8 Late Classical Poetry
According to an ancient and persistent tradition, the Kalittokai and the paripāṭal belong to the original corpus of the tokai (anthology) texts, and the Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai is quoted as the first of the lays (pāṭṭu). However great our respect for the tradition may be, we have to admit, after an unprejudiced and critical examination of these three texts, that they almost certainly do not belong to the earliest strata of the erotic and heroic poetry. The reasons for a later dating of these poems are both formal, and of a different and younger thought-content and ideology.
Kalittokai, lit. “the anthology in the kali metre” is a collection of lovely songs which try to capture all phases, types and details of love-experience; the anthology is an akam collection par excellence, and, in fact, it seems to have been composed after the first arrangement, systematization and classification of love-themes and lovesituations had been worked out by some of the early scholiasts: the peruntiṇai and kaikkiḷai situations (mismatched and one-sided love-affairs) were added to complete the cycle of total love-experience of man. It also seems that some folkmotifs and “vulgar” (<vulgus) trends forced their way into the classical erotic poetry, with rudimentary humorous and dramatic situations, with elements of farce and buffoonery: the poems, composed in this new tone, deal with affairs which are “common”, “abnormal”, “undignified”, fit only for “servants and workmen”; affairs which are fit for the ignorant, the uncultured. These poems were not accepted as akam proper by later theoreticians and compilers of the early anthologies, but were classed under the kaikkiḷai and peruntiṇai situations, the one-sided affair and the mismatched relationship.
The anthology has 150 poems in the kali metre. The first poem is an invocation to Siva, and the rest are love-poems divided into the five traditional divisions: 35 stanzas about pālai, 29 about kuṟiňci, 33 songs on neytal.1 The compiler of the anthology was a certain Nallantuvaṇār, supposed to be the author of the neytal portion, and there exists a detailed and excellent commentary by Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar (14th Cent.).
1 The peruntiṇai and kaikkiḷai situations are handled as additional to the five tiṇais.
The background of the poem is the same as in early classical poetry; but the tone is different. In a way, it is precisely the Kalittokai anthology which marks a definite break from the early classical tradition and conventions.
There are two fundamental problems to be dealt with in connection with this anthology: first, the problem of the dating; second, the question of authorship.
A very strong evidence points to the fact that the poems of Kalittokai should be dated considerably later than the other anthologies, roughly between the 5th-7th Cent. A.D.
First, the form, the metre, the structure of the poems, when compared with the akaval and vaňci stanzas of early classical poetry, display further development; the kali metre itself appears to have been a later development; the kali stanza seems to be a combination and a development of the āciriyam and the veņpā. It can hardly be denied that the kali-metre and the kali-stanza is later, historically younger than the akaval (and vaňci).
There are new structural elements in the kali stanzas: dialogues which sometimes look like “a one-act play in miniature” (C. and H. Jesudasan, op. cit. 67). Thus we have dialogues between the heroine and her girl-friend (60), the heroine and the hero (64), the girl-friend and the hero (61) etc. The narrative pieces which may be considered as miniature tales are also new. Thus there is, apart from the still predominantly lyrical character of the poetry, a new, rudimentary but vigorous, dramatic and epic component in the Kalittokai. New dramatis personae appear, too, folk-types like kāmakkiļatti (67, 72, 73) “match-maker”, kūni (94) “the hunchback woman” and kuralan (ib.) “the dwarf”.
As already stressed, the tone is new and different: realistic attitude, coarseness, spicy and racy dialogues, absence of delicacy, broad jokes, crude humour, echoes of folk-songs. As a typical instance one may quote the magnificent, rude, bawdy, and yet strangely moving and poetic dialogue between the hunchback woman and the dwarf (Kalit. 94, in the flawless translation of A. K. Ramanujan):
O hunchback woman,
gentle
and crooked as a reflection
in the water,
what great good deeds
did you do that I should want you so?
