A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12.60

c12.60

The courts were also enlivened by roving bands of musicians followed by women who danced to the accompaniment of their music, the pāṇar and viraliyar who moved about the country in companies carrying with them all sorts of quaint instruments. They seem to have been the representatives of primitive tribal groups who preserved the folk-songs and dances of an earlier age. Their numbers and their dire poverty form a recurring theme of poems, and from all accounts they lived from hand to mouth and seldom knew where their next meal was to be had. Here is a humorous account of their experiences after meeting a generous patron: ‘The Chola king showered on us great quantities of wealth in (the form of) fine and costly jewels not suited to our condition; on seeing this, some among the large group of my kinsfolk, used (only) to abject poverty, put on their ears ornaments meant for the fingers; some wore on their fingers things meant for the ear; others put on their necks jewels meant for the waist; others again adorned their waists with ornaments properly worn on the neck; in this wise, like the great group of red-faced monkeys which shone in the fine jewels (of Sītā) that they discovered on the ground, on the day when the mighty rākshasa carried off Sītā, the wife of Rāma of the swift chariot, we became the cause of endless laughter.' Literary convention evolved a class of poem, the *ārruppaḍai* ('setting one on the path'), in which a poet, *pāṇan* or *virali* told of the gifts he had received from a patron and exhorted his friends to visit him.