Contemporary literary theorists use the term ‘re-creation’
to refer to the fact that creation always involves ‘making something new out of something old and something else out of what already is’. All the re-terms they propose, re-vision, re-membering and re-collecting involve “a radical re-visiting and re-valuing of the past in the present in order to gesture to ways forward.” Initially these terms were developed by writers such as Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Louis Gates in connection with the making of traditions of women’s and black writing.
Here is one of the best instances of classics being re-visited. W.B. Yeats, having been inspired by the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo wrote a poem called “Leda and the Swan”, a verbal depiction of the scene of Zeus taking on the body of a swan and raping the water – nymph Leda.
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
Judith Kazantsis, a poet from a Greek-British background, re-visits the painting of the scene by Leonardo da Vinci as well as the poem by W.B. Yeats.
Leda, the inside out lady of the swan
wants to knuckle the cold
rotter who fluttered her to bed.
Caught in the infinite wiggle
in a mesmerization of paint here she is, propped in her voluptuous stay
maddened for all who like a good sex object
shielding her feathered friend.
His beak pinches her demonstrable little
Breasts, quacking all mine her plump pubic mound pretty and public
her eyes abashed
how she blushes, the mystery!
my corrected darling!
The silent curly face
Carries on talking backwards to the wall
no no no no no!
Kalaignar revisits Sangam classics again and again and revels in re-presenting them in modern prose, modern verse and as musical compositions. Kalappelaiyum Kavitaiccaviyum is his magnum opus in this genre. His varied responses to Tirukkural eventuate in tributes of diverse forms, the best of which is, of course, Kuraloviyam. Even to the most learned of Tamil Scholars, Tolkappiyam is a hard nut to crack but Kalaignar was not prepared to leave it as a sealed book to the common reader.
Sangam Poems
Sangattamizh is a an unusual anthology of a hundred modern prose-poems introducing and interpreting as many ancient poems chosen from the celebrated Sangam corpus. It is in a way a daring intertextual exercise embedding the extraordinary lyrics of the past in modern settings, the final outcome being a large gold plate studded with precious stones. For this unique treatment, Kalaignar has deliberately chosen many well-known poems but it is the large number of lesser known pieces which reflects upon his thorough mastery of the sangam collections.
The one hundred chapters in Sangattamizh are very appropriately introduced by Kalaignar in a prologue called “Malarmari Polikiren” (Let me pour a shower of flowers) in which he pays his homage to the Sangam poets by offering to shower the ninety-nine flowers mentioned by Kapilar in his Kurincippattu. This lovely flower-passage, a breath-taking catalogue, is comparable to the flower-passages in Milton’s “Lycidas” and Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”. The epithets that Kapilar uses indicate that he has an intimate knowledge of every flower that he describes unlike Milton “who saw nature only through the spectacles of books”. What is more astonishing is that the ancient Tamils had a few well-formulated conventions regarding the use of objects of nature in poetry and that they approved of bringing together flowers found in various regions during different seasons if it serves a definite poetic purpose.
In a sequence of four chapters on Piciantaiyar, remembered for his poetry as well as for his unique friendship with a king called Kopperuncolan, Kalaignar comments on five Purananuru pieces. Legend has it that the poet became a friend of the Chola king without having seen him even once. The first of these five poems is addressed to Pandyan Arivutai Nampi advising him to be a wise ruler and to be considerate to his people. The poem by Picirantaiyar actually says,
If you reap ripe paddy and mash it into balls for the feeding of your elephants, less than what grows on a ma will be enough for many days. But an elephant let loose to feed by itself will trample a thousand mas of grain that will never touch its mouth! When a wise king conscious of the right path and he then taxes as he should, his country will offer him as much as ten millions and it will still flourish! But if he is a ruler without backbone, who has no idea of the right and each day desires things which he simply takes without love while his corrupt followers do the same, then as if he were the field that an elephant invades, he will not even feed himself and the world will collapse!
But Kalaignar provides an imaginary background to what might have been a crucial event in the life of the king and the poet.
The people of Pandiya Kingdom, under the fish flag flying high,
Many a victory had won at the battlefield.
But deep at heart a regret they had, and that was this:
Pandiyan Arivudai Nambi of sharp moustache,
Many taxes exacted from the people, without augmenting the country’s wealth.
Keen were they to straighten the bent sceptre of the king.
Many came with palm – leaf messages long, but with no avail!
Delighting in the company of dancers and singers at the Royal Hall,
Enjoying a quarrel feigned and play of love with his queen,
And tasting pleasure to his heart’s content on the softest bed,
Were the ways to rule the country, he thought!
Four or five people, joining hands with the government officers,
Ruined him step by step!
Whatever the king said, they quickly responded, saying “yes”,
And flattering him, they made him freely enjoy himself in the mire
Of joys sensual, and snared him into a rule full of difficulties!
Some of his kith and kin seized upon the opportunity
And adopted their subtle tricks and perpetrated beyond measure
The crime of deceiving the people of the land!
It is under these circumstances that the wise of the Pandiya country choose to meet Picirantaiyar and appeal to him to chastise the king for not taking the reign of the kingdom seriously enough. The poet makes bold to meet the ruler and tell him point – blank:
Will the fish live ever on the ground,
If you order that these be taken out of water,
The ministers and others of the government, unable to stop this,
Will remain helpless, like dolls!
Thus dear king! Weak you have become in your judgment!
To the utter deterioration of this ancient and acclaimed land of Sangam Tamil!
If vexing the people and exacting taxes alone from them is the ruler’s aim,
The country without contributing to the welfare of anyone,
Will become a mound of earth, like a paddy field
Trampled upon by an elephant mad! Please know this!”
Advised thus by the poet, the king is reported to have been transformed into a benevolent ruler.
What is remarkable about this Purananuru poem is the message that it conveys at this distance of time. Even two thousand years ago, the bards of Tamilnadu enjoyed the privilege of chiding the kings whenever they went wrong. What is incredibly admirable is that a turai called Ceviyarivuruu -Telling the king how to rule the country and imparting wholesome thoughts – was set apart for this in sangam poetics.
The friendship between Picirantaiyar and the Chola king is an ideal example of the old intimacy (Palaimai) which Valluvar glorifies:
If you ask what ancient intimacy is, it is the friendship that does not spoil in any way the liberties that flow from it. (801)
Of what use is ancient friendship if one does not acquiesce in the other’s deeds exercised by the right of intimacy? (803)
The poem apostrophizing a male swan is a profound expression of the poet’s abiding love and admiration for the king. Kalaignar’s introductory setting and commentary add to the beauty of the lyric:
When he saw a male swan spreading its wings,
And flying across the sky,
He wished to compose a song on his dearest friend, Chozhan,
Centering upon the male swan.
With the imagination gushing forth,
The poet a beautiful poem wrote in Tamil sweet!
He invoked the bird, revealing his disturbed heart,
And hiding the mental storm in his heart
That he hadn’t still met Kopperum Chozhan,
He sang of his fame immense!
The pearls, without being strung together, do not a garland make!
As a garland of friendship flourished,
And Tamil as pearls and Tamil feelings as threads became!
The love and munificence of Chozhan of sinewed shoulders,
The song’s central theme it became!
“O male swan! O male Swan!
You do from far away Kanyakumari come,
Flying high in the sky, with a fish caught between the beak, and journeying
To the north of snow-filled mountains; may your journey succeed!
Dear swan mine!
On your way is the capital of Chozhan who does the enemies conquer!
The city of Uraiyur to my dear Kopperum Chozhan belongs as Capital!
The king rules over excellently, according to the principle: ‘The wealth of the plough never fails.’
From the South is he whose left hand
Isn’t aware of what the right gives!
If you go with your she – swan,
On the way, the glow of love in Chozhan’s eyes you will see!
It someone stops you midway, do not with your companion come back;
To the hearing of God – like Chozhan,
Shout loud before the sentinels of Uraiyur,
And announce you belong to Pisir,
Where lives the poet, Picirandaiyar,
The king himself will rush and receive you,
And give precious ornaments and rare gems to the she – swan!
This is because such a friendship deep he has for me.
Even honey satiates, but this, the friendship between us two,
Never does satiate.
It is the three or four poems of this type found in the Sangam anthologies which later paved the way for the birth of the genre called messenger – poetry in Tamil, Sanskrit and other Indian languages.
The best known poem of Piciratantaiyar is reported to have been composed as an occasional piece at the request of his colleagues when he went to see the Chola king, who was starving himself to death in the rite of vatakkiruttal. The noble men sitting by the side of the king asked the poet, “We have heard of you for many years; yet how is it that you have no gray hair.” Then this poem came as a reply to their query:
My children have gone far in learning. My wife is rich in her virtue!
My servants do what I wish and my king, who shuns corruption, protects us!
And in my city there are many noble men who through their deep knowledge,
have acquired calm, have become self-controlled,
And the choices they make in their lives are built on the quality of restraint!
But before introducing this poem, Kalaignar appropriately paints an imaginary scene bringing out the happy family life led by the poet, his wife and his grandchildren.
“See the scene of two rows of mullai
Smiling here,” he said; raising her
Bowlike brow, his wife asked, “Where?”
“The lovely smile of a lady
Like you and the smile of this cooked
Rice were called mullai by me,” he said;
“Be cautious about the words you use,
Children are nearby,” she said.
These diamond icons sculpted by our
Son aren’t old enough to understand
This language! Our grown-up son has
Gone to the field with his wife; there
Is still time for their return;
Don’t be scared!” he said; “They will
Soon be here, don’t fondle me now,”
She cautioned him! At once he closed
His mouth with the rice she had served!
Suffocated by the food he swallowed
He struggled hard to regain his breath!
She rushed to her husband’s help, gave
A pat on the head and tenderly
Touched his chest when he embraced her
But she dodged him! Like the sounding
Anklets the old couple laughed in ecstasy!
The grandchildren began to laugh
Clapping their tender hands and
Their prattling was sweet as the lower
Part of the sugar cane! But their joy
That opened the floodgates came to
A stop as if banned all on a sudden
When the news dreadful as fire reached
Their ears!
Picirantaiyar is shocked to hear that the king’s sons dear to him as his life had declared a war against him and that the great Chola, driven to despair by the deed of his sons, had decided to fight against them. His heart shaken by grief, Picir leaves for the Chola land, hears that the noble men of that town had assembled at the town’s common hall and rushes to the place with a heart that was broken and a grief beyond words. Pottiyar, Putanakanar, Nattattanar and Pullarrur Eyirriyanar jump out of their seats in the hall and greet him with great delight. When he wants to know what happened to the fight between the lion and its cubs, they tell him that Eyirriyanar could cool the king’s anger and put an end to the war by a charming Tamil poem which asks, “When stepped on by its young ones should the hen be shaken?” Picir goes into raptures and returns home with a sense of relief. But soon some news storms his heart. He gets a palm – leaf letter stating that the king, unable to bear the agony of the revolt of his sons, has gone to die facing the north. Taking leave of his people, he tells them, “When we have lived a life that defined friendship, we won’t part in the world of death, Let the Chola be informed that Picirantai will soon sit with him to face death.” Having said this the lion of poets started travelling, tears falling from his eyes just as snow falls from leaves.
