Imagining a Place for Buddhism

Abstract

AbstractThe intimate connection between religion and literature has become a commonplace assumption in the study of Christianity and Western culture, but in the study of South Asian religions, relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship. This study argues that, in early medieval South India, it was in the literary arena that religious ideals and values were publicly contested. While Tamil‐speaking South India is today celebrated for its preservation of Hindu tradition, non‐Hindu religious communities have played a significant role in shaping the religious history of the region. Among the least understood of such non‐Hindu contributions is that of the Buddhists, who are little understood because of the scarcity of remnants of Tamil‐speaking Buddhist culture. However, the two extant Buddhist texts in Tamil that are complete – a sixth‐century poetic narrative known as the Maṇimēkalai, and an eleventh‐century treatise on grammar and poetics, the Vīracōliyam – reveal a wealth of information about their textual communities and their vision of Buddhist life in a diverse and competitive religious milieu. The Maṇimēkalai, although belonging to a pan‐Indian tradition, both embodies and envisions a Buddhist community that is explicitly made local or ‘Tamil’. Four centuries later, the Vīracōliyam envisions a substantially different Buddhist world, reflecting significant transformations in the literary and religious climate of the Tamil‐speaking region. By focusing on these texts, the author sheds light on the role of literature and literary culture in the information, articulation, and evolution of religious identity and community.