THE
ETHICAL INTERPRETATION OF NATURE IN ANCIENT TAMIL POETRY
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DR. XAVIER S. THANI NAYAGAM, M.A.,
M.LITT.
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IT IS a favourite point
with writers on India to say that the "historical sense" is wanting
in all ancient indian literature. If by a "historical sense" is meant
a sense that ought to have produced chronological tables, and authors like
Herodotus and Livy who wrote to recount the deeds and facts of the past, then
it must be admitted that no literature has come down to us that warrants the
existence of such works.
Yet, ancient
Tamiliterature abounds the allusions, both to contemporary and past events. If
even in the absence of works similar to those written by Greek and Roman
historians, it has been possible to trace out a history of the Tamil people
during the Cangam period, it is due to the historical references in Cangam
literature (Writers like P.T. SRINIVASA IYENGAR and K. N. SIVARAJA PILLAI have
based their works entirely on this literature).
Many of these references occur in love-poetry. This fact ought to prove to some
extent how much the Tamils relished historical references. At the same time, it
must be observed, that even these references were often made not only to praise
the memory of great Tamil personages of the past but also to eulogize their
patron-kings and patron-chiefs. For instance, a poet writes about the gossip in
the locality regarding the courtship and clandestine meetings of a hero and a
heroine. It may be he has an actual "case" in mind, or it may be he
is just imagining a poetic situation. The poet would compare the wide-spread
gossip and scandal-mongering (?ÒÑ) of neighbours to some contemporaneous or
past victory in battle achieved by a king or chief he admires, or from whom he
has received bounteous gifts, saying that the gossip was more resounding than
the shouts with which the foes of his hero retreated in battle, or louder than
the jubilant cries of his patron's soldiers when they cut down the
"guardian tree" of his enemy. Or the allusion may be manifestly to
historic exploits performed by the nation's heroes in the past (Kur; 328; 393;
Agam 36; 45; 209; 253; 256).
Apart from the purely
historical allusions, Cangam literature contains also numerous passages in
which the poets associate landscape with historical events and historical
persons. This historical association in nature poetry is also to be found among
poets of other nations like Vergil. English poets have used it in poems here
and there. Byron's Childe Harold contains many passages where landscape evokes
thoughts and reflections on the past, and Scott is famous for seeing his
landscape always through historical association. The Tamil poets too had a
capacity to see the earth coloured by this historical association, but their
manner of expressing historical association is worth noting for it is both rare
and impressive.
The tresses of the
heroine have a fragrance that floats in the breeze. The fragrance reminds the
poet of the fresh sweet smell that emanates from parks and jungles on a morning
when the mullai is in bloom, and forthwith he compares the fragrance of the
tresses to the fragrance of the forest-reserve of one of his patrons, say
Ori:
"Her tresses smell like the fragrant breeze that
blows having traversed through the forest-park
of Ori of the liberal hand and the valiant chariot"
(Kur., 199).
The tresses of a heroine
are compared sometimes to a flourishing city, but often to the wavy river sand,
or the wavy dry bed of river. The waves of her tresses are thus compared to the
side-bed, of not any river, but one that the poet would like to extol, say the
ford of the Kaveri at Uranthai, the capital of the Colas or the banks of the
Vaigai near Kudal (Puram; 347, 5-6).
Potiyil, one of the peaks
of the Western Ghats, stands like a lofty sentinel in the Southern portion of
the range. The sandal-wood that grows on this mountain and these ranges has
been always a vourite term of comparison with poets including Kalidasa. The
hill would seem to have been included for sometime within the kingdom belonging
to chiefs of the Ay family. The heroine is said to be as fragrant as the
sandal-wood, or the Vengai and kanthal of Ay's Potiyil, and cooler than its
water-lilies."(Kural; 84)
The eyes of a heroine are
usually compared to neydal blooms or to water-lilies. But often the flowers are
specified as belonging to the lakes or tanks of some historic place or famed
ruler. Thus, in a poem of the Agananuru collection, the eyes are compared to
the neydal blooms of a maritime lake (?Þ) bordering the sea near Korkai, the
emporium of the Pandiyans.(Agam; 130. Cft: Agam; 47, 69). Paranar in another
poem of the same collection after having enumerated the various difficulties
and obstacles that a hero has to overcome to keep a tryst with his heroine
concludes saying that they are as difficult to overcome as the outer defences
and the defence-forests of Tittan's Uraiyur.(Agam; 122, 21-23)
Another poet compares the
forlorn appearance of the heroine on learning of the impending departure of the
hero, to the groves around the Kaveri:-
"The forehead is
like unto the honey-smelling
groves floored with white sand on the tender
shores of the great river. After the March
festival, under the dense trees rich with
foliage and flowers may be seen the ashes
of fires kindled by those who have been feasting.