Poets of the Tamil land heard that the great Tamil king who had ruled long, his heart filled with grief cold as frog because of his sons’ war, desired to die facing the north deciding that that was the only way to overcome his sorrow. Some of those that sat with him feeling that their life was not nectar, and some who had not considered their life dear as candy but dared to die, and whose life was ebbing away their bodies weakening, asked the king, “King of kings! you used to tell us Picirantai a Tamil bard and a great teacher had become your bosom friend without having met you; why is it he hasn’t come though your life is coming to an end? He vowed to die sitting by your side; what happened to his words that promised his return?” Hearing the mocking tone the king felt terribly indignant towards those that suspected his friend’s honesty even in the place where they had come to die. Know this, gentlemen, Antai is genuine gold mined out of the Tamil town Picir of the Pandya kingdom; his is pure friendship that doesn’t show off during prosperity but rushes to help at times of adversity.” Giving this answer the king died and became a hero-stone the next day. Picirantai reached the place late but gave up his life sitting by the side of his friend. Poet Kannakanar weaving a garland of verse out of his flower – tears decked those hero – stones.
When one thinks of it, it is amazing that
A man of glorious qualities has decided
To die thus leaving all the honour behind.
It is still more amazing that a renowned
Man living in another king’s land should
Come here during such days valuing fame
As great and using friendship as support.
The glory of the king that said the other
Would come here and the mind of the man that
Came proving him right seem strange and strange
Beyond understanding; what will happen
To this land that has lost the reputed king
That won the heart of a noble man from a land
Beyond the sway of his scepter? It will be pitied.
Kalaignar’s homage to Nakkirar’s Netunalvatai assumes the form of a poem which re-presents two scenes – one in which king Netunceliyan is seen in a war-camp and another in which his queen is found in her bed shedding tears all the time. The opening paragraph of the modern poem proudly states that our dear Tamil race is the only one that has lived from time immemorial dividing life profoundly into akam (noumenon) and puram (phenomenon). Nakkirar has strung akam and puram together in an exquisite poetic garland. Of the celebrated ten songs known as Pattuppattu, Netunalvatai shines as a pearl couched in nectar – sweet Tamil telling us about the king’s heroism and the happening that burnt Kopperuntevi’s heart when, parted from her husband, she suffered long from pangs of love. The seven kings that foolishly felt that a youth was caught in the field of Talayalankanam all alone faced a disgraceful defeat. After the war, the young king desiring to live like the anril bird accepted a lovely dove – like lady as his wife and queen.
Even after the famed war of Talayalankanam, the king leading waves and waves of warriors heaped hills and hills of garlands of victory but the queen was depressed like a bird that feels frustrated because it cannot eat though bunches and bunches of fruits are there in front. Unable to spend her days and nights the agonized queen kept weeping day in day out. What was the condition of the king that had in fury gone to the field? The queen was, alas, all misery attacked by the cold wind of winter but its threat to the king was in vain beside the fury of the war!
Nakkiranar the bard of bards
Sings the sorrow of birds in houses.
The days when the cock and the hen
Together went out, had their fill
And rejoiced having gone, today
They are kept in wooden cages where
Not knowing the night from the day
They kept shifting their pained legs!
In that killing cold, the lady with
A peacock look, her heart smitten
By love, keeps rolling in her bed.
…
Flags display rainbow – like hues
On a tower tall as a peak!
Did they use silver as white paint
To decorate the pillars that
Were as blue as thick blue stones?
Nakkirar paints in flawless Tamil the king’s palace looking strong as ramparts built in copper. He sings the bed where the Pandya queen lies with lips lovely as Cemparutti blossoms burdened by thoughts about him that filled her mind.
The cot was decked with a pair of
Sharp tusks secured from a wild tusker
With drum – like legs that had died
In a fight having lived for full
Forty years; the four petty jars
On top of the four stands were round
Globes beauteous as the milk – filled
Breasts of a pregnant woman;
Pearl garlands served as hangings;
Lilies and jasmines figured in
Paintings; besides a blanket,
A work of superb craftsmanship,
Picturing a lion hunt, there were
Plenty of pillows to lie against
And to rest her head and hands on
All made of soft feathers of swans.
But her man was not there to ask her
To lie against! Hence the floodgates
Of her misery were bursting!
Pressing her feet softly her maids
Begged her to sleep but she became
Furious and chided them in agony,
“Get lost, you seem to have no work.”
Seeing in the picture of the sky
The figures of the moon and Rohini
Together, she said, “I haven’t been
Blessed with that boon but suffer
Like this in vain;” with her fingers
She wiped the tears that had gathered
At the corner of her long eyebrows
But couldn’t wipe away her sorrow!
How was the king when the queen in the Maturai mansion was lying like a creeper full of honey – burdened flowers waiting in agony for the bees? Love was not a hindrance to the monarch’s sense of duty. Though his thoughts turned to her beloved, he did not lose sight of his ideal. The cold wind visited his camp also but because of that he did not run away from the sword – drawn battlefield in search of the bangled lady! He went out at midnight not to see his chaste wife lying in bed grief – stricken.
During the wintry days when hills
Shook assailed by the cold wind from
The north, the king in the northern
Camp never turned to the south
Longing for his loving wife though
The torch – flame leaned towards the south!
To discharge his duty as the chief,
Surrounded by torch – bearing soldiers
Holding with the left hand the shawl
Slipping from the left shoulder,
Placing his right hand with his affection
On a sturdy soldier’s shoulder,
During a rainy midnight, the king
Went round the camp seeing the wounded
Soldiers, enquiring them about
Their welfare, thanking them profusely!
When the king’s kind consoling look
Fell on them, all their grief at
The loss of limbs in the fierce fight
During the day when foes were
Destroyed and driven away vanished.
While the queen of queens looking for her lover is lost in grief, the king is going round the camp with painful legs to do his duty. Stressing the significance of this scene, Kalaignar concludes the account with the question:
Isn’t one Netunalvatai enough
To show that our dearest Tamil
Race is the one race that has been
Living for long a life wisely
Divided into akam and puram?
Kalaignar has been so impressed with the aptness of the grand simile used by Aiyur Mulan Kilar in a poem on Kanap perreyil katanta Ukkirapperuvaluti that he weaves that into a long verse tale of his own spotlighting the king’s memorable deeds. The tale blending fact and fiction begins with certain historical details about the king and the famed eyil or fort. Kalaiyar Koyil, where the statues of the lion – hearted warriors Cinna Marutu and Periya Marutu who ruled Civakankai and created history have been erected, was known as Kanapper in the past. A small king there called Venkai Marpan possessing a well – built fort issued a challenge to the kings to conquer the castle if they could. All lion – like warriors stood stunned in silence as they became aware of the fact that though one could make a hole, enter an atom, one could not penetrate the fort.
Ukkirapperuvluti, ruling the Pandya Kingdom at that time, was a lion on the battlefield, bold and strong enough to treat tuskers as playthings and none of his foes could survive his sword. Besides being mighty, he had the mind of an artist and won great glory for getting the akam poems compiled into a volume. The launching of Tirukkural, the ever shinning lamp, is reported to have taken place in his presence only. Avvai one day finding the Pandya seated together with Cholan Perunarkilli and Ceraman Mari Venko greeted them with a rare garland in verse blessing them with lasting unity.
In Kalaignar’s account, it is the king’s wife who persuades him to seek the honour of breaking the legendary fort. The king himself refers to Mulankilar’s description of the fort.
That fort was built in the city
Called Kanapper; our court poet
Avur Mulankilar has a rare
Picture of that fort; listen to me!
It deserves to rank first among
The forts! A long moat deeper than
The earth, a rampart high touching
The blue sky, a retreat from where
Soldiers can shoot arrows unobserved
And move fast as the stars crowding
That sky, a shielding forest dense
With trees impenetrable by the sun’s
Rays, and countless battlements constitute
Kanapper eyil which can’t be
Shaken even by a thousand tuskers!
I have been delighted many times
By the songs sung about it by
Our bard in Tamil, said the king.
If you are successful in
The siege and get into the moat
There will be a ceaseless shower
Of stones and arrows from the fort;
If you overcome the obstacle
Boiled oil and molten lead will
Come down on you in torrents;
If you try to reach the top braving
All these they will crush the ladders.
Even if you manage to climb,
The top of your head will be pierced
By mechanical feathers of
Metal birds; only when you escape
These, can you descend down inside.
But the queen is interested more in her husband’s glory than in the praises heaped on the castle. She, therefore, does not hesitate to provoke him into acting immediately: “The Pandya king knows the foes far away; you bring them caught in cages like tigers, but very near our place in Kanapper erecting a rampart and raising his sword high Venkai Marpan thunders terrifying the town that none leading an army can near him. Isn’t it shameful if we keep quiet when he makes fun of our valour? I have expressed the doubt that has been lying at the bottom of my heart for a long time; to the king, who can break a tusker’s head, is Venkai Marpan’s fort Vindhya hills? Even if the moat he has dug is deep as a sea, to my Pandya, isn’t it small enough to be crossed? Why then should we be silent witnessing Venkai’s pride? Let the king clarify this doubt; let us then have a happy time!”
Since the queen is in a sulk, the king has to promise her that when the day dawns, he will order the infantry and the other armies of elephants, horses and chariots to leave for Kanapper. It is done and the siege of the fort ends successfully. A few days later Ayyur Mulankilar comes to the court and tells him that he will hereafter be called Kanapper eyil Katanta Ukkirapperuvaluti, which title will last till the sun lasts. The king asks the bard if Venkai Marpan, fretting and fuming, will get ready for a fight to recover the fort. And then the poet’s reply comes giving a splendid metaphor to Tamil:
Is it possible to get back a drop
Of water that fell on the piece
Of iron boiling in the blacksmith’s
Cauldron of fire? Kanapper conquered
By Peruvaluti is like
The water sucked in the smithy’s iron;
This is how Venkai sings your praise
And lives with a heart full of grief.”
Kalaignar’s verse tale celebrates the king for his achievement on and off the battlefield and the formidable Cankam poet for the rich realistic metaphor made memorable through a short poem.
