Comparative Religion

The Purūravac-cakkiravartti-katai (PCK), " The Story of Emperor Purūravas, " is a pre-modern Tamil folk telling of the ancient Urvaśī-Purūravas legend. The classical narrative of King Purūravas of the Lunar Dynasty tells about his love affair with the celestial nymph Urvaśī, their tragic separation, and final reunion. The PCK follows the classical narrative closely, but interposes a long account of other exploits of Purūravas, which do not appear in any of the Sanskrit tellings of the story. In this supplement, which I call " The Tamil Life of Purūravas, " Purūravas faces a tragic chain of unavoidable events, but eventually restores his former status through meditation and devotion. A comparative examination of the two parts of the text, that is, the classical narrative and the Tamil Life, shows that the latter generates an inverted mirror image of the fundamental notions implied in the classical narrative. The outcome of this structure is a shift in the ideological tendencies of the narrative toward a local ethos and popular religious notions. The PCK is thus shown to be a field of cultural negotiations, in which opposing ideologies contend for superiority, and its structure can be regarded as a transformative mechanism applied by local and popular cultural forms to enable appropriation of classical narrative traditions.

Alterman’s Poems of the Plagues of Egypt (Shirei Makot Mitzraim) is an
enigmatic work, in which surreal, archetypal characters are positioned in
terrible circumstances. An amalgamation of chaos and cruel determinism, the poem raises questions of faith and justice, and the answer is a riddle; a lament and a smile.
This paper examines Poems of the Plagues of Egypt as a tragic adaptation of the mythological narrative of the ten biblical plagues. The protagonist of this adaptation is the father, preparing his son for the latter’s foreknown but inevitable death by the last plague. The suggested interpretation views this work as a modern tragedy that is concerned with religious faith in times of crisis, inspired by the events of the Second World War.

הפואמה "שירי מכות מצרים" היא יצירה חידתית שבה דמויות ארכיטיפיות, תלושות
מכל מציאות, נטועות בלב התרחשות נוראה אך בעלת יופי קסום. מתוך התנועה
הפואטית בין כאוס לדטרמיניזם אכזר עולות שאלות של צדק ושל אמונה, והתשובה
היא חידה; היא בכי והיא חיוך. מאמר זה מציע לקרוא את היצירה כעיבוד טרגי לנרטיב
המיתולוגי של מכות מצרים, שגיבורו הוא האב המכין את בנו אל מותו הבלתי נמנע
במכה האחרונה. מנקודת המבט הזו, התמה העומדת במרכז "שירי מכות מצרים"
היא שאלת האמונה הדתית בעת חורבן, על רקע מאורעות מלחמת העולם השנייה.

The Purūrava-caritai ('The Adventures of Purūravas') is an unstudied sixteenth-century Tamil adaptation of the famous Vedic legend of Purūravas, which introduces an extensive addition to the original story. One episode within this supplement narrates a trial by fire gone through by the protagonist's wife, which draws heavily on a similar episode from the Rāmāyaṇa epic, both in Vālmīki's classical Sanskrit version and in Kampaṉ's twelfth-century Tamil retelling. This article sheds new light on the ways in which classical literary gender roles and gender models were reimagined in premodern south India. I argue that the re-articulation of the epic fire-ordeal in the Purūrava-caritai is a critical reflection on the feminine model that the Rāmāyaṇa heroine, Sītā, represents. I show that, through a synthesis of classical and folk motifs, the author has created an implicit intertextual dialogue that concludes with a complex matrix of values of 'proper' femininity and 'true' divinity.

The Ñāna-vāciṭṭam is an unstudied seventeenth-century Tamil translation of the Laghu-yoga-vāsiṣṭha, itself an abridged version of the Sanskrit masterpiece Mokṣopāya. This article is a preliminary study of the translation strategies of the Ñāna-vāciṭṭam. I focus on one narrative section from the Ñāna-vāciṭṭam and its relation to the Sanskrit source, and demonstrate that the translator introduces subtle deviations that add to it an ironic tone by which an additional, meta-poetic level of philosophical meaning is produced. I further suggest that the style of this translation is influenced by the prabandha literary genre that emerged in early modern South India.

Talapurāṇam is one of the most prolific genres of early modern Tamil literature. Unlike its Sanskrit counterpart (sthala\kṣetra-māhātmya) the works of this genre are composed in the form and style of high poetry. One distinctive feature of the genre is the inclusion of descriptive chapters that focus on the land and town eulogized in the texts. These chapters, which I term "lyrical preludes," were never formalized by traditional poeticians. In this article, I present a preliminary analysis of Tamil talapurāṇams' lyrical preludes: their sources of inspiration, structural patterns, recurrent themes, and aesthetic principles.

The overwhelming multiplicity of Hindu gods is often a source of confusion. When viewed as part of a trans-local "Hindu" religion, the variety of deities is coalesced under several generic names, particularly "S ´iva," Vis ˙n ˙u," and "S ´akti." In regional communities, local deities are often brought in congruence with the Hindu cosmogonic system by being considered as distinct incarnations-avatāras-of the major gods. Nevertheless, even when formally conceptualized through so-called "Hindu" religious terms and structures, these deities feature distinct regional characteristics, and the devotees' relationships with them could be realized only within the context of the local community. This distinct relationship between regional divinities and their local communities is the phenomenon addressed by Nadav Harel's AVATARA. The film focuses on the manifestations of the female Hindu goddess ("S ´akti") among the Khas population of the Karsog Valley, in northern India. This is a little-studied region in the district and erstwhile kingdom of Mandi, which is situated in the very heart of Himachal Pradesh and thus offers an especially salient example of the state's Khas society and culture. By bringing together multiple voices and images from the daily life and ritual activities of these communities, AVATARA provides a captivating cinematic "thick description" that teases its audience into experiencing the Goddess's effect on the people's lives and imagination. An air of mystery envelopes this short film from the opening shot, which shows the misty green mountain terrain of the Karsog Valley, accompanied by the rhythmic singing of the women working in the rice fields, the dramatic tone of the & Ofer Peres

The term 'pre-modern' is used here in a broad sense, as a term for the diverse historical periods before the onset of modernity, encompassing the diverse phases of South Asian history that precede British colonial dominance. 2 Often, they describe more than a single temple, as the sacred site is sometimes a large territory that accommodates several temples (e.g. Kāncipurāṇa or Paḻaṉitta-