Bibliographic record
Abstract
The article presents some remarks concerning practices aimed at achieving rejuvenation, longevity and immortality described in the literature of the Tamil Siddhas, with special reference to the medico-alchemical stream of the tradition. The study is based on the philological analysis of selected representative works of Tamil Siddha literature, starting from the Tirumantiram of Tirumūlar (6-12th century). The Tirumantiram is generally acknowledged to be a root text of the Tami Siddha tradition and it contains passages that elaborately discuss the theory and practices of yoga, presenting them as a means of attaining longevity and immortality. It also contains references to medical practices. Further, relevant ideas about rejuvenating, life-prolonging and immortalizing methods found in selected texts of the medico-alchemical stream of the tradition are discussed. The literature of the medical and alchemical lore of the Tamil Siddhas, roughly dated to the period between the 16th and 19th centuries, abounds in practical recipes for the drugs (kaṟpam) for prolonging life. Certain items credited with extraordinary powers connected with rejuvenation and immortalization, such as triple salt (muppu), mercurial jewel (racamaṇi), human urine, special varieties of medicinal plants, etc. are particularly referenced to in the paper. Finally, the concepts relating to “the art of non-dying” (cākākkalai) taught in the works of Vaḷḷalār, the poet-saint born in 19th century and closely linked with the Tamil Siddha tradition, are outlined in the article.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.014 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.012 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".