The last eleven sections of Sangat tamizh constitute a single dramatic poem centring round the woman poet Narkannai, whose unrequited love for the Chola king Perunarkilli is poignantly described by herself in three poems in Purananuru, two in Narrinai and one in Akananuru. Reading closely these six together with one by Kavarpentu and another by Cattantaiyar, Kalaignar writes a moving verse tale in which Narkannai and Perunarkilli figure as the heroine and the hero, a pair of star – crossed lovers who win our sympathy and admiration. Kavarpentu, known for the poem in which a mother of the warrior clan, when asked by a mother where her son had gone, declares proudly that her stomach was once the tiger’s cave, is presented as the foster – mother of Perunarkilli.
In the ancient Chola capital Uraiyur, a king called Tittan, was giving away all the wealth to the ascetics who offered sacrifices. Saying that this was not the true Tamil tradition, his son kept opposing him. But rejecting all the sane advice of the young man, like an innocent child that refuses to drink the bitter medicine not realizing its potent, Tittan squandered the nation’s wealth unscrupulously. Killi gave a rational explanation to his objection: “To fill the royal treasury is the duty of the people; is it right to pierce their hearts making their life a fallow land? A King’s greatness lies in a benevolent reign; to set fire to noble aims is the deed of those devoid of ideals. Pouring pots and pots of milk and honey into the fire, killing goats, cows and horses to offer as a sacrifice and conducting yagnas to have share in the offerings will shake the basis of the dictum that love is God.” But the king thundered, “King I am of this land. How can you my son oppose me and preach atheism leaving a scar on your tongue? Leave this country before I cut your tongue and feed dogs and foxes.” The prince with a golden heart answered, “Today I will leave Uraiyur, which gave me birth; but, my king, you call me an atheist because I said, ‘There is only one God; don’t offer lives as a sacrifice; in order to see the heaven supposed to hang in the sky you kill making a hell of this earth’. One can cure madness. But I leave this land feeling my father cannot be reformed.” Leaving Uraiyur, Killi reached Amur, a well – guarded city and Cattantai, a prince of words, accompanied him avoiding the Chola king and vowing to safeguard the Tamil’s dignity, heroism, culture and tradition.
When the ruler of Amur was defeated by a wrestler who claimed the possession of the whole city, Killi accepted the challenge in order to redeem the place and the chieftain. He wins the fight and the praise of Cattantaiyar in three priceless poems.
Rushing towards the wrestler and
Pushing him to the ground, Narkilli,
Sitting with one knee on his chest
Avoiding his attack with the other,
Pinned his back to the earth, broke
His head and legs and killed him just as
A hungry tusker attempting to
Eat a bamboo would bend and break it.
In another poem, an exquisite simile is used to describe the speed with which Narkilli fought:
In the hand of a low – caste leather worker stitching a cot, with a festival impending and his wife in labour and the sun descending while the rain comes pouring down, as he pulls thread through and again through, the needle flies! When the warrior tried to take the city, the lord who wears a chaplet of laburnum fought with that speed!
A lovely lady, Narkannai, watching the fight with bated breath, fell in love with the prince and asked her confidante by her eyes if he could be bought by love! Her breasts heaving up and down, she was troubled by unbearable pangs of love. She was the daughter of a rich shipping magnate named Perunkoli Naykan. Being a fusion of beauty and intelligence, she was like a stream into which a thousand pots of honey had been poured! She was herself a poem, a sweet nectar – like Tamil poem. Indirectly expressing his intense love for him she wrote a poem and read it to herself again and again:
This is not the city here that belongs to my lord!
This is not the land here that belongs to my lord!
And so there are some who are saying, “Victory! Victory!”
And so there are some who are saying, “No victory for him!”
Good then! Two fine opinions voiced by many people!
I ran, to the tinkling of my lovely anklets, and I stood
by my house, leaning on a palmyra tree with its trunk large
as a mula drum, and I saw it, that the victory was his!
When she has an opportunity to meet him in her own house, she manages to hand over to him an epistle in verse praising his matchless heroism:
Though he is forced to live on gruel, my lord has broad shoulders, and I, though I sit here by his house, am as pale as gold. If my lord will accept the challenges and will step onto the fighting field, then in our large and noisy city, for the warriors who blithely approach him at the festival, he will be like a road that daunts the merchants of salt!
When more wars follow, Narkilli proves his mettle beyond a shadow of a doubt and Narkannai’s love for him keeps growing steadily. His heroic deeds win the admiration of Cattantaiyar whose poetic inspiration is kindled again.
There is an uproar louder than the sound of the swelling sea!
The trumpeting of his elephants lasts longer than the monsoon’s thunder!
If the warrior who wears a chaplet of laburnum strung tightly on a thread,
Whose hand is a cup for giving gifts,
Lays his hand on anyone, how that man is to be pitied!
When this is read out by the poet himself, Narkannai is overjoyed and the prince feels too shy to talk.
When Narkannai suffers from the agony of her unreciprocated love for Narkilli, her mother cautions her against cherishing the hope of getting married to a prince since she happens to belong to a clan of merchants. She asks the young lady, “Can a deformed lame woman desire to pick a kurinci flower on top of a hill?” But Narkannai’s confidante keeps telling her not to lose hope. The young heroine expresses it in a poem of her own.
Like the bat of thorn like teeth, which, while sleeping hanging on the tall branch of the mango tree inside the village, dreamed of the sour taste of the goose berry of the wide forest of Azhici of the Cholas, I had a dream when I thought of the spacious cool seaside park and the cheerfulness of the fisherfolk in the small cottage in his region.
When the prince returns to Amur after another great victory, she is persuaded by the benevolent poet Cattantaiyar to indite and recite a poem celebrating his victory in the presence of a large gathering. The poem makes it clear that the protagonist is in love with the victorious hero. If she does not say anything and merely wastes away, it is because she is afraid of her mother’s reaction. If she accepts him, she is scared of the gathering which may not allow her to marry him. She is unable to choose between remaining silent and revealing her love.
Because of the young warrior who wears war anklets
on his legs and whose beard is the colour of collyrium, the bangles hang loose
on my arms and I am afraid of my mother. Yet if I should embrace
those shoulders of a warrior, I may be shamed before the assembly!
May this bewildered city tremble as much
as I do, forever, not able to choose, divided between two minds!
The poem wins the applause of the audience and the poet boldly taking the initiative tells the assembly that Narkannai’s father has come forward to offer his daughter as a reward to the hero and that she is in love with him and would be delighted to marry him. But, quite unexpectedly, Narkilli thunders that he is opposed to that because he loves the sword and not the petal; after uttering those words, he leaves the place, much to the shock of Narkannai who swoons. On a later day, when she is contemplating suicide he makes his appearance again only to tell her that even though he loves her poetry, he is not in love with her as he always prefers the sword to the petal. Her heart broken, she expresses her love for him in another immortal poem.
Lord of the waving waters in whose area the bud, like the tusk of the elephant in the fragrant screw pine of broad base rough as the exterior of the prawn, thorny leaf like the horn of the shark spreads its smell in the festive fields, if you go driven by a charioteer, know well that she will not live the few days within which you may return.
Though the prince reiterating his decision to choose the sword and not the petal is adamant, Kavarpentu, his foster mother and a poet in her own right, persuades him to accept the hand of Narkannai but circumstances so conspire that the heroine not knowing that the hero has changed his mind manages to get killed by the sword of her lover. But before that tragic end takes place, Kalaignar manages to introduce a few more Sangam poems of imperishable value.
The tragic story of Narkannai and Narkilli, as narrated in verse by Kalaignar, is a supreme instance of his successful attempts at re-presenting the immortal and intriguing personages that emerge from certain clusters of Sangam poems.
Vanpukazh Konda Valluvam
In his Vanpukazh Konda Valluvam Kalaignar chooses one kural each from the one hundred and eight chapters of “Arattuppal” and “Porutpal,” begins with a profound comment often adorning it with an illustrative episode, passes on to the Tamil text and then gives its exact meaning. This strategy enables him to simplify the interpretations of Valluvar’s couplets by the learned medieval commentators, to introduce his own explanation wherever he differs from them, and to make the import of the couplet clear to the common reader. Given his incredibly vast experience as a social worker, as a politician in the thick of all the regional and national activities during six or seven long decades, and as a voracious reader of ancient and modern writings, he has a fund of anecdotal material at his beck and call. One of the chief merits of Tirukkural is that many of the couplets, being extremely terse, lend themselves to more than one interpretation. Medieval commentators such as Manakkutavar, Parimelalakar and Kalinkar as well as numerous modern scholars read their own ideologies and pet theories into it without any compunction. On many occasions, Kalaignar takes a lot of trouble to set the record straight.
The forty ninth chapter of Tirukkural advises the king as well as everyone who undertakes a risky deed to be cautious in choosing the opportune moment. One of the couplets in that chapter says,
If one chooses the right time and the right place and acts, one will be victorious even if one’s aim is to conquer the whole world. (484)
To drive home the idea, Kalaignar hits upon an apt episode from recent history and presents it with remarkable vividness so that it may be firmly fixed in the reader’s mind.
When compared to several nations in the world, it is a small island, of the size of a mustard seed - Corsica!
It is the land where Napoleon, who fought many battles was born one of the thirteen children of his parents!
He cherished the dream of the liberation of Corsica; he desired to capture and rule the entire world!
He attempted to establish his reign even in the continent of Asia; he cast his net of ambition wider in order to extend his empire!
He clashed with Spain and then with Russia so that his conquest and control over the English and the European nations might be sealed.
Alexander was the Emperor of Russia at that time; he predicted that Napoleon’s army would be defeated since it won’t be able to withstand the Russion winter.
Everything happened as he thought. The horses, unable to gallop, lay down; the soldiers had no food to appease their hunger; but the heroic Napoleon entered Moscow.
The Russian nation, closing its lips like a dumb fellow, remained silent and there was none to oppose or to challenge. Napoleon was puzzled deeply by that silence.
Though he possessed plenty of weapons, he committed the blunder of taking the war into the enemy’s camp without reckoning on the cold weather. Facing defeat for the first time, he became broken – hearted.
Russia did not win with its army; it vanquished Napoleon with snowfall as its weapon. Winter was not the right time for an army to march on; but he learnt the lesson that it was stupid to get caught in the enemy’s nation during winter.
This account is followed by the text of the couplet and its direct meaning with, of course, a tribute to the Tamil poet.
In a chapter called “Guarding Against Forgetfulness,” Valluvar expatiates on the havoc caused by forgetfulness. Laxity of mind born of overweening joy is more harmful than even exceeding anger. Just as perpetual poverty kills men’s wisdom, forgetfulness will end their fame. Those who suffer from forgetfulness can have no claim to lasting renown. A man who does not guard himself against mind’s laxity will be forced to repent of his folly when woes befall him. There is nothing comparable to the unfailing guardedness of mind towards all at all times. Nothing is too difficult to accomplish when done with mind’s wakefulness. All commendable deeds must be done; those that fail to do them by treating them with contempt will lose heavily in all the seven births. When you feel an ecstatic happiness, think of those who were ruined by forgetfulness. It is easy for men to attain anything if they continue to keep it in mind.
