"Offering a brilliant, detailed analysis of an extraordinary Tamil religious figure and intellectual, this book is a landmark intervention that is without a doubt one of the most important studies of Hinduism to be published in recent years."--Sascha Ebeling, author of Colonizing the Realm of Words: The Transformation of Tamil Literature in Nineteenth-Century South India "In recovering the nineteenth-century poet-saint Vallalar or Ramalinga Swamigal for a global academic audience, Richard Weiss radically questions received wisdom regarding tradition and modernity, and brings nineteenth-century South India into the mainstream of the history of Hinduism. The figure of Ramalingam emerging from Weiss's absorbing study will not fail to fascinate the reader."--A. R. Venkatachalapathy, author of The Province of the Book: Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu.