Filling the most glaring gap in Shrivaishnava scholarship, this book deals with the history of interpretation of a theological concept of self-surrender-prapatti in late twelfth and thirteenth century religious texts of the Shrivaishnava community of South India. This original study shows that medieval sectarian formation in its theological dimension is a fluid and ambivalent enterprise, where conflict and differentiation are presaged on "sharing," whether of a common canon, saint or rituals or two languages (Tamil and Sanskrit), or of a "meta-social" arena such as the temple.

This book analyses the articulations of Tamil identity in the period of colonial modernity and beyond. It examines the development of Tamil religion by focusing on the important 19^th century Tamil Hindu reformer and saint, Ramalinga Swamigal.

The transformation of Tamil religion is mapped through the examination of specific literary/religious genres - that of hagiographies and sacred biographies.Taking as a starting point Ramalinga's own writing, the book presents him as inhabiting a -border- zone between early modernity and modernity, tradition and charisma, Hinduism...