The semantic field of “immortality” in the literature of the Tamil Siddhas: a diachronic lexical analysis

This article offers a cross-corpus lexical analysis of the semantic field of “immortality” in the literature of the Tamil siddhas. The material consists of a corpus of approximately 180 terms drawn from four corpora: Tirumular’s Tirumantiram, the texts of the kāya-siddhas, the poetry of the jñāna-siddhas, and the works of Ramalinga Swamigal. The article asks whether “immortality” functions in these texts as a single concept, or whether one translated label conceals several irreducible semantic configurations. Two analytical tools are employed: a functional typology of the lexicon (methods, substances, processes, results) and a diachronic analysis of semantic shifts as terms move from one corpus to another. The analysis shows that there is no single concept of immortality in this material. Instead, four distinct registers can be identified: the negation of death, the overcoming of time, bodily incorruptibility, and dissolution into light. The central lexical cluster of “body/form” reveals four mutually incompatible regimes: the body as temple, the body as laboratory, the body as abject matter, and the body as light. The functional typology shows that the corpora are not organized in the same way: the jñāna-siddhas are, in many respects, structured as a mirror opposite of the kāya-siddhas, while the Tirumantiram combines two different types of outcome. This makes it possible to treat the “siddha tradition” not as a single historically continuous whole, but as a later construction sustained by three mechanisms: the reinterpretation of older terms, the retrospective construction of genealogy, and lexical inversion. The analysis also identifies 22 verified anti-bodily lexemes from the poetry of Pattinattar and Pattirakiriyar, the systematic publication of which is envisaged as a separate study.