Nicolas Cane (b. 1975) is Associate Professor in Tamil at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations [INaLCO] (Paris, France) and a historian of South India specialised in epigraphy. He has a Master’s degree in Tamil Language (Languages, Cultures and World Societies, speciality: History) from the INaLCO, and a PhD (2017) in History of Religions and Religious Anthropology from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, France.
His main research and teaching interests revolve around epigraphical sources in Tamil, Tamil classical and devotional literatures, and the Historiography of Ancient and Medieval Tamil Nadu.
His research in the ERC DHARMA (Task-force A) will focus on both the study and encoding of Tamil inscriptions from Tamil Nadu.
Selected Publications
Forthcoming “’For the Profit of Kuttapperumal…’ The Dancing Siva within the Epigraphic Records of Queen Sempian-Mahadevi’s Donative Activity”, in Anna A. Ślączka (ed.), Nataraja Revisited: New Research on the Nataraja Icon.
Forthcoming “Temples, inscriptions and historical (re)construction. The ‘epigraphical persona’ of the Cōḻa Queen Cempiyaṉ Mahādevī (Tenth Century)”, in Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient 105.
2016 “Queen Cempiyaṉ Mahādevī’s Religious Patronage in Tenth-Century South India: The ‘Missing Link’ Between Local and Royal Bhakti?”, pp. 347–384 in Emmanuel Francis and Charlotte Schmid (eds.), The Archaeology of Bhakti II: Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti, Pondicherry: IFP & EFEO.
