13  The Imperial Poet

In the standard German history of Indian literatures,¹ revised in 1961, we do indeed come across the name of Kampaṉ. The author has devoted to “the greatest epic poet of Tamil land” (T. P. Meenakshisundaran), to “the king of Tamil literature” who “represents the Tamil mind at its ripest and noblest” (C. and H. Jesudasan) 11 lines of small print, and these II lines abound in general statements.² And yet, Kampaṉ’s Irāmāvatāram is not just an epic poem, it is an entire literature and, as the Jesudasans say, “to the Tamilian mind, one of the world’s wonders is its ignorance of him” (op. cit. 168). “The field of research in Kamban is vast as the sea”, and, as we have specialized “Dantists” or Shakespearean scholars, we are equally entitled to have specialized “Kambanologists”.³

¹ H. von Glasenapp, Literaturen Indiens, 1st ed. 1929, rev. ed. 1961.

² such as “Beliebt ist Kambans Rāmāyaṇa vor allem wegen der Eleganz und des Wohlklangs seiner Sprache” or “Gross ist er in der Verwendung von Bildern und Gleichnissen und anderem schmückenden Beiwerk”.

³ Incidentally, Kampaṉ is sometimes called “the Homer of Tamil literature” or “the Shakespeare of Tamil literature”. Nothing is more misleading than these entirely empty metaphors. Homer is Homer, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and Kampaṉ is Kampaṉ. They have nothing substantial in common. In the Tamil tradition, Kampaṉ is called very often kaviccak- kiravartti, “the emperor of poets”, since he is so “supreme”. He is, though, not the only Ta. poet to bear this title. Thus, e.g. Cayankoṇṭār (the author of Kaliṅkattupparaṇi) is also “emperor of poets” (cf. Kulōttuṅkaṉ Piḷḷaittamiḻ, 14, and Tanjore Saraswati Mahal Library Catalogue Vol. I, p. 288). Another “emperor of poets” is Oṭṭakkūttar (cf. Takkayākapparaṇi 813).

Hence, again, just like in the case of the bhakti literature, we have to make a choice, and select a few, particularly relevant, critical and interesting features of Kampaṉ’s great work, and deal with these rather than try to give an over-all picture of the poem and its creator.

There are no reliable enough sources about the poet and his life. Even his name presents a problem: it is of course the name of Śiva in Kāňci (Tēvāram 3240). There was also a Pallava king, Kampavarman (870-912? See K. A. N. Sastri, A History of South India¹ii, 175), in fact the very last of the Pallava kings. According to one legend, the poet was born in the vicinity of a temple-pillar (kampam, stambha-); according to another story, he was the son of the king of Kampanāṭu; other stories associate his name with kampu, “millet”, or kampam “pillar” or “stick”; a well-known proverb says that in Kampaṉ’s home even a post for tying cattle will compose verses.⁴

⁴ kampan vīṭṭuk kattuttariym kaviccollum.

What we do know is that he was a native of Tiruvaluntur (Tanjore district), of the uvacca community (temple drummers, or according to others, pūjāris in Māriyamman’s temples), and that he was patronized by a chieftain called Caṭaiyappan or Caṭaiyan, to whom he thankfully refers in every thousandth verse of his poem.