(O mother! she swore to herself) Some
auspicious moment made you dwarf,
so tiny you’re almost invisible,
O whelp born to a man-faced bird,
how dare you stop us to say
you want us? Would such midgets
ever get to touch such as us?
O lovely one,
curvaceous,
convex
as the blade of a plough,
you strike me with love
I cannot bear.
I can live
only by your grace.
(Look at the way this creature walks!)
O dwarf, standing piece of timber,
you’ve yet to learn the right approach
to girls. Humans do not copulate
at noon: but you come now to hold
our hand and ask us to your place.
Good woman,
your waist is higher
than your head, your face a skinned heron
with a dagger for a beak,
listen to me.
If I take you in the front, your hunch
juts in my chest; if from the back
it’ll tickle me in odd places.
So, I’ll not
even try it. Yet come close and let’s touch
side by side.
Chī, you’re wicked. Get lost! You half-man!
As creepers hang on only to the crook of the tree
there are men who’d love to hold this hunch
of a body close, though nothing fits. Yet, you lecher,
you ask for us sideways. What’s so wrong
with us, you ball, you bush of a man,
A gentle hunchback type is better far than a string
of black beans.
(Look at the walk of this creature!) You stand
like a creepy turtle stood up by somebody,
hands flailing in your armpits.
We’ve told you we’re not for you. Yet you hang around.
(Look, he walks now like the Love-God)!
The root of this love is Kāma,
the love-god with arrows, brother to Shāma.
Look, this is how the love-god walks!
(Look,
look at this love-god!)
Come, let’s find joy,
you in me, me in you; come, let’s ask and talk
agree which parts I touch.
I swear
by the feet of my king, I’ll mock you no more.
Right, O gentle-breasted one. I too will give up
mockery.
But I don’t want this crowd in the temple
laughing at us, screaming when we do it,
’Look, look! Look at that dwarf and hunchback,
leaping like demon on demon!’
O shape
of unbeaten gold, let’s get away from the temple
to the wild jasmine bush. Come, let’s go.
You’re now a gob of wax on a parchment
made out in a court full of wise men,
and stamped
to a seal; you’re now flat, incomplete. Come,
let’s touch close and hug hard
and finish the unfinished.
Let’s go.
On the other hand, the traditional aintiṇai (i.e. “love proper”) situations continue in Kalittokai and even receive new possibilities and new additions.
The language of Kalittokai manifests some features which are undoubtedly to be considered as innovations, both lexical and structural (e.g. the suffix -kāl in allākkāl 124, -ēl in kāṭṭāyēl 144, the form āṇāl in 139, further cf. stanzas 84, 87, 90, 93, 130). A relatively high number of Sanskrit loanwords (like kāman, kāraṇam, kuṇanka! with the pl. suff. -kaļ, picācar, mēkalai, vacciram) attests, too, a later origin.
Earlier poems are often quoted, e.g. Kur. 18.5 uyirtavac ciṟitu kāmamō peritē “the endurance of my soul is small, but passion of love is indeed great” reappears in Kali. 137.2: peritē kāmamen nuyir- tavac ciṟitē.
Throughout the entire collection, no name of any king is mentioned but of the Panṭiya in Maturai (55). No poets, chieftains, battles etc. mentioned in the other tokai anthologies are alluded to in the Kalittokai. On the other hand, Kuṛiñcikkali 24 mentions “the merciful men of Benares”, and in Marutakkali 29 there is an allusion to Kāma (also elsewhere; these are the first allusions to this relatively late Aryan import into Tamil literature). Actually, the whole collection is permeated with allusions to Sanskritic Purāņic legends: the burning of the three cities by Śiva (1), the plans of Duryodhana to kill the Pāṇḍavas (25), the battle between Murukaṉ and Sūrapadma (27), Rāvaṇa lifting Mount Kailāsa (38), Bhima beating Duryodhana on the thigh (52), Kṛṣṇa killing Kamsa’s wrestlers (52, 134), Śiva thwarting Yama (101), Urvaśi and Tilottamā (109), the story of Yayāti (139), Śiva bearing Gaṅgā in his locks (150), Kṛṣṇa killing the horse-demon (103), Kṛṣṇa hiding the sun with his cakra (104), etc.
