Kambar (Kamban)
A figure from the books
#Kambar
Kambar (Kamban) · c. 12th century CE
In the books · 1 chapter
Who this is
Poetry — the Rāmāvatāram, popularly the Kamba Rāmāyaṇam: the Tamil retelling of the Rāmāyaṇa, held by most Tamil readers to be the finest poem in their language.
“The Rāmāyaṇa is not one book with translations; it is a family of tellings, each complete in itself — and the proof is a twelfth-century Tamil poet confident enough to correct Vālmīki and beloved enough to get away with it.”
The big idea, in the book's words:
“A retelling can be an argument. Kambar took the most famous story in India and changed it as he went — his Rāma is God from the first page, his Rāvaṇa is magnificent, his abduction scene rewritten so the villain's hands never touch Sītā — and Tamils decided the result outranked the original.”
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