Another problem is Kampaṉ’s date. According to one stanza, the year of the composition of his work is 885 A.D.⁵ An alternative interpretation of the same stanza puts Kampaṉ in the 12th Cent.⁶ On the basis of another verse, and the frequent occurrence of the word uttaman, the work is assigned to the 10th Cent. A.D., to the reign of Uttama Chola. According to T. P. Meenakshisundaran “this seems the most reasonable view” (op. cit. 102). Others, however, will interpret this verse as referring to 1185 in the reign of Kulōttuṅkaṉ III (1178-1216), and there is inscriptional evidence which shows that this Chola king was called Tiyakavinōtan to whom Kampaṉ refers (in Yuttakāṇṭam, Maruttumalaip. 58)⁷. There is a stanza attributed to Kampaṉ in Tamilnāvalar caritai in praise of a king of Varangal who belongs to the same period. Once, in Kiṭkintākāṇṭam, Pilamnīňkup. 35, Kampaṉ refers to Amalaṉ who is identified with Chola Kulōttuṅka II (1132-1150) praised by the Chola court-poet Oṭṭakkūttaṉ.⁸ Hence it seems to be true that Kampaṉ was not prior to Kulōttuṅka Chola II; and the upper limit is set by Periya Āccāṉ Pillai (first half of the 13th Cent.) who quotes from Kampaṉ in his commentary to Tiviyappirapantam. A probable, though by no means certain date for Kampaṉ is, therefore, the 12th Cent. A.D. As T.P. Meenakshisundaran says, “in any case all these dates fall within the period of the Imperial Cholas” (op. cit. 102).⁹

⁵ Cf. V. V. S. Aiyar’s introduction to Pālakāṇṭam (1917).

⁶ Centamiḻ III, 171-81.

⁷ Cf. Es. Vaiyāpuri Pillai, Tamilccuṭarmanikal, III ed., 1959. Also Centamiḻ I, p. 122.

⁸ Kulōttunkacōlanulā 157.

⁹ For a detailed discussion in Tamil of this problem cf. Es. Vaiyāpuri Pillai, Tamilccuṭarmaṇikal, III ed., 1959, pp. 127-149.

This is, then, the sum of our knowledge of the poet and his date.

As far as the work itself is concerned, one can point out, as already said, only to a handful of those features which one considers to be most relevant and important, at our age and for the contemporary understanding and appreciation of Tamil literature among nonTamil and non-Indian readers.

First, it was definitely not Kampaṉ who discovered Rāma’s story for the Tamils. The Rāmāyaṇa story was actually known in the Tamil South in the early classical age itself, at least one thousand years before Kampaṉ. In the very early texts, Akam 70.13-16 and Puṟam 378.18-21, there are clear allusions to the story of Rāma. In the Cilappatikāram, 14.46-48, Rāma is referred to as suffering because of separation from his beloved, and ib. 13.64-66, the city of Pukār, after Kōvalaṉ had left it, is compared to Ayodhyā after Rāma’s departure. Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar’s commentary on Tolk. 1021 quotes stray veņpās which may be from an earlier Tamil Rāmāyaṇa version.

The Vaisnava bhakti hymns are of course full of Rāma as the avatar of Viṣṇu; T. P. Meenakshisundaran (op. cit. 104-105) quotes several instances to prove that Kampaṉ obviously knew and used these poems. It is, however, interesting to notice the fact that, “while the Tamils have gone on attempting Mahābhāratas, no man has dared to attempt the Rāmāyaṇa after Kamban”,¹⁰ though there were Rāmāyaṇas before him.

¹⁰ The Jesudasans, op. cit. 183.

Second: The Irāmāvatāram of Kampaṉ is one of the few Tamil literary works which were well-known outside Tamilnad. It was rather popular in the Kannaḍa country (a 14th Cent. Kannaḍa inscription form Mysore refers to Kampadarāmāyaṇa). According to a Malayalam anecdote, Śiva was born as Kampaṉ and composed the Kamparāmāyaṇam “consisting of the thirty-two dramas enacted even today as a part of the ritual during the annual festivals in the temples of Siva in the northern part of Kerala” (T. P. Meenakshisundaran, op. cit. 106). Rāmānuja (who died in 1137) is praised by one of his disciples as famous for his interest in Rāmāyaṇa. (Rāmānucar Nūrrantāti 37). If Kampaṉ belonged to an age earlier than the 12th Cent., Rāmānuja might have known his great poem. The influence of the great Tamil philosopher travelled to North India and spread through to Rāmānanda, whence a connection may be established with Kabir and Tulsidās. There is much speculation about the influence of the Tamil poem on the Northern versions of the Rama story.

Third: One of the crucial points is, naturally, the relation between Vālmīki and Kampaṉ. That the Tamil epic is not a translation of Vālmīki is quite clear, and one might point to a great number of major and minor differences between the great Sanskrit epic and the Tamil poem. On the other hand, in the main story Kampaṉ follows the tradition rather closely without making any great changes. The plot and many of its details are taken from Vālmīki. The division into books (kāṇṭam) and the subdivision into cantos (paṭalam) is taken from Vālmīki, too. The epic is basically modelled on the rhetoric of Sanskrit kāvyas, not on the more indigenous Tamil epic tradition. And, above all, Kampaṉ is a learned poet,¹¹ and his great erudition in both Sanskrit and Tamil tradition, written and oral, is evident everywhere. On the other hand, the Tamil poet introduced significant changes into minor episodes, and some of these changes have been sufficiently commented upon (as, e.g., the premarital love of Rāma and Sītā which is not found in Vālmīki). Here, too, one has to make a choice and try to show what seem to be the most characteristic and the most easily illustrative points of difference between the ātikavi (Vālmīki) and Kampaṉ’s Tamil work, and to focus on the “Tamilness” of the Tamil Irāmāvatāram.

¹¹ There is even a popular saying which reflects this: kalviyir periyavan kampan “Kampan is greatest in learning”.

Kampaṉ’s ideal, the Rāmarajya, Rāma’s rule, the heavenly kingdom to be established, is set into an ideal environment of country and city which, though it retains its original name, has a number of new, concrete and purely South Indian features. He has utilised the ideal descriptions of the aintiṇai found in the early classical literature; the five ideal landscapes appear quite significantly in stanzas 23 ff. The fact is very obvious e.g. in stanza 28:

      Turning forest into slope,
      field into wilderness,
      seashore into fertile land,
      changing boundaries, exchanging
      landscapes,
              the reckless waters
      roared on like the pasts
      that hurry close on the heels
      of lives.

      —
      (Transl. A. K. Ramanujan)

Not only that: the entire opening passage on waters, taking many shapes and forms, is unique, characteristically Tamil, and none of this is in Väālmīki.

      Caressing the lover’s hair,
      the lovers’ body, the lovers’ limbs
      concubines take away whole hills
      of wealth yet keep little
      in their spendthrift hands
      as they move on:
                      so the waters
      flow from the peaks to the valleys
      beginning high and reaching low.
      (17)

      Born of Himalayan stone
      and mingling with the seas,
      it spreads, ceaselessly various,
      one and many at once,
      like that Original Thing
      even the measureless Vedas
      cannot measure with words.
      (30)

      Through pollen-dripping groves
      lotus pools
      clumps of champak
      waterplaces with new sands
      flowering fields cross-fenced
      with creepers
      like a life filling and emptying
      a variety of bodies
      the river flowed on.
      (29)

      —
      (Transl.: A. K. Ramanujan)

Like god, the rains and the floods take the form of many things, like god appearing so different in the beliefs of various sects, water takes many different forms according to the shapes men give it.

      Stealing milk and buttermilk,
      guzzling on warm ghee and butter
      straight from the pots on the ropes,
      leaning the marutam tree on the kuruntam,
      carrying away the clothes and bracelets
      of goatherd girls at watergames
      Like Kṛṣṇa dancing
      on the striped and spotted snake
      the waters are naughty.
      (26)

      —
      (Transl. A. K. Ramanujan)

The ideal city, Ayodhyā, the seat of civilization, is governed by the ideal of aṟam (dharma), “rightness, righteousness, justice”; when Rāma is exiled, dharma goes weeping after him. In Rāma’s city, there are no poor, because there are no rich; there are no learned ones, because there are no uneducated. In contrast, there is Laṅkā, also a seat of civilization, equally rich, perhaps even more so. However, while Ayodhyā is a seat of love and divine light, Laṅkā is governed by maram, by militant heroism, the seat of a Titan, whom even the gods fear, and who has an utter disregard for dharma, however cultured and refined he may be.¹²

