Prabandham

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Prabandham or Pirabandam ( Tamil : பிரபந்தம் pirapantam [ p (i) rabʌn̪d̪ʌm ] from Sanskrit Prabandha "composition"), also Sitrilakkiyam (Tamil: சிற்றிலக்கியம் ciṟṟilakkiyam [ sitːrilʌkːijʌm ] "minor literature"), is the generic term for a series of poetic genres of premodern Tamil literature .

The number of Prabandham genres is traditionally given as 96. The genres grouped under the term Prabandham are quite heterogeneous. Some are defined by form, others by content. What they have in common is a strong conventionalization. An example of a formally defined Prabandham genre is Andadi, a poem on an undefined subject where the last word or syllable of the preceding stanza forms the beginning of the following stanza. Genres defined in terms of content are for example Kovai, a poem in mostly 400 stanzas, which tells the story of an idealized pair of lovers in the form of a serialized drama and at the same time contains the praise of a named patron in each stanza, or Ula, a poem about the reactions of different women Age groups when they see a king or god in a procession.

Some Prabandham genres are old: This is how the Kovai genre emerged in the 8th century. Others are much more recent. In the pre-modern Tamil literary culture of the 19th century belonged Prabandhams alongside local legends ( Sthalapuranas ) to the most important literary genre. Today, however, they are hardly appreciated. Two factors contributed to the decline of the Prabandham genre: On the one hand, Tamil literature was modernized under Western influence: In the late 19th century, prose genres such as novels and short stories found their way (the first Tamil novel was published in 1879). On the other hand, the Tamil renaissance triggered by the rediscovery of the old Tamil sangam literature led to a strong turn to the classical cultural heritage at the expense of the Prabandham literature.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sascha Ebeling: Colonizing the Realm of Words. The Transformation of Tamil Literary Culture in Nineteenth-Century South India, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010, pp. 57-62.
  2. ↑ Ebeling 2010, pp. 15–26.

literature

  • Sascha Ebeling: Colonizing the Realm of Words. The Transformation of Tamil Literary Culture in Nineteenth-Century South India. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010.
  • Kamil Zvelebil: Lexicon of Tamil Literature . Leiden, New York, Cologne: EJ Brill, 1995. Keyword: “pirapantam” (pp. 563-564).