This volume presents several detailed studies of the commentary traditions of South India with a particular emphasis on Tamil, but extended to Sanskrit and Telugu as well. The importance of commentaries for our understanding of classical Indian languages and their literatures has long been acknowledged, but rarely have the commentaries themselves, especially minor ones, been the subject of systematic study. Contributors to this volume begin to remedy this desideratum in several ways. Some describe the specific methods employed by particular commentators and offer translations of passages, many of which have never before been rendered into English. Others examine what impact ancient commentators have had on the development of modern philological and lexicographical tools. More broadly, the role of the commentary in textual exegesis is taken up by several authors, and, in one case, this has led to an extension of the very notion of a commentary to include translation. This volume will serve as an important reference point for further research into commentarial traditions both in India and around the world. Contents: Preface ............................................................................................................... iii Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 1. The Beginnings of the Tamil Commentarial Idiom Victor B. D’Avella ....................................................................................... 27 2. Salient Features of a Grammatical Commentary in Tamil Indra Manuel .............................................................................................. 71 3. A Note on Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar’s Commentary Techniques T. Rajeswari .............................................................................................. 119 4. Codifying Beauty: on the Differences of Interpretation between traditional Commentators concerning the last Eight “Limbs of Poetry” (ெசய்‰ள் உப்ƒ) in the Ceyyuḷiyal of the Tolkāppiyam Jean-Luc Chevillard ................................................................................. 133 5. Akanāṉūṟu paḻaiyavurai: The Subtle Growth of a Commentary Eva Wilden ............................................................................................... 167 6. The Old, Anonymous Commentary of the Aiṅkuṟunūṟu Thomas Lehmann .................................................................................... 209 7. Showing the Way: The Metatextual Field of the Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai Emmanuel Francis ................................................................................... 251 8. Commentaries on the Kīḻkkaṇakku Akam Works Jonas Buchholz ......................................................................................... 335 ii Commentary Idioms of the Tamil Learned Traditions 9. Towards Understanding the Śrīvaiṣṇava Commentary on the Nālāyira Tivviya Pirapantam Suganya Anandakichenin and Erin McCann ....................................... 385 10. A Multilingual Commentary of the First Verse of the Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana Giovanni Ciotti and R. Sathyanarayanan ............................................. 443 11. Reading Pōtana’s Mahābhāgavatamu as a Commentary on the Sanskrit Bhāgavatapurāṇa : A Case in Point Suganya Anandakichenin and S. L. P. Anjaneya Sarma ..................... 491 12. Application of the Structure Analysis to the Study of Sanskrit Commentaries on mahākāvya Andrey Klebanov ..................................................................................... 523 Index ............................................................................................................... 591