¹² Here one should probably at least mention the fact that the Kamparāmāyaṇam has become the target of attacks in rather recent days, mostly by the protagonists of the “Dravidian movement”. Some speakers of the D.K. and D.M.K. parties tried to discredit the poem by pointing to the various moral fallacies of the hero (never on aestetic grounds!), e.g. Rāma’s behaviour towards Sītā after she was rescued from Laṅkā, Rāma’s role in the killing of Vāli etc.; by interpreting Rāma’s war against Laṅkā as the Aryans’ brutal conquest of the culturally much superior Dravidians; by accepting Rāvaṇa as the true hero of the story. The last point was made very explicit by a contemporary Tamil scholar-poet (Kulantai Pulavar) who composed an “anti-epic”, Irāvaṇaṉ Kappiyam, a “chanson de Rāvaṇa”. There were other scholars who tried to point out an immense number of “interpolations” and thus “reconstruct” the “original” Kampaṉ in agreement with the aims of the Dravidian movement.

In the characterization of some figures, there are considerable differences between Kampaṉ’s work and its Sanskrit inspiration. I shall give at least two instances of such changes introduced by Kampaṉ.

1ST THEME: THE EPISODE OF SUGRĪVA, VĀLI AND TĀRĀ

Vālmīki

Tārā is the wife of the monkey king Väli. After Vāli’s death, the victorious Sugrīva takes her as his wife and his love is reciprocated by Tārā. Lakṣmaṇa, enraged at the ungratefulness of Sugrīva (whom Rāma helped to kill Väli and regain his throne), is pacified by Tārā.

Kampaṉ

The moral justification for Väli’s death is the fact that he has taken forcibly Sugrīva’s wife from him. Tārā becomes a saintly widow after the death of her husband, and comes to pacify Lakṣmaṇa, who is reminded by her widow’s dress and ascetic behaviour of his own mother, left as a widow in Ayodhyā.

2ND THEME: THE STORY OF AHALYĀ

Vālmīki

Ahalyā, the wife of the sage Gautama, willingly accepts Indra’s embrace (“O Rāghava, though Ahalyā recognized Indra disguised as her lord, yet she acceded to his request”). Whatmore, she enjoys it: “Then Ahalyā addressed Indra saying: ’O Indra, I am highly gratified, now depart quickly, unobserved”. She is purified into a chaste woman by the touch of the divine dust from Rāma’s feet, after she has been turned into a stone by her husband. Indra was deprived of his manhood by the curse of Gautama, but later the testicles of a ram were grafted on to him.

Kampaṉ

Ahalyā is chaste; she is duped by Indra’s impersonation; she knows she is sinning only in the act, but her mind does not take part in the sin. She repents (“Ahalyā stood stunned, bearing the shame of a deed that will not end in this endless world”). Indra steals away in the shape of a cat, and Gautama curses him (“May you be covered / by the vaginas of a thousand women!”). Ahalyā is turned into a black rock. Rāma’s eyes fall on the rock, and as the dust of his feet blows on it, Ahalyā is revived.

The Ahalyā episode is handled more effectively and more dramatically by Kampaṉ. The two innovations (Indra stealing away in the shape of a cat, and the thousand vaginas as a sign of shame on Indra’s body) seem to be folklore motives (A. K. Ramanujan). But most important of all is the difference in the conception of Ahalyā’s character; while, in Vālmīki, she enjoys her extramarital adventure with the prince of gods, in Kampaṉ she is in fact chaste. The episode is related organically to other episodes and to the basic motive of Kampaṉ’s epic-Rāma’s incarnation in order to release all souls from the misery of this world, and the response of the souls through bhakti.

