R. Varadadesikan launches the book, ‘Mapping the Chronology of Bhakti.’— Photo: S.S. Kumar Throwing light on the growth of the Bhakti movement in South India since the sixth century, the Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient and the French Institute of Pondicherry has published a book of essays which draws on linguistics, philology, epigraphy and archaeology to map the chronology of the movement. The movement which emphasises the emotional aspect in the relation between devotee and God, swept across the sub-continent and transformed popular religion. The book, ‘Mapping the Chronology of Bhakti: Milestones, Stepping Stones, and Stumbling Stones’ have been compiled based on proceedings of a workshop held in honour of R. Varadadesikan, a specialist of the Tamil sources of Vaishnavism, who worked at the EFEO for 44 years and retired recently. Staff at EFEO recalled how processes set by Mr. Varadadesikan set a precedence and an era of traditionally-taught cassical Tamil has come to an end. “It is rare to find scholars who are experts in Tamil and Sanskrit. With his knowledge of Tamil, Sanskrit and Manipravalam (a mixture of Sanskrit and Tamil) Pandit Varadadesikan has played a pivotal role in cataloguing of manuscripts of the EFEO collection and this book is dedicated to him,” said Valérie Gillet, director, EFEO, at the launch of the book held recently. Ms. Gillet has edited the book. Posted by Innamburan S.Soundararajan at 6:30 PM Links to this post
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 16:47:12 +0000
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