Manuscript, Print and Memory Relics of the Cankam in Tamilnadu - Wilden, Eva 1965- (De Gruyter, 2014)
The ancient Tamil poetic corpus of the Cankam is at the same time a national treasure and a common battle ground for linguists and historians alike. Going back to oral predecessors from about the early first millennium, it became part of a canon, slowly fell into near oblivion and was finally rediscovered and printed in the 19th century. The present study follows up the complex historical process of its transmission through 2000 years