Description
The Manimekhalai is one of the great classics of Indian culture. A second-cetury Tamil verse epic, it is a sequel to the Shilappadikaram, which was also masterfully translated into prose by the acclaimed musician and scholar of Hinduism. Alain Danielou. Rich with details of the period’s arts. Customs, and religions, the Manimekhai provides an extraordinary picture of an age that suddenly comes back to life, It is the story of a beautiful young dancer who decided to forego her looming career as courtesan in order to dedicate her life (with the id of gods, demigods, and a magic bowl called the Gow of Abundance) to charity and to called the Gow of Abundane ) to charity and to attaining the ‘bright light of knowledge’.
Preface
Almost nothing is known of India, its daily life and institutions, in the troubled years of the first centuries of the Christian era. The Manimekhalai, one of the masterpieces of Tamil literature, gives us, in the form of a didactic novel full of freshness and poetry, a delightful insight into the ways of life, the pleasure, beliefs, and philosophical concepts of a refined civilization. The story relates the adventures of a dancing girl who becomes a convert to Buddhism, a rather new creed at the time in South India. Tamil is the main pre Aryan language still surviving today.
The Manimekhai calls into question many of our received ideas concerning ancient India as well as our interpretation of the sources of its present-day religion and philosophy. In its clear accounts of the philosophical concepts of pre-Aryan thought (mainly preserved by the Ajivika ascetics and Jain monks) which gradually influenced the Vedic Aryan world and became over the whole of the Far East and
Author: Alain Danielou
Publisher: Alain Danielou
ISBN-13: 9.78939E+12
Language: English
Binding: Paperback
No. Of Pages: 178
Country of Origin: India
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