This is the first full‐length study of the devotional poetry and poetics of the fourteenth‐century poet–philosopher Vedåntadeóika, one of the most outstanding and influential figures in the Hindu tradition of àrâ‐Vaióïavism (the cult of Lord Vishnu and his consort Lakómâ or àrâ), a tradition that affirms both vernacular Tamil poems of ninth‐ and tenth‐century saint‐poets (the Çôvårs) and the Sanskrit Vedas as an Ubhaya or “dual” Vedånta. Long after his death, Vedåntadeóika was claimed as the founding Çcårya (sectarian preceptor) of the Vaìakalai or “Northern School” of àrâvaióïavism, associate ... More

This is the first full‐length study of the devotional poetry and poetics of the fourteenth‐century poet–philosopher Vedåntadeóika, one of the most outstanding and influential figures in the Hindu tradition of àrâ‐Vaióïavism (the cult of Lord Vishnu and his consort Lakómâ or àrâ), a tradition that affirms both vernacular Tamil poems of ninth‐ and tenth‐century saint‐poets (the Çôvårs) and the Sanskrit Vedas as an Ubhaya or “dual” Vedånta. Long after his death, Vedåntadeóika was claimed as the founding Çcårya (sectarian preceptor) of the Vaìakalai or “Northern School” of àrâvaióïavism, associated with the holy city of Kåñcâpuram.