These are the ideas stressed by Valluvar in this chapter and Kalaignar chooses one couplet for his special elucidation. That couplet means that just as no fortress around will be of use to the cowardly, no position, however high, will be of use to the self-forgetful men. The truth of this utterance is highlighted by one of the most appropriate episodes from Sanskrit drama. Forgetfulness is the fatal flaw in the character of Dushyanta of Kalidasa’s Sakuntalam. Though it is caused by a curse, it brings untold suffering upon the innocent heroine.
Dushyanta who went to the forest on a hunting expedition came across an exquisite gathering consisting of deer, sparrows, peacocks, nightingales and doves. In the midst of it, he saw a moving picture in the form of Sakuntala, a gold icon combining in itself the charm of a peacock, a nightingale, a dove and a sparrow. His heart was captivated by that beatuty. He took her as his wife and gave her a ring as a symbol of that union. In the forest, shades of trees became beds and the two hearts mingled beyond parting. It was when he left for his country after taking leave of her that he decked one of her fingers with a ring telling her, “This is the symbol of our love, dear!”
Keeping the ring close to her eyes every now and then and deriving immense delight from the experience, she roamed around the forest. When her picturesque body was immersed one day in a stream in a state of ecstasy, the ring, slipping off her finger fell into the water and was swallowed by a fish. The bee – eyed beauty felt miserable and later Sakuntala, a flash of lightning, went to meet her lover in the palace. Expressing his wonder, he asked her who she was. The queen of women wept asking him if he had forgotten her. Yes, he had forgotten her completely. He couldn’t recall her as there was no ring on her finger.
If the ring was required for him to remember her, how to call the king’s forgetfulness? That is why Ayyan Valluvar said long ago, “Those who are chicken – hearted won’t derive any support from a fortress; those who suffer from the blemish of oblivion will not benefit from any high status.”
Kalaignar’s is a succinct summary of the story of Kalaidasa’s Sakuntalam. For his illustrative examples, he has a treasure – trove of sources which are political, literary and historical. With effortless ease, he is able to draw on vast reserves of political experience and knowledge of ancient, medieval and contemporary writings including Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita.
Valluvar has a chapter each on using pleasant words, avoiding unfruitful words and oratory thereby covering both private conversations and public speaking. The Greeks and the Romans, emphasizing the value of the art of rhetoric especially for politicians, focused their attention on a large number of figures of speech which were defined and analysed by the ancient masters of rhetoric. But Valluvar differing from them does not confine himself to a single language in his discourse on the power of the tongue. In this area also, his recommendations have universal validity.
The oratorical skill is not to be treated as just one among several endowments men have to possess. One has to guard one’s tongue against thoughtless words since prosperity and ruin issue from speech. The words of an orator should not only keep the hearers spell – bound but also draw even those who haven’t heard him. One should utter one’s words weighing the context well. The wise of blameless worth will utter words of winning power and benefit from others’ words. It is almost impossible to defeat one who has the ability to speak, who is unfaltering and who is not given to timidness. The world will act according to the words of those who are endowed with the power of charming eloquence. Only those who cannot choose a few words of faultless worth will be fond of using words in their multitude. That group of learned men who cannot articulate what they have learnt are like unfragrant flowers though found in a cluster in bloom.
From a chapter expressing such maxims, Kalaignar chooses the couplet which contends that while speaking one should speak out a word knowing for certain that there is no other word that surpasses it in power. Now he succeeds in what he sets out to do by choosing for his explanation of the couplet an appealing anecdote, a political debate that took place in the Madras assembly in 1938 when Rajaji was the chief minister.
In the assembly of those days, Panneerselvam, a noble lion of a man, a rationalist resembling the chief of an army, was in the opposition and he made an aggressive speech opposing Hindi. Rajaji intervened and nonchalantly remarked,
“My dear Panneerselvam! Now in Tamilnadu there are only two who are opposed to the compulsory introduction of Hindi. One is Periyar and the other is Somasundara Bharathiar”.
But Panneerselvam endowed with the power of the tongue, never fumbling for words, came out with a quick cutting retort. Since that happened to be a captivating one, Rajaji was dumbfounded and looked crestfallen.
Panneerselvam observed,
“That is true, Hon’ble Chief Minister, that is true! I agree that as you say there are only two opposed to Hindi. But you should accept the truth that though only two are the opponents of Hindi, you are the only one who is welcoming it! Would you please, therefore, understand that Hindi is opposed by a majority?”
Considering the importance and value of friendship in one’s life, Valluvar delves too deeply into it in chapters called “Friendship”, “Choice of Friendship”, “Old Intimacy”, “Evil company”, and “False Friendship”. Kalaignar comments on one couplet from each of these five chapters. For the interpretations of the first two, he selects two episodes from Mahabharata. In order to illustrate the meaning of the couplet that points out that whereas friendship does not consist in the superficial exchange of smiles on faces, it is to be seen in the bloom of hearts in communion, Kalaignar alludes to the relationship between Karna and Duryodhana, who were prepared to sacrifice anything for each other. But in the case of a couplet from the chapter on the choice of friendship, he singles out a lesser known episode from the same epic.
Valluvar counsels everyone about the cautious and discriminating choice of companions. Nothing is more harmful than striking up friendship without any forethought because once friendship is formed there can be no easy release from it. Any friendship that is made without careful consideration will later land one in mortal grief. It is good to make friends with someone after studying his character, descent, defects and lasting associations. You may sacrifice anything to gain the friendship of one who is of noble birth and who shies away from blame. We should seek out the friendship of those who know the ways of the world, who can chide us and force us to weep repenting of our evil deeds. There is something good about misfortune also as it serves as the rod to measure up one’s friends. You should not think of things that dispirit you; nor should you take for friends who, in adversity, will leave you in the lurch. The thought of the friendship of those who abandon you during your hard times will burn your heart even at the moment of death. Let us preserve the friendship of blameless people and reject that of evil men even by paying a small price.
Of the couplets in this chapter, the one that has fascinated Kalaignar says, “What one really stands to gain is the casting out of the friendship of fools.” And while elucidating it, he spotlights the decision taken by Vituran finding himself on the horns of a dilemma. Kumbakarna and Vibhishana of Ramayana and Karna and Vitura of Mahabharata have become archetypal characters mainly because of the strange dilemma they face at a crucial moment in their life. Kumbakarna and Karna choose to stay with the evil force knowingly since they feel that gratitude is a greater virtue than supporting the righteous when there is a fight between good and evil. On the other hand, Vibhishana, at the risk of being called a betrayer, decides to join forces with his elder brother’s chief enemy. Vitura adopts a third course by leaving the two groups and renouncing life itself. This has endeared him to Kalaignar who narrates the story winning our sympathy and admiration for the mythological character.
The followers of Duryodhana reckoned that the army chief Vituran had been thrown off balance and would soon change his path because he hosted a feast to the ambassador Krishna and showing his love and affection for Dharma as though the latter were his pure – hearted brother argued with Duryodhana that they should be given their due share.
This struck terror into the heart of Vituran who felt that the Kauravas suspecting his loyalty thought that he was the friend of the mighty five. He immediately declined his position as the chief. Saying that he won’t participate in the war, he became a recluse. Vituran could have continued his friendship with Duryodhana’s supporters. But if the Kauravas would command him to call a noble – hearted individual a traitor and to label elixir as poison, he, in order to save his self – respect, would be forced to tell them, “I won’t be a party to the claim of the ruling group of Astinapuri which may swear that all that the noble men of the past called the righteous path is but an improper one; I gave up my post just to loudly proclaim to the world that my mother and father did not give birth to me to do that.”
All noble souls felicitated him.
All pure hearts praised him.
This is what is called ‘gain’ by Valluvar, the author of the world’s veda.
There are occasions when the formidable commentator Parimelalakar himself nods or deliberately misinterprets because of his extra – literary prejudices and has to be corrected for the benefit of present – day readers of Tirukkural. There are couplets which lend themselves easily to hostile interpretations by vested interests. Kalaignar considers it his bounden duty to protect Valluvar against such unfair attacks. One example will do to vindicate Valluvar and to justify Kalaignar’s stance. His comments on the chapter called “Submission to women” are extremely illuminating.
I wondered why there was a voice of protest against Valluvar contending that “the noble – minded Tiruvalluvar has stated so much against women in his “Penvazhicceral.” I felt miserable realizing that this was the result of what the medieval commentators wrote. The very first couplet of that chapter begins with the line, “Those who are fond of “Manai” will not make great gains”. Is it right to say that this phrase means “those who are fond of their wives”? Does not “Manai” naturally mean “family life”? Are we not thrusting our idea forcefully when we interpret it as “wife”? This couplet, underlining the importance of duty, means, “Those who, abandoning their duty to do great deeds, make much of their family life, will not attain fame.”
This only glorifies duty but does not prevent one from loving one’s wedded wife! The couplet, therefore, does not mean what Parimelalakar and others commonly take it to mean but enjoins men to realize that men of action who are bent upon doing worthy deeds not giving too much of importance to the pleasures of family life will alone earn a name.
There are violent controversies over the first chapter of Tirukkural which praises God without identifying him by any of the names used by the diverse religions including Hinduism with its various sects, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikkism, Christianity and Islam, almost all of which claim that it is their god who is invoked by Valluvar. Some scholars even contend that the chapter itself is an interpolation since in the rest of the chapters Valluvar, leaving God to himself, devotes his full attention to the life of man as it ought to be lived here and now. This contention may not sound as unreasonable as it appears to do if we keep in mind the fact that for most of the ancient Tamil texts the invocation to God was indited by someone other than the author much later than the main text had been written. A congenital rationalist and atheist imbibing the Dravidian ideology under the tutelage of Periyar, Kalaignar interprets the first couplets on God in a unique manner.
In his view, Valluvar has portrayed in the first chapter the ideal human being who, by virtue of his perseverance and hard work, has attained all the attributes of a divine being and, therefore, serves as a model to the rest of humanity. Thus Kalaignar was able to cut this Gordian knot for the benefit of all rationalist non-believers who, otherwise all admiration for Tiruvalluvar, could not stomach the homage paid to God at the beginning of the great work on the art of living. It is a marvel that the ten couplets which lend themselves beautifully to the varied interpretations of scholars of diverse religious persuasions can be read equally profitably as Kalaignar reads them.
The seventh couplet is translated into English by F.W. Ellis with an additional comment on Beschi’s Latin translation.