All these facts point rather conclusively to the post-early classical origin of Kalittokai.
In many ways, the collection seems to be work of one author; the subject-matter, the style, the metre, the language. all indicates an individual authorship of the whole collection (granted even the over-all uniformity and homogeneity of the bardic poetry). On the other hand, a rather late veṇpā quatrain2 exists which ascribes the five divisions of the anthology to five “Sangam” poets: pālai to Perunkaṭunkōn, kuṟiňci to the great Kapilar, marutam to Marutan Iļanākaṇār, mullai to Cōḻaṉ Nalluruttiran and neytal to Nallantuvaṇār the Compiler. The veṇpā itself is not found in any manuscript of the text, and is unknown to the commentator; its veracity may be doubted. Allmost all serious scholars (the first editor of the work, S. V. Damodaram Pillai, 1887, K. N. Sivaraja Pillai, Rajamanikkam, H. W. Schomerus) are inclined to regard Kalittokai as the work of one poet, who probably belonged to the Pāṇṭiyaland.
2 Cf. Vaiyapuri Piḷḷai, Ilakkiya tipam (1952) 81.
The problem is far from definitely solved. But the work itself is great and deserves careful study, monographic treatment, and a congenial translation in toto.
Paripāṭal is traditionally enumerated as the fifth of the collections (tokai); it is an odd, hybrid work, partly traditional love-poetry and partly a work of bhakti. It is a collection of poems in the paripaṭal metre,3 which seems to be further development of the old classical metres. Of the seventy poems supposed to have been originally included in this work, only twenty four are extant in full (a few more are in fragments, and some (22, 24) may be found in a commentary on the Tōlkappiyam, and in the medieval anthology Purattiraṭṭu). Of the extant poems, seven are dedicated to Tirumāl, eight to Cevvēļ (Murukan), and nine to the river Vaikai. In the Vaikai-portion, the love-theme is worked out along the traditional lines against the background of bathing festivities. The stanzas are ascribed to 13 poets, one of whom figures among the poets of other anthologies.
3 paripāṭal is mentioned as a metre in Tolk. Ceyyul. 242. The number of lines is unlimited; it is on the whole a rather loose structure with verses ranging from one foot to four feet, exceptionally to five feet, and it provides for much variety. For the hybrid nature of the work, cf. e.g. the definition of its content in Yapparunkala virutti: teyvamum kāmamum poruļāka varum “as the subject-matter, both devotion and love occur”. Out of the 70 original stanzas, 8 should have been dedicated to Tirumal, 31 to Murukaṉ, I to Kāṭukilā! (Korravai?), 26 to the river Vaikai, 4 to Maturai. All commentators, beginning with Iḷampūraṇar, interpret the term paripăṭal as parinta pāṭṭu “running, speeding, rapid song”.
The most noticeable feature of this collection are the colophons to each stanza which, beside the name of the author, give also the names of the composer who set it to music and of the tune to which it was set. The basic tunes (paņ, icai) are pālai, yāl, tiram and kāntāram; the names of the composers are Kaṇṇakaṇār, Kaṇṇanākaṇār, Kēcavaṇār Nallaccutaṇār, Naṇṇākaṇār, Nākaṇār, Pittāmattar, Pēṭṭaṇākaṇār, Maruttuvan Nallaccutaṇār. There is a detailed commentary available composed by Parimēlaḻakar. The work was published first in 1918 by U. V. Swaminatha Aiyar.
