w ith profit and pleasure even by a non-

specialist audience. At a time when academics often have to produce their work according to fixed

time schedules, McGlashan's decision to take on a translation project of such magnitude, requiring

years of intensive work, com man ds our respect and gratitude. It is perhaps significant that M cGlashan

is not a full-time Tamil scholar, but, according to the book 's back cover, an Anglican priest, a Jungian

analyst and student of T amil, for whom this translation becam e a retirement project. Working his

way through over four thousand stanzas of complex Tamil poetry, McGlashan has boldly gone where

only one man has gone before. U ntil recently, the only full-length translation av ailable was T. N. Ram a-

chandran's two-volume 5i. Sekkizhaar s Periya Puranam (Thanjavur: Tamil University, 1990, 1995).

The word ava ilable should not be taken too literally here, since the publications of the Tamil Un i-

versity are hardly distributed outside of Thanjavur, and the last time I checked, a few years ago, volume

one was out of print with about a dozen copies of volume two remaining in the publication depart-

ment warehouse. Accessibility aside, Ramachandran's verse translation is often quite literal, tends to

pay close attention to textual details, and draws on his great authority as a scholar of Tamil Saivism,

so that it is useful for Tamil scholars when deciding how to interpret a certain passage. Its idiosyncratic

style, howev er, combined with a somew hat antiquated register of E nglish (using, e.g., behold,

verily, doth , spa ke, and thithe r ) can be confusing and difficult to follow for readers who do

not know the Tamil original. In comparison, McGlashan's elegant prose translation foregrounds nar-

rative coherence and comprehensibility. The differences between Ramachandran's and McGlashan's

approach are perhaps best illustrated by an example. The example will also show what kind of interpre-

tive difficulties arise when one tries to render the m edieval Tamil text into m odern E nglish. C onsider,

for instance, the very first stanza (quoted from Cuppiramaniya Mutaliyär's edition), for which I also

give my own rather literal translation:

ulake lämunarn tôtar kariyavan

nilavu läviya nirmali vëniyan

alakil cdtiya ijampalat

tätuvär

malarci lampati vältti vatiankuväm.

Let us praise and worship

the ankleted flowering feet

of the One who,

for all the world,

is difficult to know

and to speak of,

in whose matted locks

the moon roams

and the waters [of the Ganges] abound,

whose light is beyond measure,

and who dances in Chidambaram's Sacred Hall.

Ramachandran translates as follows: OMneity is He who is rare to be comprehended / And expressed

in words by all the worlds; / In His crest rest the crescent and the flood; / Limitless is His effulgence; /

He dances in the Ambalam . / We hail and adore His ankleted flower-feet (1990: 3). McG lashan

translates: In all the worlds, no one can comprehend or tell his greatness. In his matted hair he holds

the river Ganges and the crescent m oon. He shines the brightest of all heavenly lights, and dances in



Review s of Books 119

Natarâja temple in Chidam baram. Cresc ent instead of crescent mo on is unclear, though perhaps

this is just a typographical error. In contrast, McGlashan's version is straightforward, except perhaps

for two points: the insertion of the noun greatness, where it is Siva himself who is difficult to com-

prehend or to speak about, and the somewhat circumlocu tory he shines the brightest of all heavenly

lights for what literally means he whose light has no measu re. In terms of syntax, both Rama-

chandran and McGlashan chose a series of sentences to render the juxtaposition of nouns

ariyavan,

vêniyan, cötiyan,

and

äfuvän,

while I have tried to show in my translation that the entire stanza can

also be read as one single exhortative sentence. Ramachandran's and McGlashan's choice of smaller

syntactic units certainly makes for easier reading.

But there are further difficulties for the translator. For instance, the precise meaning of the first line

of the stanza is less straightforward than it may seem. One problem in translating the phrase

ulaku

elâm unarntu ötarku ariyavan

lies in the precise link between

unamtu

and

dtarku.

