Modes of Philology in Medieval South India

Whitney Cox, University of Chicago, is Associate Professor in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at that university and a member of the Collegium of the Zukunftsphilologie research project, Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin. He is the author of Politics, Kingship and Poetry in Medieval South India: Moonset on Sunrise Mountain (Cambridge, 2016)

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsA note on the transliteration, presentation, and citationof primary textsI. Introduction: towards a history of Indic philologyPhilology?Indian philology?Existing studiesParametersII. Textual Pasts and FuturesThe southern pseudepigrapha: an overviewA case study: the SūtasaṃhitāMethods of the anonymous philology: the ‘toolkit’Appropriation and adaptation: Cekkiḻār’s PĕriyapurāṇamConclusions: looking aheadIII. Bearing the Nāṭyaveda: Śāradātanaya’s BhāvaprakāśanaIntroduction: nāṭya as a form of knowledgeAt Śāradā’s side: the author and his workBharatavṛddha, Śiva, Padmabhū, Vāsuki‘Following the Kalpavallī’“Lost or as good as lost”IV. Veṅkaṭanātha and the limits of philological argumentSnakes versus EaglesRite and ContaminationEarlier canons of Vaiṣṇava textual criticismOn the shores of the milk ocean: Veṅkaṭanātha’s poetry as philologyV. Flowers of language: Maheśvarānanda’s MahārthamañjarīThe dreamThe pleasures of the textAmbiguity and auto-philologyWriting, reading, and the hermeneutical yoginMaheśvarānanda’s GītāVI. Conclusions: philology as politics, philology as scienceContext one: philology in and as temple-state politicsContext two: Indic philology and the history of science1. Non-reductive historicism2. The refusal of teleology3. The agency of the non-humanProblems and prospectsBibliography