As desolate as the grove without people art thou.
Your shoulders too, once resembling the elegant
and stately bamboos that grow on the flanks of
the Potiyil hill that belongs to the Pandyan,
master of the Southern sea rich in peerless pearls,
have also lost their pristine elegance." (Agam; 137)
And thus numerous
examples may be given of the brief but significant ways in which history and
Nature and personal association are linked together by the Tamil poets in the
composition of imagery. As great an attraction for them was, however, to
consider an ethical aspect in Nature, often based on historical and personal
association.
The Tamil were always a
hard-working and industrious people. The fertility of the soil was greater in
the Cangam period than now, but was not so great as to require much less energy
and industry on the part of cultivators than are required at present.
It happened that Nature
made up by providing an abundance of luxury goods in exchange for what she
exacted by labour from the Tamils. The hills of Tamil Nad provided pepper,
cinnamon and other spices; her seas gave pearls and red coral; her forests
yielded metals and precious stones. Therefore, as early as historical records
go the Tamils have distinguished themselves as traders, with China to the East,
with Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Roman Empire to the West. They made the most of
what Nature gave them, and their commerce added not a little to the wealth of
their country. (E. H. WARMINGTON, The commerce between the Roman Empire and
India, Cambridge, 1928).
The Tamils were also
known for their spirit of warfare. The chiefs a
nd kings fought intermittently
among themselves, and as it happens when war and diplomacy and alliances have
become common, they developed early a very honourable code of warfare.
Their commerce with
foreigners, and their warfare made them develop high ethical standards of
conduct. Honesty, truthfulness, bravery, love of honour, are virtues without
which no people may distinguish themselves in trade or war. Mercy and sympathy
are also qualities which are natural to those who have attained a position of
permanent wealth and to the warrior used to the miseries of the battle-field.
Hence the repeated emphasis in Tamil literature on the right use of wealth by
distributing it to the poor and the needy.
Cangam literature is
nearly one-fourth ethical if you consider the didactic poems as well as those
that personify and illustrate virtuous deeds and allude to virutuous persons.
"Ethics in Cangam literature" would certainly form enough matter for
a voluminous study. Here is a typical poem of our four lines by Avvai,
"The Tamil Sappho."
"Land whether it be
high or low, cultivated or uncultivated may be called good not because it
yields good not because it yields good crops, but because it yields good
inhabitants." (Puram;187). And here is a typical comparison where a
certain lover's words are said to be as faultless and true as the arrows shot
by the archers of the army chief, Palyan. Nar;10, 6-9.
Tamil poetry abounds with
passages in which the fertility of a region or kingdoms, unfailing rains,
well-watered rivers, abundance of birds and beasts and general prosperity are
ascribed to the righteous rule of the sovereign. The panegyric poems of the
Pattupattu, the Patirruppattu and the Purananuru are impregnated with this
idea. The praise of a sovereign's rule meant the praise of the hills, the
rivers and the general beauty and fertility of his kingdom.(E.G. Puram; 143,
12, "¶òñ ¶ò À€ÒÉÅ º‘¥"; Puram; 231 ff; Maduraikanchi; 105 ff; Patir;
28). Sometimes the penegyrics assume a language reminiscent of Vergil in the
fourth eclogue. Describing the region of Ilanthirayan, the poet says, "in
his land tere are no marauders that attack way-farers to rob them of their
goods. Peals of thunder you will not hear; the serpent will not kill, nor the
forest animals hurt. Proceed, therefore, as you will." (Perumpan;
40-43).
When praising sovereigns,
the roar of the ocean or the cataract, and the sound of thunder are said to be
the drums that announce his greatness. The heights of the mountains bespeak the
heights of greatness achieved by him. The streams that descen the mountain
sides may be seem shimmering silverlike from far and wide; they are the silver
banners that proclaim his victories and his unrivalled prowess in war. (Patir;
69, 78; Agam; 162, 358; Patir, 70, 22; Puram; 126 8.). The waters even in the
biggest and deepest of his rivers are so clear that ornaments that have fallen
off from those sporting in the river may be seen lying deep down on the sands.
