Rivista di Studi Sudasiatici - contenuto non piu disponibile

The present paper is a study of the development of a concept that is a constitutive part of the division of Classical Tamil poetics concerned with the themes of Akam, love poetry. In the two poetological treatises belonging to the first millennium, the Tolkāppiyam Poruḷatikāram and the Iṟaiyaṉār Akapporuḷ, we find four different definitions of what kaḷavu is, a term denoting the phase of secret love for the poetic couple, in contradistinction to kaṟpu, the phase of publicly known or post-marital love. Considerations of structural plausibility as well as phrasal and stylistic analysis provide arguments for the systematic and temporal interrelation of sources.