The first and the finest of the five epics of the Tamils of lost Sankam Age , curec prima sata , in the second century A.D. Having listened to the mythic recounted by cattanar , another Sankam famed poet – friend of his , Ilanko the prince – turned – ascetic – poet versed what he heard in a psalterian composition of a poetic , melic , folk – artistic , multiform epic.
The work tesellates the three kingdoms , Chola , Pandiya and Cera, the three cities Pukar , Maturai and Vanci , the three weals Aram , Porul and Inbam , and structurally is a three – part stretch to wax and find a finish way ahead in Manimekalai of cattanars .
The work is an unambiguous exposition of the cosmotelic truths in the closed world of Classical Sankam. Dharma kills the king that errs. And the world adores and deifies the women of chastity. And karma chivvies and controls a life – course. These cosmotelic truths weekly correspond to hamertima, apotheosis and ananke of the western Destiny – idea.
The work embodies the major features of Tamil Life in the Sankam Age, notably aesthetic, folk – psychological, religious and philosophical. However the date is conjectural and vaiyapuri pillai‘ s stylometric research plausibly holds that the epic must be a work of post – Sankam times.
As tradition demanded , the epic is prologued with a fascile non – linear narrative where kuravas of hill report a miraculous spiriting away of an unbosom ‘ d lady by her celestial husband to the monk Ilanko and Cattanar a Tamil savant takes it up and relays an explanation , listening to which , Ilanko designs to dictate in verse the anklet story in style answerable for Cattanar to scribe it , and epilogues of proposing a sequel Manimekalai to complement the spirit of the work.
The argument unfolds tripinnate like with three cities laying bare their locales by and by. Kovalen , a rich merchant of Chola ‘ s capital Pukar , being an art – lover takes Mathavi , a hetaira of half – nymph , ancestry , loses all his wealth and in poortith returns to Kannaki , his wife whose anklets he plans to sell and decides to settle at Madurai of the Pandiya’s ; where at length , he goes to a goldsmith thievish , who with meliguity informs the king that the lost anklet of the Queen is now found with Kovalen , a thief caught.
The king in a thoughtlers haste orders the arrest and execution of the culprit and capture of the anklet. Kovalen , the guiltless , is killed forthwith and Kannaki , now destitute , with her wrath charges the king whose sense of guilt wakes up momentaneously and shocks and destines him to death.
Irate , unappeased Kannaki tears her left bosom and bowls , curses and consigns Madurai to flames. Thereafter in temple precincts in Kannaki met by the guardian deity of Madurai who helps her recall her earlier births and explains away her karma and destiny , telling her that she would within a moon , join her husband of heavenly band and ascend.
As natural to epics of yore , the text of this epic too , according to some modern critics , is not without interpolations and extrapolations . However , Dr. U.V.Cami – Natha Aiyar’s first compilation of it from palm leaf in 1892 is authentic enough as such. Of over five thousand lines of verse and prose in length , the epic has three parts with cantos numbering to thirty.
The book of Puker , the book of Madurai and the book of Vanci are they. In one word , it is gesantkunstwerk , a total art – form , involving the lexis – melos – opsis of the pan – dramatic , pan – epic order , variously allusive of the pre – births of the personae mezzo – relievo. The prologue and epilogue are bound with gracefulness to the body of the epic and each part has its exclusive mood.
Kannaki ‘s departure from Pukar , her destination at Madurai and her deification at Vanci and alternating contrite moods are preset with effectiveness. The role of the goldsmith is deftly handled , giving the desired contrasts to Kovalen ‘ s impeccability and king’ s nobility.
The epic has a pageant of passages describing the sea – side alluvia,
the delta – Cauvery intrinsically feminine , and the citified locales of Pukar and Madurai as well as of the Vagaries of the male mind and female heart. Then there are the interrelations of verse and prose embedded in the melic and the spectacular in the Tamil language. The verse is one of color and cordial feeling , the prose is more as a baroque continuo in function and subserves a sequence of verse – cycle.
From Pukar to Vanci , from the sea – level of life , from the ‘ C – major of life ‘ , with its turbulent billows and trade to the shady altitude of a hill – side kino tree the epic scene , by degrees , shifts and lifts , lyrically realizing the artistic and the moralistic at once symbiotic with a life moderated and contour’d by the doctrinaire quality of Karma. With Goethe one might exclaim:
“ALL GUILT IS AVENGED UPON THIS KARMA BHOOMI! “
Denn Alle Schuld racht sich anf Erden!
Though this is an epic featuring a common man / woman , the sophisticated Tamil Outlook of love – begotten life must not be confused with a bourgeois romantic sentimentality. Though the story has long been diligently studied and translated since 1939 and debated in every square and precinct often , it may be feared that no epic of its likeness has more frequently been misunderstood.
Of the English translations of this epic , the first known prose translation is that by Ramachandra Dikshitar the second by Allan Danielon into French and via French into English , with some shrinkage of the original ; and the third is by K.N.SUBRAMANIAN more Tamil – oriented idiom. The latest is by R.S.PILLAI ‘s in 1989 with optimum equivalence yet at places too affected , and meretricious to be exact.
The epic nuances are many, many. The innovation is pagen – poetic and is time to this monsoon land. The poet praises the selene , the sol , the showers and the sea – shore of Pukar. Moon blanches the sea ; sun disciplines the day ; and rains elixir life ; and the port presides and seas Cauvery and sea conjugate. Kovalen and Kannaki like Moon and Rokini , like Karma and Rati are married ; Pukar is fadeless in fame ;
Mathavi dances with a grace of hephthemimeral cadence with eleven variations and caesure ; Kovalen gives his heart away ; Kannaki pines ; the festivities for Indra and sea are dionysicc ; the sea – psaltery of Kovalen – Mathavi points and counter themes of love , languishment , borderie , Conceit , deceit , and falling apart through words and words locking with tunes of Yazh, zither like that pluck the heart of a connoisseur.
Kannaki ‘ s dream of a scorpion ‘ s cicinnus sting , the way side scenes , the druids , sirens , the deities of the land , the mother goddess manifold get vivified ; The queen ‘ s dream of a ferratogenic rainbow arching the night , the Kuravai dance and the city of Vanci with idol pedestal ‘ d are intensive.
This epic is pan – religious and pan – Indian ; All gods figure , and is therefore placidly pan – secular. Near Apotheosis , Kannaki with just a breast is Androgyny in form. Here man errs , woman forgives , corrects and chastens. Here is secularized art with life , the human with the divine. The cities are no more. Pliny – praised. Pukar sank into waters ; the many smithied , many towered Madurai melted into flames the kino hillocked Vanci upturned in terremotiv shock and went underground; the Kshetras mixed up with the bhootes.
The Yazh , whose distant cousin is a cinguecento Zither , is , virtually not in use , the Yazh that weaved Kovalen from Madhavi ; The Cilampu , never worn hereafter , weared Kovalen from Kannaki and Cingulum , a jewell ‘ d girdle weared the very male world from Mani Mekalai . The drive is from the necessity of life to asceticism after. Ars longe Vite Brevis Chastity thy name is woman!
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