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Arul.2009/FB/#68980
TAMIL LITERATURE – A SHORT SURVEY
Speech Text Of Appa rendered in Ramakrishna bhavan during 1971
Avvai D. Natarajan, M.A., M.LITT.,
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I feel deeply honoured in delivering this lecture under the auspices of this mission which perpetuates the revered memory of Bhagwan Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who has added lustre to the philosophical and spiritual traditions of India in general and Bengal in particular.
In the words of Romain Rolland,
“He shines as the consummation of 2,000 years of the spiritual life of 300 million Hindus.”
As I am a Tamilian, I presume that I will be permitted to speak a few words on Tamil literature, and I feel sure that the spirit of the Holy Sage, which certainly pervades this hall, will bless my endeavour, though it is but a humble one.
Ours is an old language and ours is a literature which has won renown among the literatures of the ancient languages. Of Greece, Shelley has said well in Hellas
“But Greece and her foundations are
Built below the tide of war,
Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity.
Her citizens, Imperial spirits,
Rule the present from the past,
On all this world of men inherits
Their seal is set.”
This may well be said of the Tamils.
2,000 years ago, in the halls of the Tamil cities could be found Greek guards.
The Greeks then considered our literature among the finest.
In the Lalita Vistararam, a legendary Sanskrit biography of Gautama Buddha translated into Chinese in the first century of the Christian Era, the Buddha is represented as having studied in his infancy, among other languages, Dravida or Tamil.
It was no deficiency that early Tamil literature contains no prose works, for it was written in the more difficult medium of verse.
Only a few nations on earth can boast of so many poets as perhaps the Tamils.
Poetry appears to have been the first fixed form of language amongst them; for as has been remarked by Abbé Dubois,
“They have not a single ancient book that is written in prose, not even the books on medicine; and hence the poet formed the inalienable part of the philologist, the theologian, the philosopher, the astronomer, the physician, etc.”
Matthew Arnold says that if England is great, it is because of its poetry.
The saying fits well for Tamil.
The earliest book now extant is not literature but only grammar (Tolkappiyam), which only means that the language and literature of the Tamils were already well developed.
How many priceless old works have been lost before this only great work is a matter of sad thought.
This ancient literature produced a grammar of three dimensions.
It deals with the Letter, the Word, and the Meaning with all its Applied Nuances of the External World.
Whatever antiquity may be attributed to this grammar, Dr. Caldwell says,
“It must have been preceded by many centuries of literary tradition and culture.”
The literature which followed the legislation of this grammar is now called the Grand Sangam Literature.
According to Tamilian thought, nature and life are twin blossoms on the tree of creation.
Hence, life is incomplete unless it is linked to nature, and nature is incomplete unless it is linked to life, and both are incomplete unless they are linked to God.
Expanding this dictum, we may classify the ages as: The Age of Ancient Literature, The Age of Ethics, The Age of the Epics, The Age of Devotion, and The Age of Nationalism.
There are approximately 3,000 poems in Sangam Literature.
More interesting than this is the fact that approximately 30 kings have sung some of these songs.
Even more interesting is the fact that 30 women have been the authors of these poems, and most interesting is the fact that nearly a hundred of these poems are authorless.
Among the women poets—nay, poets in general—the very incarnation of the Muse is our ancient and revered Avvai.
She was not a mere poet but an expounder of love, virtue, and heroism; a sage who advised the wisest, and an Ambassador of Kings.
The world can never see a greater genius than Avvai.
Here is a poem which describes the pangs of a maid melting in the fire of the agony of love:
“Shall I against the wall so strike my pate
Or ‘sault myself, I know not what to do
Shall I or else spew forth a reason feigned
And scream aloud Heigh Ho and stir the folks?
The breeze that softly passes vexeth me
But lo! this ruthless hamlet slumbers there
Least caring for my painful love-sickness.”
There is nothing unusual about the dominance of love in these works.
But the love that the ancient bards spoke of was not the love of the flesh, but of a love divine, which Plato defined as the instinct of immortality in the mortal creature.
Walter de la Mare also tells us that two poems out of every three poems in English are on love.
While composing the love lyrics, a new mode was invented.
The sentiment of love was made to obey the dictates of the natural surroundings in which the love took place.
It will not be too much to say that these love poems are pictures that speak for themselves, as opposed to Art, which is usually called a dumb poetry.
When a poet described the meeting of a lover and his love, he took care to describe the mountain range, with its elephants, crags, and wild honeycombs.
And the lass would wear in her hair the wild flowers that grew on the mountain side.
There would be a sense of appropriateness in all his descriptions.
Hence, the poet had to pass a severe test of close observation of the surroundings of the setting and insight into human nature.
The geography of the land, the dress of the people of the day, manners and customs, and a host of other details had to be at his fingers’ ends.
Another special feature in these lyrics is that the poets never wanted the readers to identify the hero and the heroine with historical persons.
This feature in this poetry—the love theme—was intended to be universal and common to all times.
The majority of the world’s great lyrics, says Hudson, owe their place in literature very largely to the fact that they embody what is typically human rather than what is merely individual and particular.
The elegies, as Dr. M. Varadarajan says, are frankly personal, genuine, and spontaneous.
They cannot be charged with artificiality, unlike Milton’s Lycidas.
Like Tennyson’s In Memoriam, the ancient Tamil elegy expresses its own character and calls things by real instead of allegorical names.
Here is an elegy where you find the afflicted daughters’ agony over their dead father, the philanthropist Pari:
“The graceful silver moon that blissful night
Was pouring forth her pleasing stream of light;
Our sire we had, and none did seize our hill,
And lo! this pallid night is bereft of joy.
