Cilappatikaram as a major Tamil literary work

In this week’s column, I would like to discuss, briefly, the importance of Cilappatikaram in the Tamil literary culture. Cilappatikaram is considered as one of the earliest, if not the earliest, long narrative poems in Tamil.

It is generally accepted that the author of Cilappatikaram based his work on an earlier tale, a popular ballad Kovalan Katai (The story of Kavalan). However, it is radically different in many aspects to Cilappatikaram. According to tradition, the authorship of the text is attributed to Ilanko (meaning young king in Tamil), who was the younger brother of Cenkuttuvan, ruler of Cera kingdom. It is widely believed that Ilanko became a Jain monk in order to circumvent a prophesy that he would one day claim the throne by displacing his brother. As Cenkuttuvan is supposed to have ruled during the second century C.E, traditionalists date the composition of Cilappatikaram in the second century. However, other scholars such as Zvelebi hypothesises that the poem was composed in the mid-fifth century.

Norman Cutler in an essay entitled Three Moments in Tamil Literary Culture, observes, “Ilanko drew upon many sources to construct his sophisticated literary work, and not surprisingly, scholars differ in the degree to which they find Sanskritic elements in it. As we would expect, Puranalingam Pillai, downplays the Sanskrit connection. Following tradition, he draws attention to the role played by Cera king in the composition of Cilappatikaram and describes the members of ancient Tamil dynasty as “great Tamil scholars and patrons of Tamil learning”. The territory ruled by Cera is understood as having roughly coterminous with modern day Kerala, and Puranalingam Pillai cannot restrain from chiding the modern Malayalis who “have forgotten their birthright and heritage in their craze for Sanskrit”. Vaiyapuri Pillai is true to form in according a much greater role to Sanskrit models in the genesis of Cilappatikaram. To properly grasp his location of the text culturally and historically we should recall that he accounts for the composition of Tirukkural in the context of a Jain program of proselytisation in the Tamil country. But, he tells us, something more was needed to capture people’s imagination than didactic works such as the Kural. This need was supplied by such “national epic” as Cilappatikaram. ”

Cutler further points out that “R.Parthasarathy, author of the most successful English translation of Cilappatikaram, describes the structure of the text as “ a collection of thirty distinctive long poems, twenty-five of which are story-songs or cantos (Katai), and five of which are song cycles that appear at critical junctures and function as choruses unobtrusively commenting on the action”. He also postulates a direct line of development from the kind of relatively short poems found in Carikam anthologies to a long ‘poetic sequence’ such as Cilappatikaram. The thrust of this sort of understanding of the genesis of Cilappatikaram highlights its kinship with an indigenous Tamil literary tradition and downplays any notion that the Tamil genre of ‘poetic sequence’ exemplified by Cilappatikaram is fundamentally related to the Sanskrit genres of mahakavya. “

Cilappatikaram in Tamil cultural nationalism

The significance of Cilappatikaram does not squarely lie in its literary merits alone but its pivotal role in the Tamil cultural nationalism. Norman Cuter observes, “The role that cultural themes play is as great, if not greater, in modern-day understandings of the text. In Parathasarathy’s words, ‘The Cilappatikaram speaks for all Tamils as no other works of Tamil literature does: it presents them with an expansive vision of the Tamil imperium.’ This political vision originates in the notion of “the three kings” (muventar) who ruled in the ancient Tamil country and belonged respectively to the Cola, Cera and Pantiya lineages. ”

In the context of its cultural and political significance of Cilappatikaram, Cutler quotes “Parthasarathy sees in Cilappatikaram ‘a psychological response to the memory of the Aryan penetration of the south, including Asoka’s that had culminated in the Kalinga War 260 B.C.E.”. He further claims that “ we see here the beginning of Tamil separatism that has manifested itself in the mid-twentieth century. Similarly, N.Subrahmanian writes, “In thus encompassing the whole of the Tamil country in its epic sweep, Cilappatikaram has posited a cultural integrity of Tamils, through Ilanko, it may be said without fear of serious contradictions, Tamil nationalism got its first expression” whether or not this claim is well founded, proponents of modern Tamil cultural nationalism certainly construe Ilanko’s text as a potent symbol of Tamil identity and power. Telling examples are the reworking of the story by the poet Paratitacan in his Kannakip Puratcikkappiyam (The epic of Kannaki’s revolt, 1962), which was also produced in film version titled Pumpukar. “

Cilappatikaram’s political significance is amply manifested by following extracts and the emblems of three Tamil lands:

“…your courage when you escorted your mother
To bath in the swollen Ganga, and fought alone
Against the thousand Ariyas, (so) that the cruel god
Of death was stunned. No one can stop you, if you wish,
From imposing Tamil rule over the entire world
Clasped by the roaring sea. Let the message be sent forth:
‘It is our king’s wish to go to the Himalaya
To bring stone for engraving the image
Of a goddess.” Close it with your clay seal
That bears the imprint of the bow, fish
And tiger, emblems of the Tamil country,
And dispatched it to the king of the north.”

Significantly , bow is the emblem of the Cera, the tiger the emblem of the Cola and the fish the emblem of the Pantiya which are the three Tamil lands.