Endless Song: Tiruvaymoli

The Tiruvaymoli (sacred utterance or sacred truth) is a grand 1102-verse poem, among the most revered of the Divya Prabandham-a set of traditional Bhakti poems on Vishnu-composed by the ninth-century mystic poet-saint Sathakopan-Nammalvar. The verses and their sets are ingeniously woven together to produce an endless, infinite garland of words, where every beginning is also an ending, and vice-versa. The poems iterative structure allows for an infinite number of entry points that trace the oscillation between union and separation, between bliss and melancholy, between wisdom and ignoranceemphasizing the circularity of the poets quest for union with the supreme lord. Every year, the Tiruvaymoli is celebrated in a variety of ways in Srivaishnava temples across the globe in a twenty-day ritual extravaganza. Archanata Venkatesans decade-long engagement with this revered text has resulted in this magnificent work of translation. In Endless Song, she accomplishes the impossible task of transporting the flavour and cadences of ancient Tamil into English. In her scholarly introduction, she illuminates the long tradition the poem belongs to and peels off its many layers to reveal its kaleidoscopic brilliance.