It seems that the poems were indeed composed as songs, intended to be sung. The work is relatively late. It seems to be separated at least by three centuries from the earlier collections. First of all, there are many Aryan loanwords, and their number and nature betray a late origin of the text, e.g. kavitai (6), mitunam (11), cintikka (20), pōkam (5), kamalam (2) etc. There are also some characteristic grammatical innovations like the present-tense suffix -kiny-, and forms which are undoubtedly rather late in the history of the language, e.g. nāṇ (20.82) “I”, or āmām “emphatic affirmation”.
Second, there are references in the text to temples and shrines which must have been built in the post-classical period (Tiruvēnkaṭam, Tiruvaṇantapuram etc.), and mural paintings on the walls of Tirupparankunṛam temple are mentioned depicting stars and planets. Many allusions to a number of Puranic stories betray, too, the relatively late origin of the poem: thus we hear of the churning of the ocean of milk (2.71-72, 3-33-4), of Prahlāda (4.12-21), of the birth of Murukaṉ (5.27-49), of the destruction of the three cities (5.25) etc.
There is no great devotional fervour in the poems, and the lyrical quality of the text is not exactly outstanding. One can regard these poems as a form of transition-not very successful-between the classical, traditional love poetry, and the emerging, devotional, bhakti literature.
More interesting, and better poetry, is the first intensely devotional poem in Tamil literature, the Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai. As the name suggests, it is a “guide” poem, not to any liberal patron of arts, however, but to different manifestations of god Murukaṉ. The devotee, the bhakta, is directed by the poet to various shrines of the god. The “Guide to Lord Muruku” seems to have been considered by the redactor of the Pattuppāṭṭu collection as the invocatory lay to the “Ten Songs” (in analogy with the invocatory stanzas prefixed to the Anthology collections).4 The poem is held in very high esteem not only by Murukaṉ worshippers for whom it is the most ancient and fundamental text, but by all Saivites. It is an excellent poem in 312 akaval verses, and it is ascribed to Nakkīrar (whom the tradition makes identical with the author of the early lyrical pieces, but who is very probably much younger than the “Sangam” Nakkīrar; he may be identical with the author of the commentary to Iṟaiyaṉār Akapporuḷ).
4 K. Kailasapathy, op. cit. 35.s
The poem is carefully planned out, according to a definite scheme which is based upon a very fundamental conception in South Indian Hinduism: the intimate connection between a particular place of worship and the god’s “local” manifestation. The poem has six parts of unequal length: the first describes the beauty of Murukaṉ, the killing of Surapadma, the excellence of Maturai and Tirupparankunram; in the second, the six faces of Murukaṉ are described and their functions, as well as his twelve arms and their work, and the temple in Tiruccir; the third part deals with the shrine in Tiruvāviṉaṉkuṭi, the fourth with the temple in Tiruvēṟakam, in the fifth the poet narrates the sports of the god in the hills, the sixth describes the shrine in Palamutirccolai.
The effects of contrast are exploited cleverly by the poet: Murukaṉ, surrounded by lovely goddesses, is very different from the Murukaṉ in the battlefield. There the “she-devil (pēymaka!) dances the tuṇankai dance …
dry-haired,
twisted and projecting teeth
in her gaping mouth,
rolling eye-balls,
greenish eyes
with a fearful gaze,
ears that pain her heavy breasts
as the owl with bulging eyes
and the cruel snake
hang down from her ears
bothering her breasts.
In her hands with shining bangles
she holds a black skull,
smelling rotten.
With her cruel, sharp-nailed fingers
stirring blood
she had dug-out human eyeballs
and eaten them up.
