power it is accomplished. During this tiresome journey, many people are encountered and Joseph imparts the Bible and advises them not to be deceived by external appearances but to lay emphasis only on internal purification.

Reaching Egypt, he is attacked by evil spirits, but his undaunted faith overcomes them. He was simple but of undisputed courage with which he could annihilate suffering. Joseph resigns himself to his exile. In exile, he endeavours to serve men with unrestricted generosity. Self-pity does not envelop him.

Joseph’s deep love for Jesus is revealed when the child Jesus is lost for three days. Believing that he had left them to be crucified, Joseph earnestly wants to be crucified beside him. That death was not the end of life is emphatically brought out. Joseph rises with Jesus bodily and is crowned by the Holy Trinity.

According to Taṇṭi in Taṇtialaṅkāram, “the hero of an epic should be unrivalled and peerless.” Either in war or by some outstanding accomplishment the hero distinguishes himself in most of the epics. War is the chief field of the hero’s labours but in Maṇimēkalai and Cilappatikāram war has no direct connection with the hero or heroine and still they are considered epics.

Joseph in Beschi’s Tēmpāvaṇi is not at the head of conquering armies but at the head of a greater army-the army of God, fighting God’s battle while performing His work both in Heaven and on Earth. In this, Joseph is unrivalled and his greatness becomes peerless and thus justifies Beschi’s elevation of him as the hero of Tēmpāvaṇi.

Tēmpāvaṇi is purely a religious epic. The author has Indianised the Catholic concepts which arrested attention. The innumerable attributes of God have been classified under six main all-embracing attributes. These six attributes of God are enumerated in one verse and they are (i) He is of himself the Lord of all, (ii) He is eternal, (iii) He is immaterial, (iv) He