Most commentades

on the

Periyapurànam

I have consulted (K i. Va. Jakannätan,

eriya purâna vilakkam

[7

vols.],

Cennai,

1987ff.

vol. 1, pp. 46f.; A. Mänikkanär,

Periyapurànam: Mûlamum telivuraíyum

[6

vols.],

Cennai,

1995, vol. 1, p. 19; as well as Cuppiramaniya Mutaliyar,

Periyapurànam,

vol. 1, pp. Iff.; and A. Ca.

Ñánacampantao (ed.).

Tiruttontar puranam: Periyapurànam,

Cennai, 2000, pp.

123ff.

who both pro-

vide lengthy discussions of the phrase from a larger theological perspective) agree that one should

read

unarntu

as a simple coordination which would yield (something like) my translation above. Note,

however, that Va. Makâtêva Mutahyär in his

Periyapuräna äräycci

(Cennai, 1970, p. 21) seems to

interpret the vinaiyeccam

unarntu

as concessive, which would translate as the One difficult to speak

of, even though/if known to all the world. This is a technically possible

lectio difficilior,

but, as an

exception, it should be required more strongly by the context. Moreover, describing Siva as

not only

difficult to speak of

but also

to

comprehend

is a topos in Tamil Saiva literature. Both McGlashan's

and Ramachandran's versions correspond to this solution, though with different interpretations of

ulaku

elam,

which illustrates another problem atic feature of this phrase. With these uncertainties the text al-

most seems to re-enact its point, that it is difficult to speak of Siva. And this is only the first stanza.

Throughout the entire text there are innumerable difficulties and ambiguities awaiting the translator.

Given such challenges, McGlashan has to be commended for producing a translation of such high

quality throughout. T he only thing that strikes me as problema tic is the quite frequent simplification

or omission of métony mie expressions for Siva and other seemingly min or descriptive phrases or

individual words. For instance, the Lord who nurtures a young doe in his hand s (stanza 2210) simply

become s Lord Siva, and the Lord whose matted hair is adorned with the crescent moon (2214) is

simply the Lord. Then, with regard to descriptive phrases, in his translation of stanza 1043, As the

clouds floated across the sky, honey bees sw armed around the flowering trees in the woodland s. Their

branch es, set with buds and fragrant shoo ts, reached up to stroke the sun, McG lashan o mits the entire

last line

punanmalaiyo matumalaiyo polivoliyä püncölai.

Restoring this line, one could translate: As

dense crowds of trees are reaching up to stroke the sun's disk witb all / their thick branches surrounded

by fragrance and full of buds and tender shoots, / as heavy masses of clouds are slowly ddfting by, and

the joyful honey bees are swarming around, there are unending showers / now of water, now of pollen

in the flowering groves (lit. showe ring of either water-rain or pollen -rain ). Similar omissions are

found throughout, and they seem to me to impoverish somewhat the literary dimension of the trans-

lation. Perhaps these omissions could be restored in a future edition.

The book contains further valuable material which helps to contextualize the work: a map of

Southern India in the seventh century c.E.; an introduction; various illustrations of the

näyanmär;

appendices on the formation of Tamil names, on temples and temple worship, on the myths and ico-

nography of Siva, and on the chronology of the

näyanmär,

a bibliography; and an index of proper

names. All of this is very useful, but it has to be said that the introduction repeats rather uncritically

the

opinio communis

of Tamil Saivite believers without pointing to scholarly debates on, for instance,

the historical background of the text or the non-Tamil textual antecedents. Since Richard Weiss has

already discussed the problems of the introduction at some length in his review

Journal for the Royal



120

Journal of the American Oriental Society

129.1 (2009)

topic.

The Concept of vannanpu, Violent Love, in Tamil Saivism, with Special Reference to Peri-

yapurâtiam

[=

Uppsala Studies

in the

History

of

Religions, vol. 1] Upp sala 1995). Similarly absent

from

the

otherwise useful bibliography

are the

following works

to

mention only

the

literature

in

Western languages): Whitney M. Cox, Th e Transfiguration of Tinnan the Archer (Studies in Cek-

kilär's

Periya Puratiam

I),

¡ndo-Iranian Journal

48

(2005): 22 3-52 ; François Gros, Inépuisable

Periya Purânam: Sur

deux listes

et

soixante-douze manières

de

servir,

in Constructions hagio-

graphiques dans le monde indien: Entre mythe et histoire, ed. Françoise Mallison (Paris, 200 1: I9-

60); John

R.