The anxious mind, against corroding thought,
No refuge hath, save at the sacred feet
Of him to whom no likeness is.
to refer to the fact that creation always involves ‘making something new out of something old and something else out of what already is’. All the re-terms they propose, re-vision, re-membering and re-collecting involve “a radical re-visiting and re-valuing of the past in the present in order to gesture to ways forward.” Initially these terms were developed by writers such as Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Louis Gates in connection with the making of traditions of women’s and black writing.
Here is one of the best instances of classics being re-visited. W.B. Yeats, having been inspired by the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo wrote a poem called “Leda and the Swan”, a verbal depiction of the scene of Zeus taking on the body of a swan and raping the water – nymph Leda.
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
Judith Kazantsis, a poet from a Greek-British background, re-visits the painting of the scene by Leonardo da Vinci as well as the poem by W.B. Yeats.
Leda, the inside out lady of the swan
wants to knuckle the cold
rotter who fluttered her to bed.
Caught in the infinite wiggle
in a mesmerization of paint here she is, propped in her voluptuous stay
maddened for all who like a good sex object
shielding her feathered friend.
His beak pinches her demonstrable little
Breasts, quacking all mine her plump pubic mound pretty and public
her eyes abashed
how she blushes, the mystery!
my corrected darling!
The silent curly face
Carries on talking backwards to the wall
no no no no no!
Kalaignar revisits Sangam classics again and again and revels in re-presenting them in modern prose, modern verse and as musical compositions. Kalappelaiyum Kavitaiccaviyum is his magnum opus in this genre. His varied responses to Tirukkural eventuate in tributes of diverse forms, the best of which is, of course, Kuraloviyam. Even to the most learned of Tamil Scholars, Tolkappiyam is a hard nut to crack but Kalaignar was not prepared to leave it as a sealed book to the common reader.
Sangam Poems
Sangattamizh is a an unusual anthology of a hundred modern prose-poems introducing and interpreting as many ancient poems chosen from the celebrated Sangam corpus. It is in a way a daring intertextual exercise embedding the extraordinary lyrics of the past in modern settings, the final outcome being a large gold plate studded with precious stones. For this unique treatment, Kalaignar has deliberately chosen many well-known poems but it is the large number of lesser known pieces which reflects upon his thorough mastery of the sangam collections.
The one hundred chapters in Sangattamizh are very appropriately introduced by Kalaignar in a prologue called “Malarmari Polikiren” (Let me pour a shower of flowers) in which he pays his homage to the Sangam poets by offering to shower the ninety-nine flowers mentioned by Kapilar in his Kurincippattu. This lovely flower-passage, a breath-taking catalogue, is comparable to the flower-passages in Milton’s “Lycidas” and Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”. The epithets that Kapilar uses indicate that he has an intimate knowledge of every flower that he describes unlike Milton “who saw nature only through the spectacles of books”. What is more astonishing is that the ancient Tamils had a few well-formulated conventions regarding the use of objects of nature in poetry and that they approved of bringing together flowers found in various regions during different seasons if it serves a definite poetic purpose.
In a sequence of four chapters on Piciantaiyar, remembered for his poetry as well as for his unique friendship with a king called Kopperuncolan, Kalaignar comments on five Purananuru pieces. Legend has it that the poet became a friend of the Chola king without having seen him even once. The first of these five poems is addressed to Pandyan Arivutai Nampi advising him to be a wise ruler and to be considerate to his people. The poem by Picirantaiyar actually says,
If you reap ripe paddy and mash it into balls for the feeding of your elephants, less than what grows on a ma will be enough for many days. But an elephant let loose to feed by itself will trample a thousand mas of grain that will never touch its mouth! When a wise king conscious of the right path and he then taxes as he should, his country will offer him as much as ten millions and it will still flourish! But if he is a ruler without backbone, who has no idea of the right and each day desires things which he simply takes without love while his corrupt followers do the same, then as if he were the field that an elephant invades, he will not even feed himself and the world will collapse!
But Kalaignar provides an imaginary background to what might have been a crucial event in the life of the king and the poet.
The people of Pandiya Kingdom, under the fish flag flying high,
Many a victory had won at the battlefield.
But deep at heart a regret they had, and that was this:
Pandiyan Arivudai Nambi of sharp moustache,
Many taxes exacted from the people, without augmenting the country’s wealth.
Keen were they to straighten the bent sceptre of the king.
Many came with palm – leaf messages long, but with no avail!
Delighting in the company of dancers and singers at the Royal Hall,
Enjoying a quarrel feigned and play of love with his queen,
And tasting pleasure to his heart’s content on the softest bed,
Were the ways to rule the country, he thought!
Four or five people, joining hands with the government officers,
Ruined him step by step!
Whatever the king said, they quickly responded, saying “yes”,
And flattering him, they made him freely enjoy himself in the mire
Of joys sensual, and snared him into a rule full of difficulties!
Some of his kith and kin seized upon the opportunity
And adopted their subtle tricks and perpetrated beyond measure
The crime of deceiving the people of the land!
It is under these circumstances that the wise of the Pandiya country choose to meet Picirantaiyar and appeal to him to chastise the king for not taking the reign of the kingdom seriously enough. The poet makes bold to meet the ruler and tell him point – blank:
Will the fish live ever on the ground,
If you order that these be taken out of water,
The ministers and others of the government, unable to stop this,
Will remain helpless, like dolls!
Thus dear king! Weak you have become in your judgment!
To the utter deterioration of this ancient and acclaimed land of Sangam Tamil!
If vexing the people and exacting taxes alone from them is the ruler’s aim,
The country without contributing to the welfare of anyone,
Will become a mound of earth, like a paddy field
Trampled upon by an elephant mad! Please know this!”
Advised thus by the poet, the king is reported to have been transformed into a benevolent ruler.
What is remarkable about this Purananuru poem is the message that it conveys at this distance of time. Even two thousand years ago, the bards of Tamilnadu enjoyed the privilege of chiding the kings whenever they went wrong. What is incredibly admirable is that a turai called Ceviyarivuruu -Telling the king how to rule the country and imparting wholesome thoughts – was set apart for this in sangam poetics.
The friendship between Picirantaiyar and the Chola king is an ideal example of the old intimacy (Palaimai) which Valluvar glorifies:
If you ask what ancient intimacy is, it is the friendship that does not spoil in any way the liberties that flow from it. (801)
Of what use is ancient friendship if one does not acquiesce in the other’s deeds exercised by the right of intimacy? (803)
The poem apostrophizing a male swan is a profound expression of the poet’s abiding love and admiration for the king. Kalaignar’s introductory setting and commentary add to the beauty of the lyric:
When he saw a male swan spreading its wings,
And flying across the sky,
He wished to compose a song on his dearest friend, Chozhan,
Centering upon the male swan.
With the imagination gushing forth,
The poet a beautiful poem wrote in Tamil sweet!
He invoked the bird, revealing his disturbed heart,
And hiding the mental storm in his heart
That he hadn’t still met Kopperum Chozhan,
He sang of his fame immense!
The pearls, without being strung together, do not a garland make!
As a garland of friendship flourished,
And Tamil as pearls and Tamil feelings as threads became!
The love and munificence of Chozhan of sinewed shoulders,
The song’s central theme it became!
“O male swan! O male Swan!
You do from far away Kanyakumari come,
Flying high in the sky, with a fish caught between the beak, and journeying
To the north of snow-filled mountains; may your journey succeed!
Dear swan mine!
On your way is the capital of Chozhan who does the enemies conquer!
The city of Uraiyur to my dear Kopperum Chozhan belongs as Capital!
The king rules over excellently, according to the principle: ‘The wealth of the plough never fails.’
From the South is he whose left hand
Isn’t aware of what the right gives!
If you go with your she – swan,
On the way, the glow of love in Chozhan’s eyes you will see!
It someone stops you midway, do not with your companion come back;
To the hearing of God – like Chozhan,
Shout loud before the sentinels of Uraiyur,
And announce you belong to Pisir,
Where lives the poet, Picirandaiyar,
The king himself will rush and receive you,
And give precious ornaments and rare gems to the she – swan!
This is because such a friendship deep he has for me.
Even honey satiates, but this, the friendship between us two,
Never does satiate.
It is the three or four poems of this type found in the Sangam anthologies which later paved the way for the birth of the genre called messenger – poetry in Tamil, Sanskrit and other Indian languages.
The best known poem of Piciratantaiyar is reported to have been composed as an occasional piece at the request of his colleagues when he went to see the Chola king, who was starving himself to death in the rite of vatakkiruttal. The noble men sitting by the side of the king asked the poet, “We have heard of you for many years; yet how is it that you have no gray hair.” Then this poem came as a reply to their query:
My children have gone far in learning. My wife is rich in her virtue!
My servants do what I wish and my king, who shuns corruption, protects us!
And in my city there are many noble men who through their deep knowledge,
have acquired calm, have become self-controlled,
And the choices they make in their lives are built on the quality of restraint!
But before introducing this poem, Kalaignar appropriately paints an imaginary scene bringing out the happy family life led by the poet, his wife and his grandchildren.
“See the scene of two rows of mullai
Smiling here,” he said; raising her
Bowlike brow, his wife asked, “Where?”
“The lovely smile of a lady
Like you and the smile of this cooked
Rice were called mullai by me,” he said;
“Be cautious about the words you use,
Children are nearby,” she said.
These diamond icons sculpted by our
Son aren’t old enough to understand
This language! Our grown-up son has
Gone to the field with his wife; there
Is still time for their return;
Don’t be scared!” he said; “They will
Soon be here, don’t fondle me now,”
She cautioned him! At once he closed
His mouth with the rice she had served!
Suffocated by the food he swallowed
He struggled hard to regain his breath!
She rushed to her husband’s help, gave
A pat on the head and tenderly
Touched his chest when he embraced her
But she dodged him! Like the sounding
Anklets the old couple laughed in ecstasy!
The grandchildren began to laugh
Clapping their tender hands and
Their prattling was sweet as the lower
Part of the sugar cane! But their joy
That opened the floodgates came to
A stop as if banned all on a sudden
When the news dreadful as fire reached
Their ears!
Picirantaiyar is shocked to hear that the king’s sons dear to him as his life had declared a war against him and that the great Chola, driven to despair by the deed of his sons, had decided to fight against them. His heart shaken by grief, Picir leaves for the Chola land, hears that the noble men of that town had assembled at the town’s common hall and rushes to the place with a heart that was broken and a grief beyond words. Pottiyar, Putanakanar, Nattattanar and Pullarrur Eyirriyanar jump out of their seats in the hall and greet him with great delight. When he wants to know what happened to the fight between the lion and its cubs, they tell him that Eyirriyanar could cool the king’s anger and put an end to the war by a charming Tamil poem which asks, “When stepped on by its young ones should the hen be shaken?” Picir goes into raptures and returns home with a sense of relief. But soon some news storms his heart. He gets a palm – leaf letter stating that the king, unable to bear the agony of the revolt of his sons, has gone to die facing the north. Taking leave of his people, he tells them, “When we have lived a life that defined friendship, we won’t part in the world of death, Let the Chola be informed that Picirantai will soon sit with him to face death.” Having said this the lion of poets started travelling, tears falling from his eyes just as snow falls from leaves.
