The Poetical Canon for KamaThe grammatical treatise tolkappiyam
describes the system of the tinai themes in part 3 (porulatikaram)
devoted to the subject matter of the poetry. Although, according to
the definition in Tol. the total number of tinais is seven: "There
are considered to be seven tinais: starting with the peruntinai and
including the kaikkilai". Then follows a remark: "From these only
the middle five, with the exception of the central one from these
five, possess the nature of the parts of the earth surrounded by
the waters of the ocean" (Tol. 2). Thus from the system of tinais
three themes seem to be excluded based on the assumption that they
do not correspond to the principle on which the system is based
(judging by the definition in Tol.), that is the division of the
territory of ancient Tamilakam into regions or types of landscapes
named by the author "parts of the earth" or "worlds" in sutra 5:The
world of forests where Mayon (Visnu) dwells,The world of dark
mountains where the Red one (Murukan) dwells, The world of sweet
waters where Indra dwells,The world of spacious sea sands where
Varuria dwellsAre named accordingly: mullai, kurinci, marutam and
neytal."The middle of the five" is the tinai theme palai which the
author excluded from his geography, the reason being that it lacks
a "world" of its own (cf. the following extract from "The Story of
the Anklet": "the season in which you are travelling with your wife
[during the heat of summer] is one when mountains and forests have
lost their life and colour and seem a desert waste" Cil. XI,
64-66). The palai landscape is clearly seasonal. This seasonal
character of the landscape is emphasised by the strict temporal
boundaries of the theme referred to in Tol. 11-12 as midday, the
summer season or the season of the early dews. Yet one can speak
even of the concrete geographical localization of the palai
landscape traceable in the route of the hero who has left "to gain
treasure" or "to do a man's duty". The route follows through the
lands along the northern frontier of Tamilakam, in the Venkata
mountains [Thamizhannal 1976: 166; Pillai 1961: 67-68].
Descriptions of burial sites can also be taken into account (for
example those mentioned in the purancinaru anthology) in which many
features of the palai region are traceable: salty dried earth,
memorial stones, a thicket of milk-shrub kalli, a red-eared kite, a
red dog etc. Yet more significant for the characteristics of the
region are the ideas associated with it and a basic contrast with
the other regions. The contrast appears to be best expressed in the
traditional Tamil formula: neitu-katu, "cultivated land" versus
"desert lands", "wasteland", "forest" [Srinivas an 1947: 11-12].So
far as the peruntinai and the kaikkilai are concerned, they deal
with certain situations (for example an affair of a young man with
an old woman or with a young girl who has not attained puberty, a
situation of "unrequited love" or "ill-matched love", excesses of
passion etc.) which go beyond the rigid framework of harmonious
love union fixed in Tol. Therefore although these themes are
present in the treatise as a fact of poetry, they are nonetheless
not included into the main system of the poetic canon which had
been structured as "the system of five finals". By and large, the
patterns of behaviour corresponding to these two themes are
labelled in Tol. as undignified or plebean: "It is not forbidden to
represent slaves and servants as secondary characters outside [the
system of five tiriais, the learned poets say" (Tol. 25). According
to the commentator Bampuranar this remark refers specifically to
the peruntinai and kaikkfiai.iThe most remarkable feature of the
ancient Tamil canon of the akam poetry is the uniformity of its
situations and certain aspects of human relationships with the
landscape corresponding to these relationships. A majority of
situations refer to a particular season and sometimes, to a
particular time of day and thus form an element of the theme termed
mutalporul, that is, the time and space of the action. 2 To these
situations correspond the karupporul elements (local flora and
fauna) and the uripporul elements (the love situation). The
correspondence is expressed in the following way: each element of
the theme has a particular meaning which is inherent in the theme.