The clear waters are an indication of the unsullied record of his rule (Patir;
86). This mode of praise occurs in the panegyric poetry, both in explicit terms
and by suggestion.
Nature's reflection of
righteousness is not due to the actions of the sovereign alone. It may be due
to deeds of individual chiefs as well as the deeds of a people of the entire
vilage. An amusing and significant poem of the Kali odes presents a young lady
and her companion as apparently wondering that Nature could be so luxuriant in
the country of her lover who has not kept his tryst. The inference is that
since he has not kept his word he cannot be an upright man, and consequently
Nature cannot appear lovely in his land.
"What! The river
glimmers! Can it truly glimmer
in the land of one who is not true to his promises,
who has not kept his word? What! the rain cloud
wanders, does truly the rain cloud wander in the
land of who is the cause of wasting form?"
She expresses her suprise
in similar language about these beauteous and beneficient aspects of Nature,
for she would expect that the land of one who has been false to her would be
deprived of Nature's beauty and Nature's bounty (Kali;41, 42).
Another poem in the same
collection is an imaginary exhortation to relatives of a young lady not to
refuse her hand in marriage to the young man who has rescued her from being
swept away by the waters of a river. In rescuing her, the young man has had to
clasp her to himself, and according to the Tamil code, it was but proper to get
her married to the one who was first to touch her. It was the ancient ideal
that a young lady should not touch or be touched by anyone else than the one
who was to be her partner in life. The speaker who counsels her people
threatens that unless propriety is observed in this regard and the young lady
given in wedlock to the one who had clasped her for the first time,
"The Valli will not yield its roots, the hilltops
will not yield honey, the garden pannicum will
not bear fruit because the mountain dwellers
have observed that which is evil."
"In the mountain summits which attract the eye,
and there the gloriosa superba casts around
its fragrance, the bows of the archers fail
not just because their wives are devoted
exclusively to their sires."
The inference in the
latter part is part is that the hunters in the hills will not be successful in
obtaining food with the bow and arrow if they do not regard the propriety
regarding the wedlock in question (Kali; 39). Such is the power of chastity,
that a chaste maid or a chaste wife could merit seasonal rains for her village
(Kali;19, 20: "בò éÏ› ?í»î‘è" Kali; 39, 6). Such is the power of the
prayer of these good men that their devotions bring rain when they are in need,
and keep away the rain clouds when it threatens to rain too much (Puram; 143;
1-3).
Vergil enunciated a
principle of poetry much in vogue among the ancients when he said that what is
described ought to correspond to the dignity of the theme or the hero -si
canimus silvase, sinte consule dignae. The Tamil poets took pains to describe
everything noble even in the landscape of imaginary heroes. In love poems, the
heroes and heroines may be real or imaginary. The poet may have in mind actual
incidents from life or he may be describing incidents his poetic fancy has
built up. The heroes and heroines are depicted as ideal persons for Tolkappiyar
and the poets believed in another principle enunciated also by Aristotle that a
class is represented by the best of its type.
They chose the best of
the types they described, and the nobility of the landscape is always made to
reflect the nobility of character of their heroes.
Descriptions and
allusions to Nature contain historical references of a kind which allude to the
goodness, gentleness and kindness of the historical heroes. When Shakespeare in
Coriolanus refers to Valeria as-
"chaste as the
icicle
That's curdied by the frost from purest snow
And hangs on Dian's temple"
he no doubt meant that
ice, pure everywhere, becomes purer by association with the temple of Diana at
Ephesus, the celebrated edifice in honour of the goddess of chastity
(Coriolanus, V, III, 65-67). The Tamil poets work in similar associations where
possible. The eyes of a lady are compared to the round water-lilies. A Tamil
poet would not be satisfied with any simile in general; he would want a
historical simile. He would rather refer to the water-lilies growing in the
region of a particular king or chief. This topical and specific setting served
a double purpose, namely to praise the region, or its ruler, as well as to say
that the flowers in the particular region would be lovelier because of the
goodness and righ teousness of the persons associated with it. The latter
inference is derived from the historical allusion and the lesson is that the
beauty of a landscape is commensurate with the moral beauty and ethical ideals
of its rulers and citizens. While in puram poetry such assertions are directly
made as may be seen in any panegyric poem, in agam poetry they are alluded or
suggested as in the examples that follow.
