The Manipravalam Version of the Bhagavadgītā by K. Śrīnivāsan in Ms GOML R3507 (Studies in Late Tamil Manipravalam Literature 4)

Manuscript R3507 of the Government Oriental Manuscript Library of Chennai is a remarkable artefact. It contains the hitherto only known copy of a prose version (vacaṉam) of the Bhagavadgītā composed by Kariccaṅkāl Śrīnivāsan, a Śrivaiṣṇava author who translated into Manipravalam a number of Sanskrit texts towards the end of the eighteenth century. As it will emerge from the analysis of a selection of passages from the text, the register of Manipravalam employed by Kariccaṅkāl Śrīnivāsan continues the preceding Śrivaiṣṇava tradition, mixing Sanskrit and Tamil lexemes with Tamil grammatical endings (“Late Tamil Manipravalam”). Syntactically and stylistically it showcases both remarkably long sentences and paratactic prose. Ms GOML R3507 also presents the Gītā as a version of the Bhagavadgītāmālāmantra characterised by an explicit Śrivaiṣṇava flavour that is unknown to other manuscripts from Tamil Nadu. Finally, it also represents an exquisite example of what a luxury South Indian palm-leaf manuscript can look like. Made of over 141 well-cut and proportional Talipot leaves, it is carefully written by one of the best hands of nineteenth-century Tamil Nadu, namely that of Peruṇkāraṇai Rāmānujan: steady, elegant, and able to maintain the labour between Tamil Grantha and Tamil scripts—ostensibly both being required to write in Manipravalam—impeccably distinct.