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TAMIL LANGUAGE &
LITERATURE
Poetry in a Landscape
- the World of Sangam Literature
Francois Gros,
UNESCO Courier, March, 1984
The magical word Sangam conjures
up the golden age of Tamil literature, that lost paradise
of Dravidian culture. It calls to mind the myth of the
three successive literary academies (the word "sangam"
means "academy") of a fabulous era. The first and second
academies were swallowed up in deluges comparable to the
end of the world; only the third was rescued from
oblivion.
This third Sangam corresponds to historical reality.
Medieval commentators, followed in turn by nineteenth-
and twentieth-century scholars, have preserved the
essence of this unique series of anthologies, written in
the oldest of all the modern languages of India, which
most likely date back to the first centuries of the
Christian era. The Sangam is unquestionably one of the
high points in world literature.
Little is known of the more than 450 authors, except that
they came from all classes of society, the sole criterion
by which they were judged being the recognition of their
talent by their peers. These court poets sang the
exploits of princes and warriors or the sorrows of a
nation at war. Kings honoured them and they felt a keen
sense of their own dignity. On one occasion, the bard
Mucikkiranar fell asleep in the palace near the place
reserved for the royal drum, a sacrilege punishable by
death. Discovering him in this invidious situation, the
king, rather than taking harsh measures against him,
picked up a fan and cooled his sleep, thus rendering
homage to his genius.
In this exemplary anecdote the magical origins and
totemic aspects of royalty are seen in their relation to
the sacred function of the poet and the cathartic role of
the drummers (Pariahs). It should be added that
contemporary Tamil humour declares Mucikkiranar to have
been the first Indian civil servant to fall asleep on the
job! Yet if today's poets are ironical, those of the
Sangam were the ambassadors of kings on conciliatory
missions (like Auvaiyar) and tutors to the royal heirs
(like Kapilar). Their praise had to be merited and could
not be bought; their contempt or curse was degrading, for
they were men who exchanged gifts with kings.
Among themselves, Tamil poets were far more than a
brotherhood of starving bards who exchanged addresses of
generous patrons. Rather they formed a sort of academy,
as indicated by the word "Sangam." The legend of the
Sangams was to be written later, but the historical
reality is somewhat elusive, save what can be gleaned
from the texts, from the stylized mannerism of refined
classicism, the academism of a lost academy. Its code,
however, is well known to us. The Tolkappiyam, both a grammar and a richly
commentated treatise on rhetoric, serves as a linguistic
reference book for this entire period, which spanned
several centuries at the beginning of the Christian
era.
At first reading, this poetry--brief and varied, violent
and outspoken, and at times excessively romantic--seems
to speak to all mankind in the language of the senses and
the passions. The wisdom it preaches is a very
humanistic, hedonistic stoicism, with, quite
exceptionally for India, very few religious references.
Yet these poems, presented in strictly ordered
anthologies, have an inner discipline; words and images
are never arbitrarily employed. A system of conventions
and figures of speech imbues even the least significant
of notions with underlying meanings and harmonies.
The anthologies lend themselves admirably to
modern linguistic analysis, for they constitute a meta
language within which the universe is perfectly
structured. Some poems are concerned with the world of
the sense, with all that is tangible and external
(puram), dealing with civic or war-time exploits--the
seizure or recovery of cattle, preparations for war (a
place of safety had to be found for the cattle, women,
children, the elderly and the priests), sieges, battles,
triumph and disarray, victory and defeat. Others speak of
the feelings and more abstract relationships of the
heart, the anonymous and the internal (agam).
Every situation is described using themes in which the
time, the place and the floral symbols of each episode
are codified. The inner universe is divided into five
geographical landscapes--mountains, forest, cropland,
seashore and wasteland--used as symbols to imply a
socio-economic order, occupations and behaviour patterns
which, in turn, are symbolized by specific flora and
fauna. Details of secondary aspects are just as rigidly
codified--the seasons, the hour a god, musical
instruments and, above all, the sentimental connotations
of each landscape: lovers' meetings, patient waiting,
lovers' quarrels, separation, and the anxiously awaited
return.
The mountain is the scene of the lovers' union at
midnight. It is the cold, dewy season. The forest is rich
with lakes, waterfalls, teak, bamboo and sandalwood. In
this region millet grows and wild bees are a source of
honey.
Love in this setting is exemplified by Murugan, that most
Tamil of gods, and one of his wives, Valli, the daughter
of mountaineers. He wears the sparkling red kantal flower
and rides a peacock, the bird of the mountains. The name
of the region, kurinci, is also the name of a famous
flower from the lofty hills of Tamil country. In this
same region grows the strobilanth, a shrub whose
brilliant white flowers blossom for only a few days once
every ten or twelve years, blanketing the slopes in
radiant whiteness under the sun. This event of jubilation
and purity symbolizes the frenzy of a sudden love shared,
in concert with the unleashed forces of nature: the
amorous dance of peacocks, their echoing cries, the
splash of waterfalls, the roar of savage beasts.
The lovers hold each other tighter still and forget the
dangers of the mountain path. This region is dearest to
the hearts of the Tamil people and, according to legend,
the great poet Kapilar wrote the Song of Kurinci as an
example for an Aryan king of a typical Tamil love
poem.
The theme of wasteland and separation occupies half of
one of the most famous anthologies, the theme of the
mountain being only secondary. The theme of the forest
and of shepherds at play, the image of confident waiting
for the loved one, produced an original offshoot; for
this is the region of Vishnu, and the love theme it
represents symbolizes the devotee waiting in the hope
that Vishnu, as Krishna, will eventually come and fill
his soul, thus experiencing the joys of expectation.
The plains were the scene of triangular love plots in
which the hero's visits to the courtesan oblige the
heroine to counter with a mixed show of coquetry and
moodiness, tactics whose limits are described in the
Kural ("Sulking is like flavouring with salt; a little
suffices, but it is easy to go too far."). Sangam poets
offer countless examples of this:
The man of the village by the
ponds
where the carp seize the ripe fruit of the
mango trees that line the fields.
In our land he is high and mighty; but in
theirs...
When arms and legs are raised, he raises
his
Like a puppet, a reflection in a mirror,
He does all he is asked, for the mother of
his son.
The courtesan, jealous of the wife, is
speaking here. The landscape is defined by the
designation of the hero (a fellow from the village), the
mention of a creature (the carp), the tree (the mango),
the water-filled scenery (the pond), the season (that of
ripened mangoes and sultry heat, a secondary
characteristic and sign of separation). The situation
implies that the courtesan wishes to be heard by the
heroine's confidante. Through the image of of the opening
lines she indicates that the hero has fallen freely for
her wiles and that to win him she did not have to
infringe upon his home ground; he is a hero of little
substance, it would seem, in a situation dominated by
women.
Although interpretation and the deciphering of the
conventions of these texts can at times seem tiresome,
the last landscape, the seashore, affords many examples
of the compelling charm of Sangam poetry and the
extraordinary freshness of its realism. From behind the
conventional symbolization of waiting there emerges a
picture of the life of the fisher folk; the nets and
boats drawn up on the beach, scuttling crabs and cart
wheels bogged down in the sand, the odour of drying fish,
cut into thick slices, which attracts the birds,
beautiful village girls peering through the pandanus
hedges, and the wind blowing through the cracks in the
roughly constructed straw huts at night.
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