The book presents thirteen essays discussing in close detail topics that range from the cultural significance of the coconut to the treatment of nature in Akam poetics, from matriliny to Yakshagana, from Hindu Astronomy to Buddhist Art, from the role of the village to the public library systems, and from St. Thomas to C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar. These essays of interdisciplinary nature by diverse hands find common ground and concern in focusing for the most part on the indigenousness of this region. Contributors include Kapila Vatsyayan, Elinor Gadon, Usha V.T. and S. Murali among many others. These essays are more than merely introductory, more than mere critical assessments. The pattern that emerges from a close reading of the various facets of South Indian history and life is one rich in complexity and yet indigenous, and like the Tantric mandala, with its different colours and patterns, configuring into a unified system. This book certainly is bound to be of interest to the causal reader as well as the scholar.