Poets of the Tamil land heard that the great Tamil king who had ruled long, his heart filled with grief cold as frog because of his sons’ war, desired to die facing the north deciding that that was the only way to overcome his sorrow. Some of those that sat with him feeling that their life was not nectar, and some who had not considered their life dear as candy but dared to die, and whose life was ebbing away their bodies weakening, asked the king, “King of kings! you used to tell us Picirantai a Tamil bard and a great teacher had become your bosom friend without having met you; why is it he hasn’t come though your life is coming to an end? He vowed to die sitting by your side; what happened to his words that promised his return?” Hearing the mocking tone the king felt terribly indignant towards those that suspected his friend’s honesty even in the place where they had come to die. Know this, gentlemen, Antai is genuine gold mined out of the Tamil town Picir of the Pandya kingdom; his is pure friendship that doesn’t show off during prosperity but rushes to help at times of adversity.” Giving this answer the king died and became a hero-stone the next day. Picirantai reached the place late but gave up his life sitting by the side of his friend. Poet Kannakanar weaving a garland of verse out of his flower – tears decked those hero – stones.
When one thinks of it, it is amazing that
A man of glorious qualities has decided
To die thus leaving all the honour behind.
It is still more amazing that a renowned
Man living in another king’s land should
Come here during such days valuing fame
As great and using friendship as support.
The glory of the king that said the other
Would come here and the mind of the man that
Came proving him right seem strange and strange
Beyond understanding; what will happen
To this land that has lost the reputed king
That won the heart of a noble man from a land
Beyond the sway of his scepter? It will be pitied.
Kalaignar’s homage to Nakkirar’s Netunalvatai assumes the form of a poem which re-presents two scenes – one in which king Netunceliyan is seen in a war-camp and another in which his queen is found in her bed shedding tears all the time. The opening paragraph of the modern poem proudly states that our dear Tamil race is the only one that has lived from time immemorial dividing life profoundly into akam (noumenon) and puram (phenomenon). Nakkirar has strung akam and puram together in an exquisite poetic garland. Of the celebrated ten songs known as Pattuppattu, Netunalvatai shines as a pearl couched in nectar – sweet Tamil telling us about the king’s heroism and the happening that burnt Kopperuntevi’s heart when, parted from her husband, she suffered long from pangs of love. The seven kings that foolishly felt that a youth was caught in the field of Talayalankanam all alone faced a disgraceful defeat. After the war, the young king desiring to live like the anril bird accepted a lovely dove – like lady as his wife and queen.
Even after the famed war of Talayalankanam, the king leading waves and waves of warriors heaped hills and hills of garlands of victory but the queen was depressed like a bird that feels frustrated because it cannot eat though bunches and bunches of fruits are there in front. Unable to spend her days and nights the agonized queen kept weeping day in day out. What was the condition of the king that had in fury gone to the field? The queen was, alas, all misery attacked by the cold wind of winter but its threat to the king was in vain beside the fury of the war!
Nakkiranar the bard of bards
Sings the sorrow of birds in houses.
The days when the cock and the hen
Together went out, had their fill
And rejoiced having gone, today
They are kept in wooden cages where
Not knowing the night from the day
They kept shifting their pained legs!
In that killing cold, the lady with
A peacock look, her heart smitten
By love, keeps rolling in her bed.
…
Flags display rainbow – like hues
On a tower tall as a peak!
Did they use silver as white paint
To decorate the pillars that
Were as blue as thick blue stones?
Nakkirar paints in flawless Tamil the king’s palace looking strong as ramparts built in copper. He sings the bed where the Pandya queen lies with lips lovely as Cemparutti blossoms burdened by thoughts about him that filled her mind.
The cot was decked with a pair of
Sharp tusks secured from a wild tusker
With drum – like legs that had died
In a fight having lived for full
Forty years; the four petty jars
On top of the four stands were round
Globes beauteous as the milk – filled
Breasts of a pregnant woman;
Pearl garlands served as hangings;
Lilies and jasmines figured in
Paintings; besides a blanket,
A work of superb craftsmanship,
Picturing a lion hunt, there were
Plenty of pillows to lie against
And to rest her head and hands on
All made of soft feathers of swans.
But her man was not there to ask her
To lie against! Hence the floodgates
Of her misery were bursting!
Pressing her feet softly her maids
Begged her to sleep but she became
Furious and chided them in agony,
“Get lost, you seem to have no work.”
Seeing in the picture of the sky
The figures of the moon and Rohini
Together, she said, “I haven’t been
Blessed with that boon but suffer
Like this in vain;” with her fingers
She wiped the tears that had gathered
At the corner of her long eyebrows
But couldn’t wipe away her sorrow!
How was the king when the queen in the Maturai mansion was lying like a creeper full of honey – burdened flowers waiting in agony for the bees? Love was not a hindrance to the monarch’s sense of duty. Though his thoughts turned to her beloved, he did not lose sight of his ideal. The cold wind visited his camp also but because of that he did not run away from the sword – drawn battlefield in search of the bangled lady! He went out at midnight not to see his chaste wife lying in bed grief – stricken.
During the wintry days when hills
Shook assailed by the cold wind from
The north, the king in the northern
Camp never turned to the south
Longing for his loving wife though
The torch – flame leaned towards the south!
To discharge his duty as the chief,
Surrounded by torch – bearing soldiers
Holding with the left hand the shawl
Slipping from the left shoulder,
Placing his right hand with his affection
On a sturdy soldier’s shoulder,
During a rainy midnight, the king
Went round the camp seeing the wounded
Soldiers, enquiring them about
Their welfare, thanking them profusely!
When the king’s kind consoling look
Fell on them, all their grief at
The loss of limbs in the fierce fight
During the day when foes were
Destroyed and driven away vanished.
While the queen of queens looking for her lover is lost in grief, the king is going round the camp with painful legs to do his duty. Stressing the significance of this scene, Kalaignar concludes the account with the question:
Isn’t one Netunalvatai enough
To show that our dearest Tamil
Race is the one race that has been
Living for long a life wisely
Divided into akam and puram?
Kalaignar has been so impressed with the aptness of the grand simile used by Aiyur Mulan Kilar in a poem on Kanap perreyil katanta Ukkirapperuvaluti that he weaves that into a long verse tale of his own spotlighting the king’s memorable deeds. The tale blending fact and fiction begins with certain historical details about the king and the famed eyil or fort. Kalaiyar Koyil, where the statues of the lion – hearted warriors Cinna Marutu and Periya Marutu who ruled Civakankai and created history have been erected, was known as Kanapper in the past. A small king there called Venkai Marpan possessing a well – built fort issued a challenge to the kings to conquer the castle if they could. All lion – like warriors stood stunned in silence as they became aware of the fact that though one could make a hole, enter an atom, one could not penetrate the fort.
Ukkirapperuvluti, ruling the Pandya Kingdom at that time, was a lion on the battlefield, bold and strong enough to treat tuskers as playthings and none of his foes could survive his sword. Besides being mighty, he had the mind of an artist and won great glory for getting the akam poems compiled into a volume. The launching of Tirukkural, the ever shinning lamp, is reported to have taken place in his presence only. Avvai one day finding the Pandya seated together with Cholan Perunarkilli and Ceraman Mari Venko greeted them with a rare garland in verse blessing them with lasting unity.
In Kalaignar’s account, it is the king’s wife who persuades him to seek the honour of breaking the legendary fort. The king himself refers to Mulankilar’s description of the fort.
That fort was built in the city
Called Kanapper; our court poet
Avur Mulankilar has a rare
Picture of that fort; listen to me!
It deserves to rank first among
The forts! A long moat deeper than
The earth, a rampart high touching
The blue sky, a retreat from where
Soldiers can shoot arrows unobserved
And move fast as the stars crowding
That sky, a shielding forest dense
With trees impenetrable by the sun’s
Rays, and countless battlements constitute
Kanapper eyil which can’t be
Shaken even by a thousand tuskers!
I have been delighted many times
By the songs sung about it by
Our bard in Tamil, said the king.
If you are successful in
The siege and get into the moat
There will be a ceaseless shower
Of stones and arrows from the fort;
If you overcome the obstacle
Boiled oil and molten lead will
Come down on you in torrents;
If you try to reach the top braving
All these they will crush the ladders.
Even if you manage to climb,
The top of your head will be pierced
By mechanical feathers of
Metal birds; only when you escape
These, can you descend down inside.
But the queen is interested more in her husband’s glory than in the praises heaped on the castle. She, therefore, does not hesitate to provoke him into acting immediately: “The Pandya king knows the foes far away; you bring them caught in cages like tigers, but very near our place in Kanapper erecting a rampart and raising his sword high Venkai Marpan thunders terrifying the town that none leading an army can near him. Isn’t it shameful if we keep quiet when he makes fun of our valour? I have expressed the doubt that has been lying at the bottom of my heart for a long time; to the king, who can break a tusker’s head, is Venkai Marpan’s fort Vindhya hills? Even if the moat he has dug is deep as a sea, to my Pandya, isn’t it small enough to be crossed? Why then should we be silent witnessing Venkai’s pride? Let the king clarify this doubt; let us then have a happy time!”
Since the queen is in a sulk, the king has to promise her that when the day dawns, he will order the infantry and the other armies of elephants, horses and chariots to leave for Kanapper. It is done and the siege of the fort ends successfully. A few days later Ayyur Mulankilar comes to the court and tells him that he will hereafter be called Kanapper eyil Katanta Ukkirapperuvaluti, which title will last till the sun lasts. The king asks the bard if Venkai Marpan, fretting and fuming, will get ready for a fight to recover the fort. And then the poet’s reply comes giving a splendid metaphor to Tamil:
Is it possible to get back a drop
Of water that fell on the piece
Of iron boiling in the blacksmith’s
Cauldron of fire? Kanapper conquered
By Peruvaluti is like
The water sucked in the smithy’s iron;
This is how Venkai sings your praise
And lives with a heart full of grief.”
Kalaignar’s verse tale celebrates the king for his achievement on and off the battlefield and the formidable Cankam poet for the rich realistic metaphor made memorable through a short poem.