A set of such meanings in the five-fold classification of tinais
can be represented in a table (next page) which lists the main
characteristics of the tinai-themes. 3The system of tinais no doubt
was introduced when the tendencies towards classification inherent
in the poetry, which had been established by the poetry itself,
were unified. Yet the system is a purely theoretical structure
while the living poetic tradition allows numerous sidesteps from
this canon (the most striking example of such a deviation is the
neytal theme in which the situational element is a potpourri
composed from elements borrowed from the other themes; the somewhat
blurred contours of the palai theme can be mentioned as well). A
lack of mutual correspondence or a lack of elements which
constitute the theme is so characteristic of the poetry that Tol.
has to make use of the notion tinai mayakkam, "confusion of tinais"
thus "legitimizing" the deviations from the canon: "The wise men,
who know well how to accept things, say that there is no
prohibition imposed on the confusion of the tinais, but it is not
allowed to mix various landscapes in one and the same poem" (Tol.
14).It would be natural to turn to the issue of the origin,
establishment and growth of the tinai system. In particular, it is
important to try to understand how the notion of the "five
landscapes (regions or worlds)" was brought to life and how they
are related to the love situations. According to the views of many
a scholar the landscape is reflected so accurately in the texts of
the anthologies that it can be understood as factual and be
associated with particular geographical areas in South India [Thani
Nayagam 1966: 76; Selvanayagam 1969: 161-163]. To support the idea
further the authors argue that as early as in ancient period a few
"anthropo-geographical" or "ecological" regions were established in
South India, in which natural factors served as the foundation to
develop certain types of human activities [Thani Nayagam 1966: 10;
Selvanayagam 1969: 157-159].These regions are sometimes described
as concomitant with certain stages in the cultural or economic
development of society in general. Thus, according to Srinivasa
Iyengar, the system of tinais reflects schematically the
corresponding stages in the cultivation of land in South India by
Tamils from the mountain region to the region of sea-shore sands,
and also the stages of mastering certain human activities in the
regions: hunting, cattle-breeding, farming or fishing. Certain
types of culture were developing simultaneously [Srinivasa Iyengar
1929: 4-5, 12; Ramachandra Dikshitar 1930: 178; Thani Nayagam 1966:
39, 86; Singaravelu 1966: 18; see also Sivatamby 1968].As regards
these views I should point out, following Gros [Gros 1983: 100]
that although the pictures drawn by ancient Tamil poets are no
doubt true-to-life and their charming details created with
meticulous precision, the anthologies and poems are nevertheless
poetic texts par excellence and do not serve to illustrate certain
geographical, economical or sociological conceptions. One example
is enough to illustrate how reality can be transfigured in the
poetry.The dominant pattern of marriage for Dravidians retained
until the present day is cross-cousin marriage. Its underlying
principle is that woman is considered bearer of the energy which G.
Hart called 'sacred'. With this in mind, he has made an attempt at
finding instances of cross-cousin marriage in the poetry to which
the concept of the female sacred force is of paramount importance.
According to Hart [Hart 1974: 39], the well-known poem KT 40 points
to this custom:Who were your mother and my mother?What kind of
relation were my father and yours?Both I and you how did we come to
know each other? Yet like the red earth and rain waterOur hearts
have been mixed, full of love.It is obvious that the poem implies
something entirely different from a mere cross-cousin marriage, and
Hart admits, in a later work, that "a majority of po- ems [probably
the whole body of the poetry? Dubyansky.] describe marriages of
girls to men who are not relatives or neighbours, but strangers"
[Hart 1974: 45]. But one may ask: why?It seems to me that the
ambiguity can be explained in a very simple way: the poetry did not
provide a mirror-image of life; describing life it did so through
the prism of myth; the myth of Valli-Murukan marriage being the
pattern according to which the subject in this particular theme was
structured. The myth, as has already been mentioned, does
acknowledge the cross-cousin ties between the heroes and, as it
were, "sanctifies" them. This, however, takes place at a different
level, a higher plane of abstraction, while at the levels of
narration and poetic imagery Murukan and Valli are definitely
strangers: she a local girl, he a "foreigner". Moreover, from the
point view of their social standing the lovers cannot be farther
apart since Valli is a daughter of a low-caste huntsman while
Murukan is of a superior clay. At this point the myth clearly steps
aside from the problem of family relationships and tackles another
problem which I have commented on as well, that of links between
the god and the local ethnos, the god's acquisition of a "local"
consort. This theme reflects the stage of Murukan mythology when
his figure is being drawn into the pan-Indian pantheon and thus
acquires a bigger significance than the "local" stage in the
development of the myth. It squeezes the local version out of the
myth, finding its way into the poetry with the corresponding
developments in the subject matter of the myth.Therefore I think a
study of sources for the tinai -themes should start from myth and
ritual.The description and analysis of the contents of the five
tinai themes in ancient Tamil poetry indicate that their main
situations fix particular types or patterns of ritual behaviour.
