"...Culture consists in the images that make imagination possible, in the media with which we mediate experience. All the artefacts we make and the relationships we enter into, have in that sense 'cultural' consequences, for they give form and shape to the way we think about other artefacts, other relationships..." Culture & the Tamil Contribution to World Civilisation

* indicates link to Amazon.com online bookshop
** indicates link to Amazon.co.uk online bookshop

[see also Tamil Culture:
the Heart of Tamil National Consciousness]

** G.Amirthalingam - Customs and Cultures of Sri Lanka published by  ASBooks, 2003

The book that covers all the religions, people,customs and cultures of Sri Lanka. About the Author: Author hails from a family of writers since 1850. He has published many articles and poems on the internet and in newspapers. He is a Sri Lankan British and has lived in Sri Lanka for many years and experienced the Sri Lankan life.

* Isabelle Clark-Deces - No One Cries for the Dead : Tamil Dirges, Rowdy Songs, and Graveyard Petitions

"At South Indian village funerals, women cry and lament, men drink and laugh, and untouchables sing and joke to the beat of their drums. No One Cries for the Dead offers an original interpretation of these behaviors, which seem almost unrelated to the dead and to the funeral event. Isabelle Clark-Deces demonstrates that rather than mourn the dead, these Tamil funeral songs first and foremost give meaning to the caste, gender, and personal experiences of the performers."

"In this book, Isabelle Clark-Deces gives us a clear-eyed view of the bond between the state of untouchability in India, and the pain of death and irretrievable loss. This is not a distanced work: the reader is always right there with the people Clark-Deces writes about; one can see them and hear their voices as one reads. The author also achieves some powerful theoretical insights that go beyond the words and other communicative acts of her informants."--Margaret Trawick, Professor of Social Anthropology, Massey University, New Zealand

 * Chantal Boulanger - In the kingdom of Nataraja: A guide to the temples, beliefs and people of Tamil Nadu, South India Saiva Siddhantha Works Publishing Society, Tinnevelly, Unknown Binding - 1993

* R Cheran, Darshan Ambalavanar, Chelva Kanaganayakam - History and Imagination: Tamil Culture in the Global Context

* D. Dayalan - Early Temples of Tamilnadu : Their Role in Socio-Economic Life (C. A.D. 550-925, Hardcover / Published: January 1992

*David Dean ,Shulman- Tamil Temple Myths : Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in the South Indian Saiva Tradition  Hardcover: 471 pages Publisher: Princeton Univ Press, 1980

Das, R.K. - Temples of Tamilnad, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chauputty, Bombay 7, 1964

*Dickey, Sara  - Cinema and the Urban Poor in South India (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, No 92) / Hardcover / Published: November 1993

"...pathbreaking ethnography of the Indian cinema concerned particularly with cinema goers in Madurai, South India. The book's core is an analysis of the films themselves and their place in the lives of poor people, who organise fan clubs, and relate these fantasy worlds to their own lives. In addition, it reviews the history of Tamil film, and the structure of the film industry, and presents the perspective of the film makers theselves. It is both an original contribution to the study of film in India and more generally to the understanding of Indian popular culture."
 

*Duvvury, Vasumathi K. - Play, Symbolism, and Ritual : A Study of Tamil Brahmin Women's Rites of Passage (American University Studies, Series Xi, Anthropology and Sociology,4) / Hardcover /Published: January 1991

*Frasca, Richard Armando - Theatre of the Mahabharata : Terukkuttu Performances in South India 1990

Sivaji Ganesan: Autobiography of An Actor Compiled and edited by T.S.Narayana Swamy (in Tamil), English translation by Sabita Radhakrishna; Sivaji Prabhu Charities Trust, Chennai, 2007, 250 pp.

*Hoole, Charles R. A.  - Modern Sannyasins : Protestant missionary contribution to Ceylon Tamil culture

*Heginbotham, Stanley J.  - Cultures in Conflict : The Four Faces of Indian Bureaucracy , Unknown Binding: 236 pages, Publisher: Columbia University Press (1975)

*Iyengar, P. T.  - Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture , Hardcover / Published: August 1986

*Saskia Kersenboom - Nityasumangali : Devadasi Tradition in South Asia  / Hardcover / Published: January 1987

*Saskia Kersenboom -Word, Sound, Image : The Life of the Text (Explorations in Anthropology) Hardcover / Published 1995

*Mohan, P.E. - Scheduled Castes : History of Elevation, Tamil Nadu, 1900-1955 Hardcover / Published: July 1993

*Eveline Meyer - A�nk�a�laparam�ecuvari : a goddess of Tamilnadu, her myths and cult

*Nanditha Krishna, V.K. Rajamani  - Arts and Crafts of Tamilnadu (Living Traditions of India) 1992

*Geoffrey A. Oddie - Hindu and Christian in South-East India (London Studies on South Asia, No 6) , Hardcover: 280 pages, Publisher: Routledge/Curzon, 1993

*Leslie C. Orr - Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of God: Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu (South Asia Research) Oxford University Press, 2000 [suggested by Ravi Rajaratnam]

"Through the use of epigraphical evidence, Leslie C. Orr brings into focus the activities and identities of the temple women (devadasis) of medieval South India. This book shows how temple women's initiative and economic autonomy involved them in medieval temple politics and allowed them to establish themselves in roles with particular social and religious meanings. This study suggests new ways of understanding the character of the temple woman and, more generally, of the roles of women in Indian religion and society."

*Palanithurai,G &  Thandavan.R (Editor) -Ethnic Movement in India : Theory and Practice , 1993 - Contributed research papers; with special reference to Tamil Nadu, India.

*Bryan Pfaffenberger - Caste in Tamil Culture : The Religious Foundations of Sudra Domination in Tamil Sri Lanka, Paperback /Published: January 1982

*Ramaswamy, Sumathi - Passions of the Tongue : Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970 (Studies on the History of Society and Culture , No 29) Berkeley; London: University of California Press, c1997,303p,[10]p of plates; 24cm

* S. Selvanathan - Status of Scheduled Castes  Hardcover: 241 pages Publisher: South Asia Books, 1990

Sivathamby, K. - Drama in Ancient Tamil Society, New Century Book House, 1981