As she dances, shoulders heaving,
her mouth drips with fat. 5
5 This is probably the occasion to say a few words about “the fantastic, gruesome, and grotesque” (C. and H. Jesudasan, op. cit. 187) aspects in Tamil literature. In heroic poems of the early classical age, the gory aspect plays quite a prominent role; as in heroic poetry elsewhere, and in the feudal poetry of the Occident, the gory and gruesome face of killing is described with gusto and in detail: it is a part of the prowess and glory of the heroes the “assertion of superior force” (K. Kailasapathy, op. cit. 239). There are many instances of gruesome scenes in Tamil bardic poetry, with “trunks dancing”, “vultures feeding upon carrion”, “elephants pierced with arrows”, “spears soaked in blood” etc. As an instance, a few lines from Patiṟṟuppattu 49.10-44 may be quoted (Kailasapathy, op. cit. 240): “The blood gushing out of the chests of the warriors of red hands who opposed you, flows and spreads on the ground like the reddish muddy water that flows on to the low lying lands on a rainy day. Terrible is the destruction you bring on the battle field, where you pile up fallen corpses”. Tolk. has a poetic theme called aṭṭaiyāṭal (cf. Ka. aṭṭe “a headless trunk”, Te. aṭṭa “id.”, DED 90): “hero’s body continuing to manifest heroic deeds even after dismemberment, as the quivering of a leech (aṭṭai, DED 89) after being cut into two”.
Slaughter of men and an/imals alike is described with great gusto. From the gloire of a slayer of elephants, an entire genre developed in the middle ages: the paraņi, a war poem about a hero who has destroyed 700 elephants. The greatest of the paraņis is Kaliṅkattupparaṇi by Cayankoṇṭār, the courtpoet of Kulōttuńka Cōḻa (1070-1122). In many ways, it is a great and marvellous poem, probably the most colourful poem in the entire Tamil literature, in which erotic experience and blood-thirstiness is painted in the same glowing colours. But the fantastic and the gruesome have perhaps “not been treated with more vividness elsewhere in Tamil literature” ( C. and H. Jesudasan, op. cit. 187). The poem is inhabited by blood-lusting devils, lean and famished for want of human flesh. After the battle, the devils, with mouths watering, rush in a wild stampede to the battle-field. The Brahmin devil gapes for the tasty soup of stinking corpses, but the Jain devil (which does not take life and eats only once a day) is to be given the strained soup indeed an admirable sense of humour on the part of the poet! And the Buddhist devil, going about wrapped in skins, is given the delicious brains of the dead (this, too, is humour).
An extremely relevant passage of the great medieval commentator Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar on TP gives much insight on the theme of sacrifice to the devils (pey, DED 3635 “demon, goblin, fiend, devil”, To. on “god of the dead”, in Gondi, Kui and Kuvi “god”, which is very suggestive). A gruesome ritual was performed in honour of Korravai, the goddess of war and victory, and probably the old Dravidian mother-goddess (DED 1803 korram “victory, power, bravery”). It consisted of the following features: 1) it was performed at the end of a battle by the victors; 2) wholesale sacrifice of men, animals and weapons took place; 3) some sort of ritual cooking was done, using blood; 4) priestesses officiated at the ceremony.
It seems though this needs further and careful investigation–that there are references to the ritual of human sacrifice (and probably an echo of cannibalism) in Puṟam 62, 356, 359, 369-71, Patiṟṟup. 13, 15, etc.
The whole poem seems to be aglow with red, the colour of Murukaṉ; images of blood are frequent (e.g. “pure white rice mixed with the blood of a fat strong ram with stout legs” is brought as an offering to the god); Murukaṉ’s body glows like the sun rising from the emerald sea—the peacock which the “red god” rides; celestial damsels, blessing the cock-banner of the youthful god, have
“… bright, rosy, tender feet …
thin garments purple like the Indragopa”;
and the hills grow the kāntaḷ flowers red like fire; and across his handsome wide chest run red lines (cempori).
Flames, blood, red garments, red lustre-we encounter these images again and again, and probably the most frequent epithet is “shining, lustrous” and “fire-like” (vāļ in 8, 87, 90, ol in 28, 31, 54, tikal in 40, cuṭar in 43, 46, min in 85, nakai in 86, viļaku in 87, etc. etc.).
There are also a few magnificent natural scenes; and the technique of contrast is cleverly employed. Listen to the first 20 lines in a very inadequate translation:
Like the sun seen in the sea,
the delight of the world.
praised by men,
he is the dazzling light
visible from afar
even through eyes
which are closed.
