A Hundred Measures of Time: Tiruviruttam

‘Look, my feet measure beyond earth and sky!’ he said
and touched the sky.
I have surrendered to my lord
who glanced at me with his large radiant eyes.
The Tiruviruttam is an iconic poem by Nammāḻvār (c. ninth century CE), the greatest of the āḻvār poet-saints of the Tamil Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition. Its hundred interlinked verses celebrate the love between an anonymous heroine and hero, who come to be identified with Nammāḻvār and his beloved deity, Viṣṇu. The poet masterfully weaves the erotic and esoteric to reveal both the contours of love and the never-ending cycles of separation and union, of birth and death, from which only Viṣṇu can offer release.
In A Hundred Measures of Time, Archana Venkatesan has crafted a sonorous free-verse rendering and an accompanying far-ranging essay to delight poetry lovers and scholars alike.
About the Author
Archana Venkatesan is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Religious Studies at the University of California, Davis. She has received numerous grants, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Institute of Indian Studies and Fulbright. Her research interests are in the intersection of text and performance in south India, as well as in the translation of early and medieval Tamil poetry into English. She is the author of The Secret Garland: Antal s Tiruppavai and Nacciyar Tirumoli (2010), and is collaborating with Francis Clooney of Harvard University on an English translation of Nammalvar s Tiruvaymoli.