Whose Words Are Rubies: Excerpts from “Tiruvcakam”

The songs of ninth-century Tamil mystic Ma​nikkavacakar are considered the epitome of Southern Saiva bhakti devotional expression and comprise the eighth book (more than a thousand songs) of the Thirumurai, regarded by followers as on par with the Sanskrit Vedas. Today, twelve centuries later, his words live in the hearts and tongues of devotees. Manikkavacakar wrote in Classical Tamil, and largely followed rules laid down in the Tolkaappiyam, a treatise on prosody and grammar composed some eight centuries earlier.

Priya Sarukkai Chabria is an award-winning translator, poet and writer. Her books include two speculative fiction novels Clone (Zubaan, 2018) and Generation 14 (Zubaan, 2008); literary nonfiction Bombay/Mumbai: Immersions (Niyogi, 2013); four poetry collections, most recently, Sing of Life: Revisioning Tagore’s Gitanjali (Westland/Amazon, 2021); and translations from Classical Tamil, including Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess (Zubaan, 2016), winner of the Muse Translation Award 2017. She is founding editor of poetry at Sangam (poetry.sangamhouse.org) and is editing World Poetry in Translation (SpeakingTiger Books, 2023). Chabria channels Sanskrit rasa aesthetics and Tamil Sangam (4–2 BCE) poetics into her work. She has collaborated with dancers, filmmakers, and photographers. Find her at www.priyasarukkaichabria.com.