From the 15th to 26th of August, the 9th Classical Tamil Summer Seminar was held in the EFEO Centre of Pondicherry, this time for only two weeks, because it was framed by two other events, a workshop on the Archaeology of Bhakti in South India and a Caṅkam workshop.  The texts chosen were the three Vaiṣṇava Antātis, composed by Poykaiyāḻvār, Pūtattāḻvār and Pēyāḻvār, the earliest part of the Vaiṣṇava bhakti corpus, the Tivyappirapantam probably dating back to the 6th century of the Common Era. On the one hand they are, unlike most bhakti texts, still in Veṇpā, the post-Caṅkam classical metre, but on the other hand they reflect already a fully developed Vaiṣṇava mythology with most of the common Avatāras of Viṣṇu and direct references to temple worship. Twelve students and scholars from six countries (Austria, France, Germany, India, Italy and the US) came to read together. The earlier part of the mornings was given to the explanation of the text by pandit R. Varadadesikan, then to be discussed and analysed in detail. In the afternoon reading groups took place with G. Vijayavenugopal (inscriptions) and Jean-Luc Chevillard (grammatical literature).

 workshops