The last eleven sections of Sangat tamizh constitute a single dramatic poem centring round the woman poet Narkannai, whose unrequited love for the Chola king Perunarkilli is poignantly described by herself in three poems in Purananuru, two in Narrinai and one in Akananuru. Reading closely these six together with one by Kavarpentu and another by Cattantaiyar, Kalaignar writes a moving verse tale in which Narkannai and Perunarkilli figure as the heroine and the hero, a pair of star – crossed lovers who win our sympathy and admiration. Kavarpentu, known for the poem in which a mother of the warrior clan, when asked by a mother where her son had gone, declares proudly that her stomach was once the tiger’s cave, is presented as the foster – mother of Perunarkilli.
In the ancient Chola capital Uraiyur, a king called Tittan, was giving away all the wealth to the ascetics who offered sacrifices. Saying that this was not the true Tamil tradition, his son kept opposing him. But rejecting all the sane advice of the young man, like an innocent child that refuses to drink the bitter medicine not realizing its potent, Tittan squandered the nation’s wealth unscrupulously. Killi gave a rational explanation to his objection: “To fill the royal treasury is the duty of the people; is it right to pierce their hearts making their life a fallow land? A King’s greatness lies in a benevolent reign; to set fire to noble aims is the deed of those devoid of ideals. Pouring pots and pots of milk and honey into the fire, killing goats, cows and horses to offer as a sacrifice and conducting yagnas to have share in the offerings will shake the basis of the dictum that love is God.” But the king thundered, “King I am of this land. How can you my son oppose me and preach atheism leaving a scar on your tongue? Leave this country before I cut your tongue and feed dogs and foxes.” The prince with a golden heart answered, “Today I will leave Uraiyur, which gave me birth; but, my king, you call me an atheist because I said, ‘There is only one God; don’t offer lives as a sacrifice; in order to see the heaven supposed to hang in the sky you kill making a hell of this earth’. One can cure madness. But I leave this land feeling my father cannot be reformed.” Leaving Uraiyur, Killi reached Amur, a well – guarded city and Cattantai, a prince of words, accompanied him avoiding the Chola king and vowing to safeguard the Tamil’s dignity, heroism, culture and tradition.
When the ruler of Amur was defeated by a wrestler who claimed the possession of the whole city, Killi accepted the challenge in order to redeem the place and the chieftain. He wins the fight and the praise of Cattantaiyar in three priceless poems.
Rushing towards the wrestler and
Pushing him to the ground, Narkilli,
Sitting with one knee on his chest
Avoiding his attack with the other,
Pinned his back to the earth, broke
His head and legs and killed him just as
A hungry tusker attempting to
Eat a bamboo would bend and break it.
In another poem, an exquisite simile is used to describe the speed with which Narkilli fought:
In the hand of a low – caste leather worker stitching a cot, with a festival impending and his wife in labour and the sun descending while the rain comes pouring down, as he pulls thread through and again through, the needle flies! When the warrior tried to take the city, the lord who wears a chaplet of laburnum fought with that speed!
A lovely lady, Narkannai, watching the fight with bated breath, fell in love with the prince and asked her confidante by her eyes if he could be bought by love! Her breasts heaving up and down, she was troubled by unbearable pangs of love. She was the daughter of a rich shipping magnate named Perunkoli Naykan. Being a fusion of beauty and intelligence, she was like a stream into which a thousand pots of honey had been poured! She was herself a poem, a sweet nectar – like Tamil poem. Indirectly expressing his intense love for him she wrote a poem and read it to herself again and again:
This is not the city here that belongs to my lord!
This is not the land here that belongs to my lord!
And so there are some who are saying, “Victory! Victory!”
And so there are some who are saying, “No victory for him!”
Good then! Two fine opinions voiced by many people!
I ran, to the tinkling of my lovely anklets, and I stood
by my house, leaning on a palmyra tree with its trunk large
as a mula drum, and I saw it, that the victory was his!
When she has an opportunity to meet him in her own house, she manages to hand over to him an epistle in verse praising his matchless heroism:
Though he is forced to live on gruel, my lord has broad shoulders, and I, though I sit here by his house, am as pale as gold. If my lord will accept the challenges and will step onto the fighting field, then in our large and noisy city, for the warriors who blithely approach him at the festival, he will be like a road that daunts the merchants of salt!
When more wars follow, Narkilli proves his mettle beyond a shadow of a doubt and Narkannai’s love for him keeps growing steadily. His heroic deeds win the admiration of Cattantaiyar whose poetic inspiration is kindled again.
There is an uproar louder than the sound of the swelling sea!
The trumpeting of his elephants lasts longer than the monsoon’s thunder!
If the warrior who wears a chaplet of laburnum strung tightly on a thread,
Whose hand is a cup for giving gifts,
Lays his hand on anyone, how that man is to be pitied!
When this is read out by the poet himself, Narkannai is overjoyed and the prince feels too shy to talk.
When Narkannai suffers from the agony of her unreciprocated love for Narkilli, her mother cautions her against cherishing the hope of getting married to a prince since she happens to belong to a clan of merchants. She asks the young lady, “Can a deformed lame woman desire to pick a kurinci flower on top of a hill?” But Narkannai’s confidante keeps telling her not to lose hope. The young heroine expresses it in a poem of her own.
Like the bat of thorn like teeth, which, while sleeping hanging on the tall branch of the mango tree inside the village, dreamed of the sour taste of the goose berry of the wide forest of Azhici of the Cholas, I had a dream when I thought of the spacious cool seaside park and the cheerfulness of the fisherfolk in the small cottage in his region.
When the prince returns to Amur after another great victory, she is persuaded by the benevolent poet Cattantaiyar to indite and recite a poem celebrating his victory in the presence of a large gathering. The poem makes it clear that the protagonist is in love with the victorious hero. If she does not say anything and merely wastes away, it is because she is afraid of her mother’s reaction. If she accepts him, she is scared of the gathering which may not allow her to marry him. She is unable to choose between remaining silent and revealing her love.
Because of the young warrior who wears war anklets
on his legs and whose beard is the colour of collyrium, the bangles hang loose
on my arms and I am afraid of my mother. Yet if I should embrace
those shoulders of a warrior, I may be shamed before the assembly!
May this bewildered city tremble as much
as I do, forever, not able to choose, divided between two minds!
The poem wins the applause of the audience and the poet boldly taking the initiative tells the assembly that Narkannai’s father has come forward to offer his daughter as a reward to the hero and that she is in love with him and would be delighted to marry him. But, quite unexpectedly, Narkilli thunders that he is opposed to that because he loves the sword and not the petal; after uttering those words, he leaves the place, much to the shock of Narkannai who swoons. On a later day, when she is contemplating suicide he makes his appearance again only to tell her that even though he loves her poetry, he is not in love with her as he always prefers the sword to the petal. Her heart broken, she expresses her love for him in another immortal poem.
Lord of the waving waters in whose area the bud, like the tusk of the elephant in the fragrant screw pine of broad base rough as the exterior of the prawn, thorny leaf like the horn of the shark spreads its smell in the festive fields, if you go driven by a charioteer, know well that she will not live the few days within which you may return.
Though the prince reiterating his decision to choose the sword and not the petal is adamant, Kavarpentu, his foster mother and a poet in her own right, persuades him to accept the hand of Narkannai but circumstances so conspire that the heroine not knowing that the hero has changed his mind manages to get killed by the sword of her lover. But before that tragic end takes place, Kalaignar manages to introduce a few more Sangam poems of imperishable value.
The tragic story of Narkannai and Narkilli, as narrated in verse by Kalaignar, is a supreme instance of his successful attempts at re-presenting the immortal and intriguing personages that emerge from certain clusters of Sangam poems.
Vanpukazh Konda Valluvam
In his Vanpukazh Konda Valluvam Kalaignar chooses one kural each from the one hundred and eight chapters of “Arattuppal” and “Porutpal,” begins with a profound comment often adorning it with an illustrative episode, passes on to the Tamil text and then gives its exact meaning. This strategy enables him to simplify the interpretations of Valluvar’s couplets by the learned medieval commentators, to introduce his own explanation wherever he differs from them, and to make the import of the couplet clear to the common reader. Given his incredibly vast experience as a social worker, as a politician in the thick of all the regional and national activities during six or seven long decades, and as a voracious reader of ancient and modern writings, he has a fund of anecdotal material at his beck and call. One of the chief merits of Tirukkural is that many of the couplets, being extremely terse, lend themselves to more than one interpretation. Medieval commentators such as Manakkutavar, Parimelalakar and Kalinkar as well as numerous modern scholars read their own ideologies and pet theories into it without any compunction. On many occasions, Kalaignar takes a lot of trouble to set the record straight.
The forty ninth chapter of Tirukkural advises the king as well as everyone who undertakes a risky deed to be cautious in choosing the opportune moment. One of the couplets in that chapter says,
If one chooses the right time and the right place and acts, one will be victorious even if one’s aim is to conquer the whole world. (484)
To drive home the idea, Kalaignar hits upon an apt episode from recent history and presents it with remarkable vividness so that it may be firmly fixed in the reader’s mind.
When compared to several nations in the world, it is a small island, of the size of a mustard seed - Corsica!
It is the land where Napoleon, who fought many battles was born one of the thirteen children of his parents!
He cherished the dream of the liberation of Corsica; he desired to capture and rule the entire world!
He attempted to establish his reign even in the continent of Asia; he cast his net of ambition wider in order to extend his empire!
He clashed with Spain and then with Russia so that his conquest and control over the English and the European nations might be sealed.
Alexander was the Emperor of Russia at that time; he predicted that Napoleon’s army would be defeated since it won’t be able to withstand the Russion winter.
Everything happened as he thought. The horses, unable to gallop, lay down; the soldiers had no food to appease their hunger; but the heroic Napoleon entered Moscow.
The Russian nation, closing its lips like a dumb fellow, remained silent and there was none to oppose or to challenge. Napoleon was puzzled deeply by that silence.
Though he possessed plenty of weapons, he committed the blunder of taking the war into the enemy’s camp without reckoning on the cold weather. Facing defeat for the first time, he became broken – hearted.
Russia did not win with its army; it vanquished Napoleon with snowfall as its weapon. Winter was not the right time for an army to march on; but he learnt the lesson that it was stupid to get caught in the enemy’s nation during winter.
This account is followed by the text of the couplet and its direct meaning with, of course, a tribute to the Tamil poet.
In a chapter called “Guarding Against Forgetfulness,” Valluvar expatiates on the havoc caused by forgetfulness. Laxity of mind born of overweening joy is more harmful than even exceeding anger. Just as perpetual poverty kills men’s wisdom, forgetfulness will end their fame. Those who suffer from forgetfulness can have no claim to lasting renown. A man who does not guard himself against mind’s laxity will be forced to repent of his folly when woes befall him. There is nothing comparable to the unfailing guardedness of mind towards all at all times. Nothing is too difficult to accomplish when done with mind’s wakefulness. All commendable deeds must be done; those that fail to do them by treating them with contempt will lose heavily in all the seven births. When you feel an ecstatic happiness, think of those who were ruined by forgetfulness. It is easy for men to attain anything if they continue to keep it in mind.
