Thiruvaimozhi, a significant work in the Tamil Vaishnava canon, was composed in the eighth century by Nammaazhwaar, ‘our one who goes deep’, the most prominent of the twelve Vaishnava Aazhwaar saints. The poet ascribes this impressive 1,100-verse work not to himself but to one whom he visualizes as the very spirit of truth, from whose mouth it emerges as ‘holy utterance’. Taken as a whole, Thiruvaimozhi reflects a broad view of what the poet saw as the innate human need to venerate, and his belief that the god of the sky, of all-encompassing space itself—Vishnu—was the ‘original god’, containing in himself all others.
Superbly translated by Vasantha Surya, this book brings together a selection of 110 verses of the Thiruvaimozhi, showcasing its intricate weave of sense and syllable and its sparkling insights that echo the highs and lows of the enquiring human spirit. Using an interlinear format, the book provides an English translation along with the Tamil original and transliterated text.
Vasantha Surya is a writer, translator, poet, and journalist. She has translated novels, short stories, and poetry from and into Tamil. Her translations from Tamil include novels by Cho Dharman, R. Chudamani, Sa. Kandasamy, Vaasanthi, and A. Madhaviah, and A Place to Live, an anthology of contemporary Tamil short fiction. She has translated the poems of Brecht and Rilke from German into Tamil, and a narrative folk poem from Bundeli Hindi into English (The Ballad of Budhni). The Stalk of Time, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, and A Word Between Us are her two poetry collections in English. Over the last forty years, her investigative articles and reviews, many of them focusing on issues of social and cultural change and education, have appeared in major Indian publications. Her works for children include Mridu in Madras, translated into Tamil by Prema Srinivasan and herself in three volumes as Medraasil Mirudu, and Ramayana, serialized in Chatterbox magazine.
Read More‘Translation between two languages belonging to totally different linguistic traditions and cultures is a challenging task. The translator needs to be well-acquainted with the intricacies and nuances of both the matrix and target languages, and Vasantha Surya’s thorough understanding of this is what makes To Plunge Within a delightful read.
The English translation, besides making for an easy read, fluidly merges with the original Tamil and this accounts for its immense success.’
—Professor Indira Parthasarathy