Zvelebil is a great lover of Tamil language and literature as much as he is one of the devoted non-native scholars in Tamil. Presently he is working on a comprehensive, critical and definitive history of Tamil Literature.ĭr. Besides, he has translated into English a number of poems from the Cankam classics including Tolkappiyam, and the devotional poems of Basavanna.

His contributions to Dravidian studies include History of Tamil Literature, The Smile of Murugan, Tiru Murugan and a large number of articles on Dravidian languages and literatures. Zvelebil, Professor, Department of Dravidology, University of Utrecht is an eminent Dravidologist, and one of the devoted non-native scholars in Tamil. Zvelebil place Ananda tandava in the central tradition of Tamil aesthetic creativity, but he finds it an evolutionary product of the art of dancing in Tamil Nadu.ĭr. Apart from finding the Ananda - tandava myth a source of inexhaustible artistic creativity and an archetypal pattern of great cultural significance, the author sees it as a deep-rooted, pervasive 'image in the collective consciousness of the Indian mind.

Zvelebil examines the Nadaraja concept from various angles: mythological, historical, literary, anthropological, sociological and cultural. Marked as it is by rigorous and impressive uses of the tools of comparison and analysis, as also by freshness and immediacy of oppeal, Ananda - tandava, presents a critically rewarding inquiry.

Zvelebil establishes, compellingly, the individuality and originality of the Dravidian mythological tradition in general, and the Tamil tradition in particular.

Shiva tandava stotram analysis