There are episodes in Vālmīki which, for Kampaṉ, are obviously very important and he dwells on them in great length (Rāma’s marriage is described by Kampaṉ in five chapters). Sometimes Vālmīki has no more than one or two lines where Kampaṉ elaborates an entire episode. There is also a tremendous difference between Vālmīki and Kampaṉ in form; Kampaṉ’s poem is rather like a string of self-contained and individual stanzas, in contrast to Vālmiki’s majestic epic flow of thousands of slokas. In about 40.000 lines Kampaṉ has used, with extreme skill, 90 different variations of kali, viruttam and tuṟai metres.

The changes which Kampaṉ introduced are not necessarily improvements. In fact, it might be argued that the more crude, the more straightforward, more heroic and dignified version of Vālmīki, which has many a feature of a “morality tale”, of a Märchen and a chanson de geste, has not really much improved by Kampaṉ’s delicate and sophisticated touches.¹³

¹³ There have always been voices strongly critical of Kampaṉ, some of them taking the shape of crude folk-sayings like kampan-vampan “K.- the bombastic talker”, or stanzas like the one ascribed to Kālamēkam: nārāyaṇanai nārāyaṇ enrē kampan. nēvāka vārenrāl varrenpen välenrān vallenpēn naranenrāl narrenpen “if K. could say Nārāyaṇ for (the correct) Nārāyaṇaṇ, then I shall say var for var. . .”. etc.

After a macroscopic or telescopic, and probably rather oversimplified and impressionistic view of the epic we should now try and take a more proximate, a closer look at two or three small portions of the great work.

Cūrppanakai, the sister of Irāvaṇaṉ, comes into Rāma’s presence “like a young peacock, with sweet words, like a swan, a flashing creeper, like poison, like the daughter of wickedness”. Listen to the measure of her footfall:

paňciyoḷir viňcukuḷir pallavama nunka
ceňceviya kaňcanimir cīraṭiya ḷāki
ancoliḷa maňňaiyena vannamena minnum
vaňciyena naňcamena vaňcamakaḷ vantāḷ

(Ārāṇyakkāṇṭam, Cūrppanakaip. 24)

The fascinating, regular metrical pattern is definitely suggestive of the triumphant, dance-like, wicked rhythm of her gait:

－ ＝ － / － ＝ － / － ＝ － / － －

What is, however, so impressive, is the sound-symbolism of this stanza; by an extremely skillful use of high and front vowels and palatal consonants, plus the rhythm and the alliterations and consonance placed in the crucial slots, Kampaṉ has achieved to convey the picture of that malevolent, demoniac and weird beauty.

The front high i and the front e are very frequent (14 + 7, i.e. 21 in comparison with 28 a’s, a being the most frequent vowel in the overall system of Tamil sounds); among the consonants, the palatals give the predominant colour to the whole stanza. For the Tamil reader there is apart from the direct acoustic effect of the soundsa subconscious association between the palatal cluster -éc- and things which are bizarre, uncouth, dangerous, deadly, e.g. añcal “fear”, kaňcam “trick”, kiňci “crocodile”, naňcam “poison”, paňcam “famine”, piйcam “killing”, muňcal “dying”, vaňcanam “trick”, vaňcalam “serpent” etc. The sound-symbolism is found, in a different layout, in many parts of the poem; and in one and the same stanza (e.g. see the sequence of palatal, dentoalveolar and labial nasals in line 3: maňňaiyeṇa annameṇa minnum, or the contrast between these consonants and the codas of the last two feet of the stanza: vaňcamakaļ vantāl).