The core and perhaps more importantly, the aim of this behaviour is
to attain control over the sacred force ananku. The control can
assume various forms depending on what kind of situation the woman
is engaged in at a particular point: whether the force is guarded
by her parents (pre-marital love), tamed by her husband (married
life) or whether she herself is capable at harnessing it (ascetic
practices performed during separation) etc., yet the idea of
attaining control is ever present in one form or another. In this
vein 0. Freidenberg's remark concerning the poetry of antiquity may
be of relevance: "the ancient singer sang not of love, but of Eros"
[Freidenberg 1973: 289]. Tamil love poetry, too, deals with Eros,
depersonalized energy which incites humans to express strong but
somewhat generalized emotions. In full accord with this concept,
the characters in the poetry: subjects and objects of passion, are
nameless beings whose identities are either implicitly contained in
their locations (for example "a mountain dweller", "a villager",
"he who dwells at the seashore", "she who belongs to the
household") or in the roles or positions they play or occupy at a
particular stage in their relationship ("he... who crossed the
wastelands", "they who have left", "she who stays at home", "she
who has lost her beauty" etc.), or, are merely hinted at in a
single detail ("possessing a strong chest", "the dark one" or "the
one with bracelets" etc. [see Dubyansky 1983: 147]). Such
functional designations are employed to point at the ritual sources
of the poetry situations. They mark particular phases in ritual at
which the characters find themselves at the moment, as well as
signify their links with their mythological prototypes. The latter
has a particular significance for the poetry since the
identification of the characters or rather the main heroes with
mythological personae appears to somehow compensate for their
obscurity in the poetry and individualizes them, thus setting the
story in motion; to say nothing of the enrichment of the sphere of
imagery which gains immensely from such parallelism.That the link
comes to life is not surprising in view of the fact alone that a
loving couple in Indian and particularly in Tamil culture is
granted a sacral status, merging with figures of gods. But there is
something that puzzles me: why are the heroes who are represented
in the cycles of love situations forming the subject matter of
Tamil lyrical poetry, identified with different mythological
figures?A possible explanation for this seems to lie in the
specificity of ananku, with its evasiveness, fluidity and
ephemerality, which predisposes the general waywardness of the
heroine: woman being its bearer. A perfect illustration for this is
a remark made by a pardhan, clan poet-singer of the Gonds, which
undoubtedly reflects the traditional Dravidian view of woman's
nature:"During one and the same day a woman appears in various
forms. When she leaves the household at dawn carrying a jug on her
head she is a bad omen since now her name is Khaparadhari, an evil
spirit carrying a potsherd.Yet in a few minutes' time she returns
with the jug full of water. Now she is Mata Kalsahin, the best and
noblest among the goddesses. The pardhan who sees her is now ready
to worship her. He drops a paisa into the jug and walks on,
hopeful, with a singing heart. The woman then enters her house and
starts cleaning the kitchen. She is now the goddess BahiriBatoran
who drives cholera out of the village. Yet when she starts sweeping
the yard and the path in front of her house she turns to an
ordinary sweeper. Yet in another minute she changes once more when
she goes to tend the cows; she then becomes Mata-Laksmi, goddess of
fortune and wealth. Now the time comes to feed the family, and she
turns to MAta-Anna-Kumari, goddess of grain. In the evening, when
she lights the lamps, she is Mad Dia-Motin, the goddess glittering
like pearls. Then she feeds the baby and sends it to bed thus
becoming Mata Chawar-Motin. At night she turns to an insatiable
lover whose lust must be satisfied. Therefore she is the goddess
