Books, translations and sites

Begin with a selection, a song, or a saint's life, and carry one question into the teaching texts.

These four books offer different entrances. A catalogue link identifies a publication; it does not always provide its full text.

For the hymn books, begin beside Tevaram: Tirumurai 1. For the lives, keep Periya Puranam open as a guide to the original work. Before taking up the twelve sutras, Unmai Vilakkam offers an entrance through questions about the soul, its instruments and the five letters; Tiruvarutpayan follows grace into the language of experience.

An English reading can establish the movement of a passage before its Tamil grammar becomes familiar. Returning to a repeated Tamil word then gives the translation a point of attachment. Reading aloud, even a little, also makes a hymn more than silent prose.

A complete Tamil text gives the hymn's place; English and audio help us follow its meaning and movement.

The first seven Tirumurais form the Tevaram. Sambandar's hymns occupy 1–3, Appar's 4–6, and Sundarar's 7. The following publications cover those divisions together; they are not seven separately published English books.

T1 — Muvar Tevaram, volume 1: Jnanasambandar. T. V. Gopal Iyer and François Gros; Institut Français de Pondichéry, PIFI 68-1, 1984; Tamil. The digital corpus's account of its printed basis identifies this publication.

T2 — Muvar Tevaram, volume 2: Appar and Sundarar. T. V. Gopal Iyer and François Gros; Institut Français de Pondichéry, PIFI 68-2, 1985; Tamil. The same bibliographic account identifies its coverage.

E1 — Digital Tevaram / Kaninit Tevaram. V. M. Subramanya Aiyar, Jean-Luc Chevillard and S. A. S. Sarma; Institut Français de Pondichéry and École française d'Extrême-Orient, 2007; Tamil and English. The publication record describes the Tamil text, complete English rendering, maps, concordance and audio. The English is an explanatory rendering or gloss, useful for following the Tamil line by line.

Tevaram books may arrange hymns by pann, their melodic mode, or by the temple addressed. The digital corpus allows both approaches. For reading with the site's text pages, the Tirumurai and pathigam number provide a shared starting point; a shrine arrangement is useful when following a pilgrimage.

The sung form also carries the words' pacing. Pann and the Oduvars explains why a recording belongs beside a Tevaram text, and why a melody's name matters to the hymn's transmission.

Identify both the work and the translation's extent, especially when a Tirumurai contains several works.

For continuous Tamil reading across these volumes, Panniru Tirumurai: Pattum Porulum, the online collection associated with Dharmapuram Adheenam, supplies texts and explanations: Tamil; n.d., ongoing, linked under Read further. Printed and translated routes follow.

Pope's English belongs to the language of his period. Natarajan's translation and the newer bilingual ninth Tirumurai offer other ways of keeping Tamil and English together. In each case, the explanatory introduction is a companion to the work, with its own author and historical setting.

For the eighth and ninth Tirumurais, retain the names of the individual works when noting a passage. For the eleventh, retain both poet and work. For the twelfth, retain the saint's puranam within the whole narrative. These small habits make a remembered passage easier to find again.

Read a Tamil root text with explanation, and distinguish a translation of that text from a study of its teaching.

The fourteen Sastras are available in Tamil through the complete digital collection linked under Read further: Tamil; n.d., ongoing. The following dated transcriptions give additional entrances, with the preparers named as digital editors rather than as authors of the classical works.

The full Tamil collection also includes Sivagnana Siddhiyar, Sivaprakasam, Vinaa Venba, Potrippahrodai, Kodikkavi, Nenju Vidu Thoothu, Unmai Neri Vilakkam and Sankarpa Nirakaranam. Individual text pages lead to their Tamil texts and named explanations.

✦English translations and studies

For Tamil commentaries and their teaching lines, continue with Later works and commentaries. The short root statements often presume distinctions that a commentary patiently brings into view. A translator's choice of “soul”, “grace” or “knowledge” can be understood more precisely when the Tamil term remains beside it.

Use a general dictionary for a word's range and a Siddhanta dictionary for its place in the teaching.

The dictionary and encyclopaedia answer different questions. A dictionary can show what a word has meant in several works. An encyclopaedia can identify a person, place or story to which a poem briefly alludes. Neither replaces the surrounding sentence or the work's own argument.

In Siddhanta writing, terms such as Pati, pasu and pasam belong to a connected account of Lord, soul and bond. A general English equivalent can begin an explanation, but the relation between the terms gives it precision. The specialist dictionary is useful at that point, especially beside a commentary.

A practical reading notebook needs little: the Tamil word, the passage where it occurs, the meaning that fits that passage, and one question still open. Retaining the literary citation attached to a dictionary meaning makes it possible to return to the passage that illustrates it. For a proper name, keep its Tamil spelling; Roman spellings can vary considerably.

For extended historical and philosophical reading, Later works and commentaries introduces additional studies in Tamil and English. A reference work is easier to use when a particular question leads to its entries.

Choose a collection for the task: continuous reading, listening, a word search, or an older printed book.

✦Sites and digital collections

The dates in this table distinguish dated publications from continuing services; n.d., ongoing identifies a service without assigning it a publication year.

For a scanned book, the title leaf and contents belong to the reading. They distinguish the author's work from the translator's introduction, a commentary, or a later reprint. For a transcription, the preparation header often identifies the printed text behind it. A search result finds a word; its surrounding passage gives that word its role.

✦Apps

These links lead to the publishers' Android listings. The years are their listed update years, rather than claims about when the apps first appeared.

Continue with Pann and the Oduvars for recordings and The Adheenams for the institutions that teach, train singers and publish books. Later works and commentaries follows the explanations that grew around the fourteen Sastras.