It is impossible to imagine human history without emotions. But what is known
about theoretical emotion knowledge in premodern South India? This volume offers a
first systematic examination of emotion knowledge as found in Tamil treatises and
commentaries written from the 11th to 17th century. By following different
theoretical strands, it sheds light on the questions that were raised by various
emotion theorists, as well as their agenda and theorising practices. It points out
changes, linearity, and disruptions in their ideas, as well as historically marginal
knowledge. Perhaps surprisingly, the only systematic works on emotion produced by
medieval and early modern Tamil thinkers were on emotion in poetics.