who devours her husband, like Lanka Dahin who destroyed Lanka with
flames". [Hivale 1946: 146-147]The nature of the heroine as
represented in ancient Tamil poetry goes through similar phases
depending on the particular condition of the sacred force inherent
in her. Each particular state presupposes a manifestation of a
particular deity in the heroine and a particular mode of her
behaviour. The latter is fixed in a number of cases by an
appropriate rite or its phase. In such a way the meaning of poetry
situations and the contours of corresponding mythological figures
are revealed.Thus kurinci corresponds to the stage of the onset of
puberty in the young girl or to the first sexual intercourse (the
union of the male and female principles, punarcci); the heroine is
Valli.Mullai is the performing of the separation rite and the vow
of chastity (iruttal); the heroine is Pattini, the goddess of
wifely virtue.Marutam is a period of preparation for the family
reunion following the period of impurity; purification through a
quarrel (atuta/), rivalry with the cour-tesan, fertility; the
heroine is Devasend.Palai is a deviation from the norm (pirital), a
sojourn in a dangerous "heated" state characterised by the
accumulation of the force; the heroine is Korravai.Neytal, as has
already been pointed out, falls out of this system, the situational
element of this theme has a composite character and is primarily
linked with the sphere of emotions: pangs of separation (irarikal).
Yet there is a mythological figure lurking behind the image of the
heroine: that of the goddess Minas' The figure of the hero is
associated either with Murukan or with Mal. Though the association
with the latter is barely traceable, therefore it is more likely
that the mythological archetype of the hero is Murukan.These
speculations should not be taken literally as attempts at
establishing the complete identification of the heroes and the
mythological personae. It is the mythological core of the poetry
situations that is crucial for the sources of the poetry since it
is there that the artistic canon is rooted. Besides, various
degrees of mythologization can be traced in different themes: the
kurifici theme attains the highest degree of mythologization while
the mullai seems to be least mythologized. Although in the latter
the structure of a concrete domestic rite appears to be expressed
most explicitly. In general it is the two themes, kuririci and
mullai that clearly reveal sources for their lyrical plots, which,
so it seems, allows to suggest their comparatively early origins.
All the more so, since they are linked with two ancient
mythological figures: Murukan and Mal. To these two Korravai can be
added, being the patroness of the ',alai region. The ',alai theme
itself is significant in this context, since it had become
separated from the kurifici and the mullai when a fragment from its
plot linked with the idea of the liminal (in terms of ritual) phase
in the rite of passage developed into a separated theme. As far as
the other themes are concerned, they must have taken shape at a
later period. This assumption is based on the eclectic character of
the neytal and on the "urban" specificity of the marutam.
Unfortunately at the present stage of the study of the tinai-themes
system the process of its formation cannot be reconstructed with a
high degree of precision.Let us now turn to the question of how the
merging of the situational element with the landscape element took
place in reality. As a matter of fact the answer has been provided:
in the mythological mind of the early Tamil, love situations were
tightly interwoven with certain processes in Nature. This view
arose from the basic concept of the sacred energy inherent in equal
measure in Nature and in woman. Therefore similar states of this
energy are recognizable in love situations and in the seasonal
cycle. Thus parallel routes for events and images are constructed.
In our analysis of ancient Tamil poetry we deal with at least three
such parallels: situational (ritual), landscape and mythological.
