The Tamil Poets

Lesson 53 established that composing in the natural language is a socially loaded act before it is a literary one. The question that follows is where it happened, and how the Sanskrit tradition responded to it. The second half of that question has a first-hand answer.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, at 11.5.36 to 11.5.40, is describing the Kali age. Three things are said in sequence.

The age is praiseworthy — kaliṃ sabhājayanty āryā guṇajñāḥ sārabhāginaḥ, "the noble, who know its quality and take the essence, praise the Kali" — yatra saṃkīrtanenaiva sarvasvārtho 'bhilabhyate, "in which by saṃkīrtana alone every desired end is obtained."