The taste of water after
eating the goose-berry is sweet. However, the poet thinks that it willbe
sweeter after eating of the goose-berry in Pannans garden, for he is one who
does not live for himself but for others (Agam; 54).
Pari, one of the last
seven patrons of poets, had a pieturesque lake in the hilly territory of which
he was chief. The water-flowers that bloomed there are sometime objects of
comparison. In a poem in which a lover is remonstrated for his coldness and
indifference towards his beloved, the lady's nurse addresses him in these
words:-
"Once, even if my
lady had offered you the green
fruit of the margosa, you would have received it.
as sweetest sugar. But now, were she to give you
even the clearest water of a January morning from
the cool lake of Pari's hill, it might scald you
and taste bitter. Such is your wavering love."
Waters on a January
morning would be cool and crystal-clear in all lakes. Many lakes could have
been taken as term of comparison in the Tamil country. But here the poet pays a
compliment to Pari as well as teaches a moral lesson. Waters in Pari's
territory ought to be clearer because he has a clear and unsullied record, and
his lake is cooler because he refreshes with his giving all those who have
recourse to him (Kur;19). Similarly, the flowers of his lake are more fragrant,
and the poet would compare the heroine's fragrance, not to any flower in
general, but to the flowers of Pari's lake, or to the flowers that bloom on
Sirumalai of the Pandyans, or on the hill of Ori, the beneficient chief, or of
Ay (Cf. Agam; 47, 69, 78).
Much that was ethical
entered also into the would of Tamil imagery. A few eycamples will suffice. The
bee goes from flower to flower. Having spent the day among aquatic flowers,
when the sun sets and the aquatic flowers close their petals, the bee betakes
itself to the flowers on creepers and branches which flower at night. The bees
that abandon the lotus and the water-lily in the evening for the jasmine and
the kantal reminds the poet of those who forsake the friendship of men whose
wealth and influence are on the decrease (Agam;; 71, 1-4
Another poet imagines a trial of strength between
a rogue elephant and a tiger. To the bee the tiger's spots seem to be flowers
of the vengai. If flies to and fro, between the elephant and the tiger, trying
to taste of the elephant's rut, as well as of what it imagines to be the
flowers of the vengai. The bee reminds the poet of those peace-makers who seek
to bring together two contending armies or two opposing parties
(Kali;46).
For wealth of Nature
imagery the kali odes occupy a very prominent place in Cangam literature. In
the kali odes of the palai class the sun is represented as cruel as a sovereign
that because of the evil influence of his minister has become an unjust ruler.
On the other hand in a neydal kali where Nature is considered under a different
aspect, the sun is compared to a victorious and virtuous king proceeding to
another world to enjoy the fruits of his good deeds (Compare Kali 13 with Kali
118).
Trees in the palai region
are said to be dried up like the tree under which has sat a man that hath borne
false testimony (Kali; 34, 10). They are also said to be devoid of fruits and
leaves like a young man whose youth has passed a lonely existence. Like the
petty-minded man whose wealth does not benefit those who approach it, and like
the end of him that lives a life of wrong-doing which ends in self destruction,
the tree too dries up even its very roots(Kali;10). The luxuriant trees, on the
other hand, that border rivers and tanks are suitable similies for those who
flurish because they share their wealth with the poor and the needy.
"The trees on the
well watered river banks grew like the wealth of him that gives without stint,
and lives a virtuous life doing no evil to others." (Kali;27, 1-2)
"The trees were
heavy with flowers like the bounty of him who realises the transitoriness of
life" (Kali;32,11)
"Like the wealth of
the bountiful man, the trees bloomed; lke the effortless case of those who
enjoy the wealth of such a man, the bees sported among the flowers" (Kali;
35, 1-2).
The petals of the
gloriosa superba are compared to women's fingers and the entire flower,
especially before it has unfolded itself is compared to the two hands joined in
an attitude of supplication. Trees and plants that are bent or drooping are
compared to the bent head and shy posture of wise and learned men who have
heard their own praise spoken in their presence (Kali; 119).
From animals too the
Tamil poets learned wisdom. The hero as well as the heroine recall their own
course of love when they observe what part love plays in the behaviour of
animals. The elephant that strokes with its trunk the back of its mate or helps
it to feed on bamboo shoots, the deer calling unto deer, the dove cooing unto
dove, the buffalo, the crab, all these teach them or remind them of the
affectionate relation that should exist between those who are pledged to each
other.