Their fundamental link is to be found in their function: to
represent, by various means, one basic mythologeme: the female
sacred energy. In much the same way as each condition experienced
by a woman is characterised by an appropriate state of the energy
inherent in her, the landscapes of the five regions, likewise,
correspond to certain phases of the calendar: each phase is
paralleled by an appropriate state of the energy in woman and is
associated with a definite idea (contamination, purity, virtue,
fertility, withering, energy accumulation, rejuvenation,
fruitbearing etc.). This is the foundation upon which the
ideological and semantic parallelism between the poetry situations
and the natural environment rests. From this soil grows one of the
cardinal principles of ancient Tamil poetics: symbolic
representation of the actions and states of the poetry's characters
and the meaning of the lyrical situation with its various shades,
through images of landscape.This is the way the main landscapes (or
regions) were formed in the poetry: the regions which represent
geographically recognizable areas and, simultaneously, acquire
symbolic meanings. Becoming symbols they attain a certain de-gree
of autonomy: each region comes to represent a particular stage of
love relationship and the idea central to it. Therefore even the
"non-lyrical" situations admit of expressions like for example
mullai canra mullai (CPati. 169), "the mullai region linked with
the mullai situation" (with patient waiting for the return of the
husband, female virtue and purity); marutam cc7nra marutam (Mu.
186), "the marutam region linked with the marutam situation" (with
a quarrel between the spouses, the rivalry of women, childbearing).
These regions, and, also, the neytal, are referred to and described
in the poem outside the love-theme contexts: when one wandering
panan explains the way to the patron to another bard. The poet
clearly operates here with the fully developed system of the poetry
canon.The principle of correspondence between the landscape, the
characters and the love situation, being characteristic of ancient
Tamil love poetry, forms foundation for a system of poetic imagery
which is capable of producing an indirect symbolic characterisation
of the heroes as well as expressing shades in their relationships
and the deeper meaning of the situation as such. The main tendency
in the course of development of this system is, it seems, the
ancient poet's striving to broaden the framework of conventional
symbols and images, to create unusual pictures, to complicate the
imagery, turning it into subtle enigmatic hints. Thus the poet
Nalvilaldcanar calls the hero through the friend's words "a dweller
of high mountains where a girl with sweet hair from a tribe of
kuravars shares the meat of a fat boar killed by a huntsman between
the villagers" (Nar. 85, 8-10). This image is designed by the poet
to convey the idea of communal property while at the same time it
contains a thinly veiled hint to remind the hero (who is within the
hearing distance) that time is ripe for revealing the news of his
love ("to offer it to everyone") and, consequently, for
marriage.This principle employed by the poetics can be justly
termed ritualistic: not only because many symbols of nature among
those that were considered in the previous chapter are actually
employed in rituals, but also because their usage in the poetry is
often deliberate as directed at magically influencing the events
described or is considered prophetic (by the principle of
effectiveness of ritual symbolism: the symbol starts "working"). To
clarify this thesis I shall comment on a rite common in ancient
Tamil culture from antiquity which is described in the poem
mullaippcittu viricci nirral:Old women [servants] are approaching
the edge of a superbly fortified village;They are carrying bowls
with rice and aromatic mullai buds burst open, Which arouse the
excitement in the bees whose buzzingResembles the sweet sounds of
the yal. Having scattered the rice and the flowers, the women are
standing,Joined their palms in adoration of the god, Waiting for
good news.[Now] a cowherd girl, shivering from cold,Clutching her
shoulders with her hands, is comforting a sorrowful calf, Tied with
a rope, it is looking around, missing its mother cow."She will be
back soon", says the cowgirl,The cowherds with crooked rods will
bring her".[On seeing this the servants are hurrying to their
mistress]:"We have heard good words, proof of the wise men's
prophesies;With plentiful booty, having done his duty, the lord is
returning.Forget your misery and loneliness and do not fret." (MPK
7-21)The meaning of the rite is the following: employing the
structure of a side event, the participants overimpose it on the
situation proper to interpret it in the right tune. This is exactly