These are the ideas stressed by Valluvar in this chapter and Kalaignar chooses one couplet for his special elucidation. That couplet means that just as no fortress around will be of use to the cowardly, no position, however high, will be of use to the self-forgetful men. The truth of this utterance is highlighted by one of the most appropriate episodes from Sanskrit drama. Forgetfulness is the fatal flaw in the character of Dushyanta of Kalidasa’s Sakuntalam. Though it is caused by a curse, it brings untold suffering upon the innocent heroine.
Dushyanta who went to the forest on a hunting expedition came across an exquisite gathering consisting of deer, sparrows, peacocks, nightingales and doves. In the midst of it, he saw a moving picture in the form of Sakuntala, a gold icon combining in itself the charm of a peacock, a nightingale, a dove and a sparrow. His heart was captivated by that beatuty. He took her as his wife and gave her a ring as a symbol of that union. In the forest, shades of trees became beds and the two hearts mingled beyond parting. It was when he left for his country after taking leave of her that he decked one of her fingers with a ring telling her, “This is the symbol of our love, dear!”
Keeping the ring close to her eyes every now and then and deriving immense delight from the experience, she roamed around the forest. When her picturesque body was immersed one day in a stream in a state of ecstasy, the ring, slipping off her finger fell into the water and was swallowed by a fish. The bee – eyed beauty felt miserable and later Sakuntala, a flash of lightning, went to meet her lover in the palace. Expressing his wonder, he asked her who she was. The queen of women wept asking him if he had forgotten her. Yes, he had forgotten her completely. He couldn’t recall her as there was no ring on her finger.
If the ring was required for him to remember her, how to call the king’s forgetfulness? That is why Ayyan Valluvar said long ago, “Those who are chicken – hearted won’t derive any support from a fortress; those who suffer from the blemish of oblivion will not benefit from any high status.”
Kalaignar’s is a succinct summary of the story of Kalaidasa’s Sakuntalam. For his illustrative examples, he has a treasure – trove of sources which are political, literary and historical. With effortless ease, he is able to draw on vast reserves of political experience and knowledge of ancient, medieval and contemporary writings including Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita.
Valluvar has a chapter each on using pleasant words, avoiding unfruitful words and oratory thereby covering both private conversations and public speaking. The Greeks and the Romans, emphasizing the value of the art of rhetoric especially for politicians, focused their attention on a large number of figures of speech which were defined and analysed by the ancient masters of rhetoric. But Valluvar differing from them does not confine himself to a single language in his discourse on the power of the tongue. In this area also, his recommendations have universal validity.
The oratorical skill is not to be treated as just one among several endowments men have to possess. One has to guard one’s tongue against thoughtless words since prosperity and ruin issue from speech. The words of an orator should not only keep the hearers spell – bound but also draw even those who haven’t heard him. One should utter one’s words weighing the context well. The wise of blameless worth will utter words of winning power and benefit from others’ words. It is almost impossible to defeat one who has the ability to speak, who is unfaltering and who is not given to timidness. The world will act according to the words of those who are endowed with the power of charming eloquence. Only those who cannot choose a few words of faultless worth will be fond of using words in their multitude. That group of learned men who cannot articulate what they have learnt are like unfragrant flowers though found in a cluster in bloom.
From a chapter expressing such maxims, Kalaignar chooses the couplet which contends that while speaking one should speak out a word knowing for certain that there is no other word that surpasses it in power. Now he succeeds in what he sets out to do by choosing for his explanation of the couplet an appealing anecdote, a political debate that took place in the Madras assembly in 1938 when Rajaji was the chief minister.
In the assembly of those days, Panneerselvam, a noble lion of a man, a rationalist resembling the chief of an army, was in the opposition and he made an aggressive speech opposing Hindi. Rajaji intervened and nonchalantly remarked,
“My dear Panneerselvam! Now in Tamilnadu there are only two who are opposed to the compulsory introduction of Hindi. One is Periyar and the other is Somasundara Bharathiar”.
But Panneerselvam endowed with the power of the tongue, never fumbling for words, came out with a quick cutting retort. Since that happened to be a captivating one, Rajaji was dumbfounded and looked crestfallen.
Panneerselvam observed,
“That is true, Hon’ble Chief Minister, that is true! I agree that as you say there are only two opposed to Hindi. But you should accept the truth that though only two are the opponents of Hindi, you are the only one who is welcoming it! Would you please, therefore, understand that Hindi is opposed by a majority?”
Considering the importance and value of friendship in one’s life, Valluvar delves too deeply into it in chapters called “Friendship”, “Choice of Friendship”, “Old Intimacy”, “Evil company”, and “False Friendship”. Kalaignar comments on one couplet from each of these five chapters. For the interpretations of the first two, he selects two episodes from Mahabharata. In order to illustrate the meaning of the couplet that points out that whereas friendship does not consist in the superficial exchange of smiles on faces, it is to be seen in the bloom of hearts in communion, Kalaignar alludes to the relationship between Karna and Duryodhana, who were prepared to sacrifice anything for each other. But in the case of a couplet from the chapter on the choice of friendship, he singles out a lesser known episode from the same epic.
Valluvar counsels everyone about the cautious and discriminating choice of companions. Nothing is more harmful than striking up friendship without any forethought because once friendship is formed there can be no easy release from it. Any friendship that is made without careful consideration will later land one in mortal grief. It is good to make friends with someone after studying his character, descent, defects and lasting associations. You may sacrifice anything to gain the friendship of one who is of noble birth and who shies away from blame. We should seek out the friendship of those who know the ways of the world, who can chide us and force us to weep repenting of our evil deeds. There is something good about misfortune also as it serves as the rod to measure up one’s friends. You should not think of things that dispirit you; nor should you take for friends who, in adversity, will leave you in the lurch. The thought of the friendship of those who abandon you during your hard times will burn your heart even at the moment of death. Let us preserve the friendship of blameless people and reject that of evil men even by paying a small price.
Of the couplets in this chapter, the one that has fascinated Kalaignar says, “What one really stands to gain is the casting out of the friendship of fools.” And while elucidating it, he spotlights the decision taken by Vituran finding himself on the horns of a dilemma. Kumbakarna and Vibhishana of Ramayana and Karna and Vitura of Mahabharata have become archetypal characters mainly because of the strange dilemma they face at a crucial moment in their life. Kumbakarna and Karna choose to stay with the evil force knowingly since they feel that gratitude is a greater virtue than supporting the righteous when there is a fight between good and evil. On the other hand, Vibhishana, at the risk of being called a betrayer, decides to join forces with his elder brother’s chief enemy. Vitura adopts a third course by leaving the two groups and renouncing life itself. This has endeared him to Kalaignar who narrates the story winning our sympathy and admiration for the mythological character.
The followers of Duryodhana reckoned that the army chief Vituran had been thrown off balance and would soon change his path because he hosted a feast to the ambassador Krishna and showing his love and affection for Dharma as though the latter were his pure – hearted brother argued with Duryodhana that they should be given their due share.
This struck terror into the heart of Vituran who felt that the Kauravas suspecting his loyalty thought that he was the friend of the mighty five. He immediately declined his position as the chief. Saying that he won’t participate in the war, he became a recluse. Vituran could have continued his friendship with Duryodhana’s supporters. But if the Kauravas would command him to call a noble – hearted individual a traitor and to label elixir as poison, he, in order to save his self – respect, would be forced to tell them, “I won’t be a party to the claim of the ruling group of Astinapuri which may swear that all that the noble men of the past called the righteous path is but an improper one; I gave up my post just to loudly proclaim to the world that my mother and father did not give birth to me to do that.”
All noble souls felicitated him.
All pure hearts praised him.
This is what is called ‘gain’ by Valluvar, the author of the world’s veda.
There are occasions when the formidable commentator Parimelalakar himself nods or deliberately misinterprets because of his extra – literary prejudices and has to be corrected for the benefit of present – day readers of Tirukkural. There are couplets which lend themselves easily to hostile interpretations by vested interests. Kalaignar considers it his bounden duty to protect Valluvar against such unfair attacks. One example will do to vindicate Valluvar and to justify Kalaignar’s stance. His comments on the chapter called “Submission to women” are extremely illuminating.
I wondered why there was a voice of protest against Valluvar contending that “the noble – minded Tiruvalluvar has stated so much against women in his “Penvazhicceral.” I felt miserable realizing that this was the result of what the medieval commentators wrote. The very first couplet of that chapter begins with the line, “Those who are fond of “Manai” will not make great gains”. Is it right to say that this phrase means “those who are fond of their wives”? Does not “Manai” naturally mean “family life”? Are we not thrusting our idea forcefully when we interpret it as “wife”? This couplet, underlining the importance of duty, means, “Those who, abandoning their duty to do great deeds, make much of their family life, will not attain fame.”
This only glorifies duty but does not prevent one from loving one’s wedded wife! The couplet, therefore, does not mean what Parimelalakar and others commonly take it to mean but enjoins men to realize that men of action who are bent upon doing worthy deeds not giving too much of importance to the pleasures of family life will alone earn a name.
There are violent controversies over the first chapter of Tirukkural which praises God without identifying him by any of the names used by the diverse religions including Hinduism with its various sects, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikkism, Christianity and Islam, almost all of which claim that it is their god who is invoked by Valluvar. Some scholars even contend that the chapter itself is an interpolation since in the rest of the chapters Valluvar, leaving God to himself, devotes his full attention to the life of man as it ought to be lived here and now. This contention may not sound as unreasonable as it appears to do if we keep in mind the fact that for most of the ancient Tamil texts the invocation to God was indited by someone other than the author much later than the main text had been written. A congenital rationalist and atheist imbibing the Dravidian ideology under the tutelage of Periyar, Kalaignar interprets the first couplets on God in a unique manner.
In his view, Valluvar has portrayed in the first chapter the ideal human being who, by virtue of his perseverance and hard work, has attained all the attributes of a divine being and, therefore, serves as a model to the rest of humanity. Thus Kalaignar was able to cut this Gordian knot for the benefit of all rationalist non-believers who, otherwise all admiration for Tiruvalluvar, could not stomach the homage paid to God at the beginning of the great work on the art of living. It is a marvel that the ten couplets which lend themselves beautifully to the varied interpretations of scholars of diverse religious persuasions can be read equally profitably as Kalaignar reads them.
The seventh couplet is translated into English by F.W. Ellis with an additional comment on Beschi’s Latin translation.
The anxious mind, against corroding thought,
No refuge hath, save at the sacred feet
Of him to whom no likeness is.
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