Blake Wentworth, University of Chicago

From Sage to Critic:

Thoughts on Some Tamil Critiques of Temples, Old and New

This conference certainly situates itself within a field of study that has a long history. As long as people have been studying Tamil culture, they have turned to the temples, and reasonably so: not only are these superb monuments to devotion and skill artistic wonders in themselves, but, as the official seal of the government of Tamil Nadu itself powerfully suggests, the temple stands as perhaps the consummate emblem of all things Tamil. As valuable as the large amount of scholarship on temples is, however, we might also ask whether it successfully accounts for the fact that many Tamilians have opposed the dominant role of temples in society. Although it makes no affectations of comprehensiveness, this presentation seeks to recognize the textual dimensions of this stance of resistance, skirting such well known figures as E. V. Ramacami Nayakkar in favor of authors whose views may not be as familiar, such as Civavakkiyar, C. M. Iramacantiran Cekkilar, and G. Kecavan.