Marr, Th e Folly

of

Righteousness: Episodes from the

Periya Pu rätiam, in The Indian

Narrative: Perspectives and Patterns, ed.

Christopher Shackle

and

Rupert Snell (Wiesbad en,

1992:

117-35); Anne E. Mon ius, Siva as Heroic Father: T heology and Hagiography in Medieval South

India,

Harvard Theological Review

97 (2004): 165-97; Indira V. Peterson, Tamil Saiva Hagiography:

The Narrative

of the

Holy Servants

of

Siva)

and the

Hagiographical Project

in

Tamil Saivism,

in

According to Tradition: Hagiographical Writing in India, ed Winand M. Callewaert

and

Rupert Snell

(Wiesbaden, 1994: 191-228);

and

Uthaya V eluppillai, Au service des serviteurs: L'ho spitalité dans

le

Periya Puräiiam, Bulletin d'études indiennes

21 (2003): 99-1 30;

ail of

which would allow

the

reader

to get a glimpse

of

the current scholarly debates surrounding the

Periyapuratxam.

Furthermore, although

diacritical marks

are

used

for

Tamil words throughout,

the

Tamil entries

in the

bibliography

are not

spelled consistently following

the Tamil Lexicon as is

claimed

on p. xi

(e.g., read Mänikkaväcakar

instead

of

Mänikkaväcakar

on p. 403, and on p. 405

Turaicam i P illai instead

of

Turaisami PiOai,

Nâyaomâr varalâru instead

of

Nâyanmâr varalaru,

and

Annâ malai University instead

of

Annâmalai-

nagar University).

In

general, scholars will find that

the

annotation McG Iashan p rovides

is

geared

towards non-specialists,

so

that they will still have

to

resort

to the

extensive comm entaries

by

Cup-

piramaniya Mutaliyâr

and

others

for

fine points

of

theological argument, linguistic ambiguities,

or

variant readings.

This being said, none

of my

observations here

is

meant

to

question

or

belittle McG lashan's

achievement.

His

new translation deserves

to be

read very widely,

by

anyone interested

in

Hinduism

or medieval Tamil literature. And

I

am sure that the book w ill contribute greatly

to

the popularization

of

an

important Tamil classic still

too

rarely appreciated

in the

English-speak ing world.

SASCHA EBELING

UNIVERSITY

OF

CHICAGO

The Battle for Ancient India: An Essay on the Sociopolitics of Indian Archaeology.

By

DILIP

K.

CHAKRABARTI.

Delhi:

ARYAN BOOKS,

2008. Pp. x + 173.

D ilip

K.

Chakrabarti

is

Professor

of

South Asian Archaeology

at

Cambridge University.

He has a

long list of publications including at least thirteen books and has been actively engaged in fieldwork

in northern India and Bangladesh

for

decades.

In

both theme and tone, the book under review follows

on

his

Colonial Archaeology: Sociopolitics and the Ancient Indian Past (1997)

and

Archaeology in

the Third World: A History of Indian Archaeology Since 1947

(2003).

As in

these books,

and

other

works,

the

author combatively takes

on

what

he

considers

to be

misrepresentations

of, or

wrong-

headed attitudes towards, ancient India. Western scholars

are the

focus

of his

criticism,

but

Chakra-

barti's Indian colleagues

do not all

escape unscathed.

It is not

that

we

have

the

same text

in

these

books, but the sets of issues that Chakrabarti addresses, and the manner in which he addresses them,

overlap;

and one

might indeed wonder

if

there was

a

need

for a

new book.

The book under review begins with the author's concern about migration theory in general and the

Indo-Aryan invasion

of the

sub-continent

in

particular.

In

more general terms Chakrabarti professes



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