Participants from around the world will be travelling to Cambridge this weekend for a workshop on the relationship between Sanskrit and Tamil in mediaeval India.

探花直播workshop, which will be held at Wolfson College, has been organised by Dr Vincenzo Vergiani of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, and Dr Whitney Cox of London 探花直播's School of Oriental and African Studies

There has been some scholarly discussion on the relation of the two languages鈥 literary cultures, but hardly any research on their intellectual and philological textual traditions. Through bringing individuals together the workshop aims to answer questions on the relationship of these cultures and to raise new ones.

鈥淪anskrit, pre-modern South Asia's cosmopolitan language of culture and learning, and Tamil, the oldest and best preserved South Asian vernacular, existed for centuries in a state of mutual influence鈥, said Dr Vergiani.

鈥淚t is clear from historical sources and other sorts of textual evidence that bilingualism was very common among literati writing in Tamil, while the influence of the Dravidian language on the style and usage of those writing in Sanskrit is evident across a wide variety of genres and discourses.
Some pioneering work has been done by P.S.S. Sastri and recently by Takahashi and Wilden, but this discussion is as yet in its infancy.鈥

探花直播workshop will seek to assess the current state of the questions of the relationship between Sanskrit and Tamil, to ask new questions of the abundant primary materials, and to place this scholarly discussion within the wider framework of the humanistic and social study of language in society and culture.

鈥 探花直播participants have worked independently on this area, and the workshop will provide a unique forum for them to present and discuss their findings.鈥

探花直播workshop is taking place this Friday and Saturday (22-23 May), and has been made possible through generous support from the British Academy and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. For further information contact Dr Vincenzo Vergiani, email vv234@cam.ac.uk.

Image: Dakshinamurti, the god of learning, in the Kailasanatha temple of Kanchipuram (Tamilnadu, early 8th century).

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