The felonious kings of triumphant battle drums
Have seized the greeny hills of ours;
Well-a-day! we have our father dear too lost.”
Another new form of literature, peculiar to the Tamil alone, is the guide-song (Aratrupadai).
In this form of literature, a bard who has received the gifts of a generous patron directs other bards on the manner in which they too can get such gifts from him.
This advice is given in the form of a poem which deals exhaustively with the different aspects of life and the land under the said patron.
One cannot speak on Tamil literature without paying due homage to Thirukkural, the Tamil Bible, of which Dr. Albert Schweitzer has said:
“There hardly exists in the literature of the world a collection of maxims in which we find so much lofty wisdom.”
The Silappatikaram is a princely epic from the pen of a prince (Ilango Adigal).
It is an epic in its full form.
It is the portrait of a chaste lady who, by her chastity and reverence to her lord, rises to divinity.
It forms a new cult which dictates the showing of respect, nay, the worshipping of a chaste woman.
The twin of this great epic is Manimekalai, which has as its motive the propagation of Buddhism in the Tamil land.
Here we find a virtuous maid with a miraculous bowl in her hand, feeding the famine-stricken land, and changing the prisons into a holy place of virtue.
After a brief interval, we come to the age of religious saints, Saivite and Vaishnavite.
The thousands of songs of these saints continue till today as the most powerful prayer songs of Tamil literature.
Their psalms express the yearning of the finite for the infinite and the passion of the transient for the eternal. Thiruvasagam of St. Manikkavasagar has gained universal fame because of the valuable translation by Dr. G.U. Pope.
I feel glad to inform you here that Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji has also written about the tremendous impression he felt upon listening to Thiruvasagam, which directed him to enjoy Tamil literary beauties.
Andal, the divine damsel of Vaishnavism, has sung 173 songs, in which her Thiruppavai is regarded as an Upanishad.
And at the same time, it is a Tamil lyric and a pastoral poem of a very high order.
Like St. Bernard of Burgundy and St. Teresa of Spain, she was also an apostle of the cult of Bridal Mysticism.
During the Chola period, Kamban—”The Emperor of Tamil Poetry”—wrote the great epic Ramayana.
When Bharathi extols the Tamil land for its erudition, he immediately reminds us of the vast learning of Kamban.
There is another work by the name of Kalingathu Parani,a war poetry.
When one reads the verses, one can easily hear the echo of war drums.
St. Sekkizhar’s Periyapuranam is an outstanding poem dealing with the lives of the Saiva saints.
It is a proud honour for Tamil literature that it possesses authoritative literature on Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Jainism, Saivism, and Vaishnavism.
It will be very interesting if one reads the commentaries written by the commentators for the ancient poems.
Every syllable will be interpreted there.
This was really an achievement, truly astonishing in its psychological insight.
Their commentaries alone formed the first contribution to Tamil prose.
Nalavenba deserves a worthy mention.
The story is told in wonderful poems by the great poet Puzhazhendhi.
Speaking about the virtuous Damayanti, he says:
“The virtues four her armed troops,
Her senses five her maids-in-chief,
Her anklets sounding a martial strain,
Her eyes for lance and sword, beneath
The crescent banner of her brow,
She rules her kingdom, chaste and good,
The estate of womanhood.”
It is still more interesting to know that the Italian Father by the name of Beschi changed his name to Veeramamunivar, and he has enriched Tamil by writing an epic, a grammar, and some pieces of humorous prose.
Then came Dr. Caldwell’s
Comparative Grammar, which was a landmark in the study of Tamil literature.
In the late 19th century, the poetry of universalism had its poet-prophet-saint, Ramalinga Adigal.
Now, in these modern times, I must here mention the glorious contribution of Kalki in novels, Prof. Sundaram Pillai and Sambanda Mudaliar in dramas, and Puthumaipithan in short stories.
The best poet in modern literature is Subramania Bharathi.
The glory of giving expression to Gandhian ideology in poetry belongs to Namakkal Ramalingam Pillai.
Simplicity couched in musical rhythm can be found in Kavimani Desigavinayagam Pillai.
Last but not least, Bharathidasan, who is known as ‘The Poet of Revolt’, stood foremost in this field.
Now the film field is occupied exclusively by Kannadasan.
Short stories are now being written very successfully and brilliantly by very many writers.
I am not mentioning all the names in all the fields because I fear I may forget, somehow or other, some important names.
But I must record the great names of Rajagopalachari and Annadurai, who are responsible for the growth of Tamil through their articles and speeches.
You can see well in the Tamil land, if anyone speaks very attractively, he will be immediately appreciated.
“It was the good fortune of Tamil,” Prof. T.P. Meenakshisundaram says, “that a scholar like Thiru. V. Kalyanasundaram, full of the milk of human kindness, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi steeped in ancient lore and modern wisdom, presided over the destinies of the press and platform at an important period of their existence and popularity, bridging the gulf between the past and present.”
The world cannot forget the true services of Dr. U.V. Swaminatha Iyer.
But for him, the best of our ancient classics would have been permanently lost.
No Tamil student can proceed with his studies without paying homage to his great soul.
All over the world, we find now a new emotion, a new ideology, and a new attempt to strive and progress; our languages are the expressions of this new, dynamic divinity.
Our languages are yet to attain their full importance.
One of the major reasons why they have not come up so far is that the medium of instruction still continues to be a foreign tongue, English.
I hope the changeover may come in a short period.
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