what the poets do in structuring a monologue of one or another
character in the poetry. For example the heroine's friend addresses
the heroine:The red-faced monkeys with black fingersAre bathing in
the streams on the mountain slopes,Swinging at the top of a tall
bamboo and areCopulating with their mates so passionatelyThat the
sweet-smelling flowers of the mountanous verikai Are falling off;A
dweller of such a mountain country,At midnight of rare darkness,
under rain,With a raised spear, will come by the slopes with
streaming waters Lit by lightning and thenJust imagine, o
friend,The state of our sweet life! (Nar. 334)The heroes have not
met; their rendezvous is yet to come, but it is already here,
contained in the words of the friend, as something approaching and
highly desirable. Its symbolic expression is twofold: by the
reference to the mating monkeys and by using a more subtle
traditional image of the vaikai, dropping its tender flowers into
the mountain lakes.Interestingly, being a symbol of certain images
and ideas fixed to it, the region may also be provided with a
peculiar magical function and is therefore capable of influencing
the course of events. Hence the mullai region, while demonstrating
to the heroes an ideal of a happy union, at the same time brings
out the injustice of the separated state, signalling the lovers'
nearing meeting:When he sees a black-legged male antelope cast a
glance atHis simple-hearted mate, full of desire and shy under his
gaze, Then, in the country where the fresh-stemmed mullaiIs
scattering a multitude of lovely flowersOn the white sand of waste
lands,Where the bees open the flower buds and entering into them,
thus make them burst into blossoms,Where, at twilight full of the
freshness of the fallen cool rain,Row upon row blood-red cocheneals
are crawling along the long road, He will remember you. (AN 74,
3-11)The active role of the landscape is sometimes emphasized by
the poets in a very peculiar way. The hero who is supposed to be
hurrying home is somehow slow in order not to destroy the harmony
of the landscape:Forget the strikes of your whip, o driver,And
drive so that the horses would be stepping softly Although they can
gallop for all their worth.Or the meeting of the beautiful
antelope, her legs gracefully bent, with her mate,Whose twisted
horns are like a large banana flower, will be a failure... Should
they hear the [frightening] sound of the strong-wheeled chariot?
(AN 134, 11-14)Therefore it can be asserted that the landscape (the
mutal and the karupporul elements) is something more than a mere
static background for the situations in the akam poetry. It is
meaningful, extremely dynamic and, along with the situational
element (uripporul) serves on equal grounds to arrange the poetic
theme. Moreover, its role should be considered here as leading.
Nature represented as a landscape of a definite region during a
particular season, being a mytho-poetic representation of fertility
energy, is capable of expressing ideas and states vividly and
forcefully, emphasizing and at times exaggerating certain states.
Thus the ambivalent nature of the sacred force can be conveyed by
the narration (for example the story of Kannaki, the heroine of
"The Story of the Anklet") or by landscape symbols, through the
contrast between the landscapes of the mullai and the kurifici
regions juxtaposed to the landscape of the palai. This is the means
generally employed by the akam poetry. It is not incidental that
Tol. warns against mixing various landscapes in the same poem (14)
and points to the fact that it is the landscape which is dominant
in the tinai theme: "In the analysis of the (subject matter) the
following sequence of its element is essential: mutal, karu, uri"
(3).Assuming that the genesis of the content of ancient Tamil
poetry is clear in its general features, it is not clear whether
there were any literary or pre-literary forms from which the tinai
poetry may have been derived. It is essential to know from where it
originated and along what lines it developed.It can be said a
priori that in order to resolve such questions it would be worth
turning to the folklore, but unfortunately this cannot be done
through lack of relevant data. Yet if we analyze each theme from an
appropriate angle the poetry itself will provide us with a certain
amount of material.4.1 The kurifici themeThe situational element is
"the union of the heroes", while the landscape element is a region
of mountain forests during the cold season. The canon prescribes
also a definite time: midnight ("the cold season and midnight
kurinci, Tol. 6). A question may arise: why midnight? The heroes'
meetings, including the first ones, are known to be taking place
(at least for a short while) in the daytime, near a millet field.