His feet are strong.
They destroy ignorance
and support
his friends.
His mighty arm
rivals
the thunderbolt.
It has crushed
his fiends.
He is the bridegroom
of the maid
whose front is fair
and who is
gently chaste.
The forests,
cool and fragrant
after first showers,
pouring down
from gigantic clouds,
pregnant with waters
sucked up from the sea,
scattering heavy drops
upon the firmament
whose darkness is dispelled
by the sun and the moon.
The forests,
darkened and overspread
by the dense leaves
of the red katampu tree.
He has a garland
of its flowers
rolling on his chest.
High on the mountains
towering into skies
unearthly maidens dance.
They have
bright,
rosy,
tender feet
with tinkling anklets.
Rounded shanks
and gently swaying
waist.
Broad luscious shoulders
and thin garments red
like Indragopa’s wings.
Their mounds of venus bear
brilliant girdles strung
with many shining gems.
How lovely are they!
With a beauty made
not by the skill
of human hands.
And they have jewels
set in Jambū gold
and glowing,
gleaming bright
with flawless lustre
shooting beams afar.
—
(Transl. K.Z.)
Murukaṉ has two wives; the senior, Teyvayāṇai, is the daughter of Indra; the younger is “the beautiful daughter of the hunters, little Vaḷḷi, with creeper-like slender waist” (101-102).6 The god’s priest is called vēlan (190) “he who wears the spear”; and the men in the jungle drink in the god’s honour liquor prepared from honey matured in bamboo (nīṭamai viļainta tēkkaṭ ṭēral, 195). But, in his temples, there are also the dvijas, the twice-born (iruppirappāļar, 182), wearing the sacred thread of three bands. Elsewhere, the Vedas are mentioned (mantiram, 95), and the sages (munivar, 137); and the whole poem shows in fact the fusion of the Brahmanic god Skanda with the pre-Aryan, South Indian Murukaṉ. The poem contains much old, traditional material (like the relationship of Murukaṉ to Korravai, the old mother-goddess of the Tamils). It is typically a poem of transition, marking the end of an epoch, the end of pre-Aryan Tamilnad, the end of the classical age; and the beginning of an entirely different age which is heralded by the rise of devotional literature. It is perhaps significant that the first truly religious, devotional poem in Tamil is dedicated to Murukaṉ, the Tamil deity par excellence.
6 According to later speculations, kaṟpu “chastity” is of two types: the stern (maram) and the gentle (aram). Draupadi and Kaṇṇaki represent the former type, while Sītā and Teyvayāṇai represent “gentle chastity”.
7 S. Vaiyapuri Pillai, HTLL p. 58. On p. 113, he dates it “about A.D. 700”.
Apart from what was said about its subject matter, there are also other indications that the poem may hardly be older than about 550-600 A.D.; there are some very serious authors who place it around A.D. 800.7 There are some rather late forms and innovations in the language (perīiyar 168, nalkumati 295 etc.); many of the Aryan loanwords (which are abundant) are rather late borrowings (tilakam, nakaram, caṇpakam, ankucam etc.); earlier texts are cited (e.g. Nar. 62: Tirumuruk. 24). There is also the fact that, according to U. V. Swaminatha Aiyar, most of the Pattuppāṭṭu manuscripts used by him for his edition do not contain the text of this poem.
The poem is very important for the development of South Indian bhakti in that it contains, in lines 60-66, the summary of its fundamental principles: salvation as the goal of existence; salvation means to take one’s station at the feet of the Lord; to love the Lord; to attain this means to give up egoism, sense of separation (63, 64); the poem says literally: “to reach the feet of Cēy with elevated heart” (cēeycēvaṭi pataruň cemma lullamotu (61-62). This is pure bhakti.
No wonder that the poem found its way into the 11th Tirumuṟai, the corpus of Saivite Canonical writings.