{"product_id":"9780198043720","title":"An Ornament for Jewels: Love Poems For The Lord of Gods, by Vedantadesika","description":"In this companion volume to \u003cem\u003eSinging the Body of God\u003c\/em\u003e (Oxford 2002), Steven P. Hopkins has translated into contemporary American English verse poems written by the South Indian Srivaisnava philosopher and saint-poet Venkatesa (c. 1268-1369).  These poems, in three different languages - Sanskrit, Tamil, and Maharastri Prakrit -- composed for one particular Hindu god, Vishnu Devanayaka, the \"Lord of Gods\" at Tiruvahindrapuram, form a microcosm of the saint-poet's work.  They encompass major themes of Venkatesa's devotional poetics, from the play of divine absence and presence in the world of religious emotions; the \"telescoping\" of time past and future in the eternal \"present\" of the poem; love, human vulnerability and the impassible perfected body of god; to the devotional experience of a \"beauty that saves\" and to what Hopkins terms the paradoxical coexistence of asymmetry and intimacy of lover and beloved at the heart of the divine-human encounter.  Moreover, these poems form not only a thematic microcosm, but a linguistic one embracing all three of the poet's working languages.  Like the remembered world of Proust's Combray in the taste of madeleine dipped in tea, or Blake's World in a Grain of Sand, we taste and see, in this one particular place, and in this one particular form of Vishnu, various protean forms and powers of the divine, and trace a veritable summa of theological, philosophical, and literary designs.  Each translated poem forms a chapter in itself, has its own individual short Afterword, along with detailed linguistic and thematic notes and commentary.  The volume concludes, for comparative reasons, with a translation of Tirumankaiyalvar's luminous cycle of verses for Devanayaka from the \u003cem\u003ePeriyatirumoli.\u003c\/em\u003e  As much an argument as an anthology, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian studies, comparative religion, and Indian literatures.","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47106975138032,"sku":"9780198043720","price":81.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780198043720_p0.jpg?v=1763665564","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780198043720","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}