It seems to me that the night meeting is of extreme importance
since the night is the point in their relationship which is the
most dangerous and most highly "loaded" with ritual. It is also the
time at which the identification of the heroes with Valli and
Murukan is closest. It is not incidental that in the description of
this clandestine meeting an echo of the ritual involving the
frenzied dancing of a velan priest can be discerned. The image of
the darkness of midnight is repeatedly and insistently employed in
the kurifici theme. It is linked with the coming of the hero to a
secret love meeting. Dancing with invocations to Murukan, usually
followed by sacrifice takes place at the same time as the
appearance of Murukan himself ("a fearful midnight when Murukan was
brought" AN 92, 11). When the hero arrives at his secret meeting in
the guise of Murukan, he bears a likeness to a velan priest who
comes to the ritual ground attired in the "costume" of the god
(flower garlands, wreaths, chest covered with sandalwood paste,
spear in hand). The velan priest is expected to drive out the
spirit that has entered the lovesick maiden, to heal her and to
cool the sacred force inherent in her, which, functionally,
corresponds to the sexual intercourse which is viewed as
"cooling".Although we do not know with certainty whether a ritual
intercourse was actually performed, its symbolic enactment may well
have taken place since it is known to be performed to this day
during festivals related to the Murukan cult. These festivals are
linked with various calendar events, yet the essence is retained:
the accent being laid on the idea of fertility, with the extensive
erotic symbolism typical of the Valli-Murukan romance. An encounter
of Valli and Murukan is enacted during the ring dances, the
tunankai and kuravai, not unlike dances of Murukan with mountain
maidens (TMA 190-217).4During village festivals, songs in praise of
Murukan were included in certain fertility rites. These songs
glorify Murukan, his attributes and his domains: the mountain
region kurinci . The songs and their particular melody type have
been termed kurinci. They originate from the tribal environment of
kuravar hunters, the milieu from which the Valli-Murukan cult is
known to have arisen. They are mentioned frequently in the poetry:
"the girl from the mountain country is singing kurifici" (AN 102,
6); "the forest dwellers, owners of strong houses, sing kurinci"
(Nar. 266, 2); "a girl from a tribe of kuravars sings kurifici
during the ritual sacrifice to Murukan" (TMA 239); "on mountain
slopes smelling of the monsoon the viralis are singing kurbici
songs" (MPK 359). Sometimes there is no mention of the type of the
song yet it is implicated, leaving no doubt that it is kurinci:
"Good is the dance with pressed palms when kadamba and Murukan's
elephant are glorified" (AN 138, 10-11); "the akavunars are
glorifying the mountain where honey is ripening" (AN 208, 2); "the
mountains glorified by a pulavan poet, skillful in words" (AN 345,
6). "When he was glorifying the mountain slopes with kurinci
flowers, standing with his back to the jack-fruit tree, some women
came and placed offerings on the tiger skin: the fat meat of the
antelope, sandalwood and elephant tusks" (PN 374, 8-10).As can be
seen from the examples quoted, kurifici songs were included in the
repertoirs of mountain dwellers, wandering bards (viralis),
Brahmans, velan-priests and also court poets. With such a broad
distribution it might be assumed that the enacting of the
Valli-Murukan story was also accompanied by the singing of similar
songs in which Murukan was praised as a lover.That a possible
source for the kurinci theme in the poetry was a ritual form of
entertainment, perhaps folk theatre, can be supported by the
following evidence: the poetry possesses a set of characters and
roles to be performed, certain elements of a conventional costume
in descriptions of their appearances and the mise-en-scenic
structure of the poetry situations. Most illustrative in this
respect is the situation in which the friend addresses the heroine
"so that the hero [present but invisible] could hear it" (cf.