Another example in a very different tune; grandeur is the “Leitmotif” in these lines-the grandeur of Rāvaṇa, with the grave and somber notes after his first “taste of defeat at Rāma’s hands”:

      vāraṇam poruta mārpum varaiyinai yelutta tōļum
      nārata munivark kērpa nayampala vuraitta nāvum
      tāraṇi mauli pattum cankaran kolutta vāļum
      vīramum kaļattē pōṭṭu verunkaiyō ṭilankai pukkān

      (Yuttakkāṇṭam, Kumpakaruṇanvalaip. 1)

      “The chest that withstood mammoths,
      the shoulders that lifted mountains,
      the tongue that spoke words fluent as Nārada’s,
      and all the ten garlanded crowns,
      the sword given by Sankara

and his valour

      all this he left on the battlefield
      and empty-handed
      entered Laṅkā”.

Third instance: Rāma, anxious and impatient, awaits Hanumān’s return from Laṅkā, where he went as Rāma’s scout to find out about Sītā. His very first words, when he appears before Rāma:

      kantanan karpinuk kaṇiyaik kankalāl
      tentirai yalaikaṭa lilankait tennakar
      antar nayaka vinituratti yaiyamum
      pantula tuyaru mennanumān pannuvān
      “I saw
      the ornament of virtue
      with these eyes
      in Laṅkā, the Southern City,
      set in a swaying ocean of clear waves!
      O Lord of the gods!
      Banish all doubt now
      and all past suffering!
      So said Hanumān”.

This stanza shows of what psychological depth Kampaṉ is capable: what is the very first word Hanumān utters as soon as he sees poor anxious Rāma?

kantanan “I saw”.

The most painful anxiety is dispelled by this one word: Hanumān saw her. But Rāma has doubts about Sītā’s chastity; is she unharmed and safe and faithful? To dispel these doubts, Hanumān utters the next words:

karpinukku aniyai “the jewel of chastity”.

Now Rāma knows: Sītā is alive and well, safe and chaste. To stress his testimony, Hanumān adds now: kaṇkaļāl “with (my own) eyes”, and goes on, telling Rāma where he saw her: in Laṅkā. Now, when Rāma knows that Sītā lives and where she is, action should follow; after words, deeds. And this is precisely what Hanumān says: banish all doubt and pain. In other words, who has no doubts, acts. The form that is, the metre, the rhythm, the phonic structure and sound-symbolism of this stanza is in full unity with its content: the two most frequent vowels are “manly”, open a and ā, the consonants are mostly alveolar, retroflex and velar, there are many occlusives, there are no “soft” patatals at all: the phonaesthetic effect of this stanza is like the sound of a bugle call, like the beat of a drum, an invitation to battle.

The greatness of a poet is sometimes revealed in apparently small matters, in unexpected flashes exposing a genius. Two instances chosen at random from the vast text follow.

In the wedding procession, a girl sits upon a she-elephant. A male elephant raises its trunk to caress the she-elephant. The damsel, seated on the female elephant, is scared and closes her eyes with the palms of her hands; but her eyes are so large because of her curiosity, that her hands will not hide them (pitta yāṇai piṇanki pitiyil kai vaittu etc., Pālakāṇṭam, Eluccip. 38). The naughty suggestion is obvious and fits well into the erotic atmosphere (wedding, animal-love, curiosity of the girl).

Another instance: one single utterance from Irāvaṇaṉ culccip. 13, but I wonder whether Sitā could characterize better her lord Rāma by saying anything else than oru pakal palakiṇāl uyirai īvar “if one knows him but a single day, one would give his life (for him).” If, in one place (Pālakāṇṭam, Päyiram 2), Kampaṉ says that it was not easy for him to show the mysterious state of God, he has succeeded, I think, better than Vālmīki, to show Rāma as a man (and hence the title, Irāmāvatāram, “The Descent of Rāma”, lit. “the Rāma’s becoming an avatar”). There is a phrase which sums up his conception of Rāma: māṇitam vēnṛataṇrē “truly, human nature has won!”¹⁴

¹⁴ 4.3.19. Cf. T. P. Meenakshisundaran, op. cit. p. 119.