New Series: An Introduction To One Of India's Oldest Poetic Collections

Though Sangam poetry is firmly rooted in the Tamil landscape and its ethos, its themes and concerns are pan-Indian. There is a system of thought born out of the subcontinent that binds all of us, and we find some of its oldest echoes in the Sangam literature.

This series aims to introduce Tamil poetry from the Sangam age (300 BC – 300 AD) to a pan-Indian audience. The Sangam poets, both men and women, wrote on topics that are universal and immediate in their appeal.

Their poems on love, loss, familial affection, separation and other such ‘themes of the heart’ are called ‘Akam’ poems. These poems share a close affinity with nature. The ‘outer’ world of natural landscapes and their environs – tall mountains, dry wastelands, raging oceans – reflect the movements of the ‘inner’ world or akam, and vice versa.

Nature and one’s own heart are thus two giant mirrors placed before each other; in their infinite reflections, one gains a glimpse of the truth. The poems contain exquisite word-pictures that brings out this relationship. By using art to bring these images alive, I hope to throw the complex metaphors of these poems into sharper relief, and make them easier to connect with the layman.

The Sangam poets also wrote about duty, honour and ethics, war and death, governance and trade, and about the greatness of their kings. The philosophical outlook of the people of that age shines through these verses. These poems that deal with the material world are called ‘Puram’ poems.

The Sangam poems were collected and organized into a bewildering array of anthologies around 1000 AD. Subsequently forgotten in popular memory, the works were rediscovered by the efforts of U.Ve.Swaminathan, C.W.Thamotharan and others. While, at present, these verses are prescribed as lessons in our educational institutions, they are largely not savoured for their literary or poetic appeal. Outside Tamil Nadu, their reach is even less. In a way, they are still ‘lost’ to us.

Through this work, I hope to showcase the timeless universality of these poems. Though firmly rooted in the Tamil landscape and its ethos, its themes and concerns are pan-Indian. There is a system of thought born out of the subcontinent that binds all of us, and we find some of its oldest echoes in the Sangam literature.

I hope that this column is able to reach Sangam poetry to the lay reader, irrespective of whether they are from Gwalior, Guwahati, Gurgaon or Gummidipoondi.

If You Won’t Be Ungrateful

Dramatis personae: Thalaivi (heroine), Thalaivan (hero), Thozhi (the heroine’s friend)

Poems in the Agam genre abound in metaphorical beauty. In this Kurinji poem, the poet Kabilar uses three brilliant metaphors like little snapshots.

The thalaivan and thalaivi have fallen in love, but before the thalaivan can ask her parents for her hand, he is determined to go away to distant shores to seek wealth. The thalaivi is anxious whether he would still keep his promises and return to marry her. Her clever thozhi intervenes, and speaks to the thalaivan, appealing to his sense of duty, honour and love, subtly telling him that he would do well to marry the thalaivi once he is back. I don’t think there can be a better example of diplomatic persuasion!

The thalaivan, like any contemporary householder of either gender, has to balance his worldly aspirations, such as fame, fortune and personal fulfillment, with his family who loves him and depends on him.  Kabilar brings out this sense of balance beautifully with the  following picture: a mother-elephant reaches out to feed herself, even as her calf feeds from her!

The mother elephant always has one eye on her calf, making sure that its feeding is not disturbed when she feeds herself. Similarly, the thozhi hints that even as the thalaivan seeks wealth, it should be always balanced with the memory of the thalaivi, with the aim of building a life together!  Personally, I was floored by this metaphor, a picture I have come to carry with me in the course of my own life. It would have appealed to the thalaivan’s sense of duty.

Next, the thozhi quotes the instance of a king who was ungrateful towards the people who had helped him in lean times, and entreats him to not be similarly ungrateful to the thalaivi  who loved him with all her heart. Thus, she appeals to his sense of honour.

Finally, she subtly invokes memories of the delightful time the thalaivan and thalaivi  spent together, thereby rekindling his love for her. This image – the low, soft voice of the peacock, its graceful walk, the thalaivi’s hair like its feathers, would take him back to his Kurinji mountains where they spent many long hours together.

With such memories, would he fail to return?

கன்றுதன் பயமுலை மாந்த முன்றிற்
றினைபிடி யுண்ணும் பெருங்கன் னாட
கெட்டிடத் துவந்த வுதவி கட்டில்
வீறுபெற்று மறந்த மன்னன் போல
நன்றிமறந் தமையா யாயின் மென்சீர்க்
கலிமயிற் கலாவத் தன்னவிவள்
ஒலிமென் கூந்த லுரியவா நினக்கே.

-கபிலர், திணை: குறிஞ்சி

(What the heroine’s friend says to the hero,
before he sets out on a long journey to seek his fortune)

You are from those mountains, where
      mother-elephants reach out
      (very carefully!)
      to eat millet balls
      spread out in the front yard,
      even as their calves hungrily guzzle
      at their yielding breasts.

There was once a king
who, once he sat on a hefty throne
      built, out of all the favours he’d got
      in times of dire straits,
promptly forgot
all notions of gratitude.

Unlike him,
if you won’t be ungrateful,
my friend’s long hair
     luscious, like the feathers
     of a peacock, that cries out
     softly,     
is all yours.

– Kabilar, Thinai: Kurinji