cilulfa bheisita in the Sanskrit theatre). Finally, a sound
argument in favour of a theatralized structure for ancient Tamil
poetry is its innate dialogue structure: each monologue is
structured so as to be orientated towards the audience and their
response. To illustrate this let us take two examples from Nar.,
two poems which belong to different poets. They may be interpreted
as a peculiar dialogue. Thus the hero who is approaching a field
where millet is ripening, says:What is this small village in the
valley between high mountains, Where the red mother cow is eating a
juicy jack-fruitFrom the tree to which her calf is tied;The tree
which grows in the place for meetings On a mountain slope where
streams are roaring,And then [having finished eating], she drinks
cool water On the hill grown with bamboo?Come, answer my question!
Besides,When a dark cloud is pouring with rainOnto the rising, red,
beautiful ripening spikes of small milletIn a field [ready] for
reaping, isn't it you who are meant to be guarding it,O long-armed
ones, with high rising loins! 5 (Nar. 213)[[5 The hidden meaning of
the hero's words is the following: the cow eating a jack-fruit
symbolizes the intercourse of the hero with one of the girls on the
edge of the open field (the jack-fruit grows near the clearing used
as their meeting place); the cool water is associated with a night
meeting.]]The girls reply:If you call us maidens [from the tribe]Of
strong huntsmen who follow the antelope in the forest,Blowing their
horns, with dogs snarling, [hark!]We are daughters of the kuravars
, the koticci who belong to the mountains. In the mountains is our
village; there, where a forest peacockFound a but for himself, on
tall pilesBuilt by those who guard the fields. Do not leave,Come
and join us, drink some kat which has ripenedIn the jars made of
the bamboo growing on the mountain slopes,And watch the kuravai
dancePerformed on the clearing beneath the verikai tree.6 (Nar.
276)Our attempt to compare the two poems is not meant to imply that
they were structured as part of one dialogue, nor do we attempt to
present the "reply" as belonging to the same girls whom the hero of
the first poem addressed. Even the details of landscape and
situation in two descriptions are different. But the possibility to
conjugate monologue pieces is innate in the poetry. This is proven
by the large number of direct speech constructions in ancient Tamil
poetry: appellations, addresses, questions, exclamations etc. For
example, "Listen to me, o mother!"; "What shall we do, o friend?";
"He will be back, o friend!" A commonly used form of praise in the
poetry is: vali, "live!", "do live!" ("Live, o mother!"; "Live, o
friend!"; "Live o heart!" etc.).Returning to the kuri fici songs, I
am convinced that it is in them that we should look for a source of
the attributive construction which links the heroes with a
particular landscape. The use of this construction is founded on
the religious and mythological concept most significant for ancient
Tamil culture, which serves to establish inseparable links between
a deity and a definite locality. It is a very concrete and even
personal link. This is exactly how Murukan's twofold link with the
mountains is perceived: on the one hand he is a mountain dweller
who personifies their natural qualities while on the other he is
the lord of the mountains. It is on him that their fertility and
the well-being of their dwellers depend. Therefore it becomes clear
why the invocation song was one of the forms of the god's cult as
it glorified him as a mountain dweller and lord of the mountains
and also the mountains themselves as his dwelling place, his
domain. Songs were sung during festivals to glorify Murukan, and
during fertility rites, games and rites of young girls and, also,
at definite stages of a highly ritualized and mythologized love
affair. It was in songs that the merging of the hero with Murukan
already known to us occurred. As a result the hero acquired the
"title" of "the dweller (or lord) of the mountains", and, also, the
status of the object of eulogy in panegyrical songs: "0 beautiful
girl! We shall glorify the dweller of beneficent dark-peaked
mountains the way (we glorify) lord (Murukan) (Kal. 43, 5-6); "We
are going to guard millet, singing songs of praise for many days,
praising thee and thy mountain" (Nar. 156, 4); "we shall glorify
the good mountain of him who caused us ceaseless pain!" (Kal. 40,
6-7). 21
