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Article: Kavya in South India: Old Tamil Cankam Poetry.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Article date:
- January 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 American Oriental Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Kavya in South India: Old Tamil Cankam Poetry. By HERMAN TIEKEN. Groningen: EGBERT FORSTEN, 2001. Pp. 270.
One of the most difficult issues in dealing with much of premodern Indian literature is chronology. Unless we are lucky enough to have epigraphic confirmation, dating often involves considerable detective work, putting together different types of circumstantial evidence and reaching a generally accepted conclusion. We do not have firm dates even for such seminal figures as Asvaghosa, Kalidasa, and Kampan. With regard to the old Sangam literature in Tamil, we are similarly lacking in firm dates--though there has been a great deal of evidence adduced to suggest ...