9 December 2025

The Morphology of the Maṇimēkalai

a Narrative Analysis of the Tamil Buddhist Epic

The numerous fantastical elements of the Maṇimēkalai—magical flights through the air, fantastical isles, shape-shifting, a talking statue and an auto-refilling begging bowl, to name a few—as well as other elements that are atypical of Tamil narrative poetry—dramatic plot twists, sudden reversals of fortune, disguised identities, and magical helpers, for example—have long invited comparison with fairytale. 

This presentation will—for the first time, it is believed—apply the framework of the great Russian formalist, Vladimir Propp to the  Tamil epic. Propp's Morphology of the Folktale (1928) is a seminal work, which applied the orthodox formalist method to the structural analysis of Russian fairy tales. His analytical framework has since been applied to folktales from other regions (for example, Biblical Hebrew narratives) and is even applicable to other literary genres, such as Ancient Greek epic (Homer's Odyssey shows a number of remarkable parallels). 

The aim here is briefly to demonstrate some of the ways in which the Maṇimēkalai conforms to, and also deviates from, the typical structures of folktale as analysed by Propp. The speaker seeks thereby to shed light on some of the more strange and unexpected elements of the poem's plot. It is further hoped that by exploring these parallels together, it will be possible to make an initial assessment as to as to the extent to which the Maṇimēkalai is influenced by fairytale – whether fairytales of Indo-European origin, 'world myths' whose pervasiveness excludes an exclusively Indo-European origin, or fairytales of Tamil origin that bear the hall-marks of worldwide folkloric patterns. 

The Tamilex monthly seminar will take place on 9 December 2025, at 10:30 CET (15:00 IST). This will be hybrid event; for the Zoom link, please contact Charles Li(charles.li"AT"uni-hamburg.de).