Why is ancient tamil literature not as popular as ancient sanskrit literature
According to this dude
Ancient Sanskrit literature = "magical hymns and mythical shit, anonymous writers, extremely religious, Brahminical philosophy, no mention of ordinary people's lives"
Ancient Tamil literature = "relatively secular, poems about love and war and normal people's suffering, humanist philosophy, almost no mythological bs"
 |
 Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
|
So basically just boring shit the dasyus talk about while their Brahmin masters write interesting shit
brahmins were dumb hippie schizos
yes anon, thats what he said, interesting shit.
Indo-Europeanists and religion scholars have very good reason to care about Sanskrit while basically nobody outside of South Asian scholars have reason to care about Tamil as such. Content is all well and good but Tamil is too far afield for the average western intellectual to be interested in.
What does that mean? Scholars would have more of a reason to be interested in Tamil than Sanskrit, Tamil is a much older language.
Sanskrit is the oldest recorded Indo-European language. For those interested in the history, culture, and linguistics of the populations of Europe and the non-semetic Middle East, the Upanishads and other orally-transmitted Vedas are some of the most useful materials available. I don't care about Tamil and have never studied it because it has no connection whatsoever to the cultures and polities which developed west of Kashmir. Sheer age alone is an insufficient virtue incite interest in those not already curious about ancient India as such. As for content, I can get the features you mention- secularism, more "everyday" experiences, and humanism- in ancient literature I'm already fluent in such as Greek or Latin.
>Sanskrit is the oldest recorded Indo-European language.
moron, vedas weren't even put to written form until devanagari script.
Prakrits on ashoka's edicts, pali, gandharan are the oldest recorded Indian languages.
hittite is the oldest recorded Indo European language.
>Prakrits on ashoka's edicts
Because they were placed in public places with the intent that commoners could read them, not because Prakrit isn't older. Vedic Sanskrit predates both Pali and other kinds of Prakrit, the latter two are basically dumbed down simplified forms of Sanskrit for the masses.
*not because Prakrit is older (its not)
>Vedic Sanskrit predates both Pali and other kinds of Prakrit
Vedic Sanskrit of vedas wasn't even written down until 9th century AD
>Sanskrit is the oldest recorded Indo-European language
That would be Hittite
Bait post
>As for content, I can get the features you mention- secularism, more "everyday" experiences, and humanism- in ancient literature I'm already fluent in such as Greek or Latin.
True, but western scholars who research ancient Indian history don't even touch Tamil sources which is fricking weird
>True, but western scholars who research ancient Indian history don't even touch Tamil sources which is fricking weird
I don't know why that is, maybe it has to do with the assumption (whether correctly or otherwise) that most important Indian history happened in more northern areas. In American universities when people study for a post-graduate degree in Indology it's common for them to be asked to pick a second Indological language besides Sanskrit, with one of the common options that is chosen being Tamil
>mythical shit
>normal people's suffering
The only difference between these is abstraction and richness of information
Why would I want to read shitty indian poems. I bet they don't even ryme in indian language, in English it's likely a complete garbage.
Agglutinative languages are very poetic
First, humanism is fricking moronic. Tamils were far more devotional in their religion than the comparatively austere northerners. Bhaktism is a Tamil phenomenon. Tamils were by no means secular.
Black person, ancient tamils were not the same as medieval tamils
Uh why would I learn to speak doodoo?