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A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s2: Tamil

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s2

Language
English

Contents

Tamil

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Some account has been given in Chapter VII of the literature of the Śangam Age, the oldest body of works now known in the Tamil language. That literature was the result of the meeting and fusion of two originally separate cultures, the Tamil and the Aryan. Its beginnings are no longer traceable, and the schematic anthologies that have been handed down doubtless represent a relatively late phase in that epochal literary movement, and to this phase we have suggested the period A.D. 100-300. A close study of the grammar and vocabulary of the different works as also of their ideas enables the trained reader to discern the outlines of a progressive development and to arrive at tentative conclusions on their relative chronology. The *Tolkāppiyam*, for instance, is best placed towards the close of the age indicated above, and at least two of the anthologies, the *Kalittogai* and *Paripāḍal*, may well be taken to at least a century later. The theme of all the 130 poems of the *Kalittogai* is love as manifested in the five *tiṇais* (types of landscape), and the treatment of the subject is much more sophisticated in these poems than in the *Ahanāṉūru*. This sophistication is found also in the *Paripāḍal* and both works mention new names of ornaments like *vāhu-valaiyam* (armlets), and *mekalai* (girdles) unknown to the earlier poems. A certain Nallanduvanār was the author of the verses in one section (*neydal*) of the *Kalittogai* by one account, and the compiler of the entire anthology according to another. The *Paripāḍal* takes its name from the metre employed in the poems in the collection; the original collection included seventy songs on different deities, and of these only twenty-four entire songs and a few fragments of some others have survived; Tirumāl (Vishnu), Muruga, and the river Vaigai form the themes of all these poems and fragments. This is the first instance of a work set to music and belonging to the class of *iśait-tamil*, ‘musical Tamil’. The songs show much familiarity with Upanishadic and Purāṇic lore, and are replete with advanced philosophic concepts belonging to different schools of thought.

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The story of Prahlāda in all its details is mentioned, as also the story of Indra's misconduct with Ahalyā, the wife of the sage Gautama; the six mothers of Muruga and the dances of Vishnu with the shepherdesses are other myths indicating a relatively late age for the collection.

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The next great epoch in the annals of Tamil literature extends over a period of three and a half centuries (500-850). In this age the inflow of northern Sanskritic influences became even more marked than before; numerous words and concepts in the domain of ethics, religion and philosophy were freely borrowed and incorporated in Tamil; the Sanskrit codes and law books were accepted as the basis of a considerable volume of didactic literature which forms a striking feature of the time; sometimes whole works in Sanskrit or allied dialects were translated or adapted into Tamil. There was a preponderance of Jaina writers to start with as Jainism and Buddhism were then waxing strong. But the rising tide of Hindu reaction soon produced a great volume of popular devotional literature, which was set to music and ravished the hearts of the common folk. Notable developments occurred in belles-lettres, grammar and lexicography, but here the Jains and Buddhists continued to hold the palm. Almost all writing was in verse, and there was little prose worth mentioning.

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Most of the important didactical works composed in the period have been grouped together under the title ‘The eighteen kiḻkkaṇakku’ from about the thirteenth century, because of their being composed in various short metres, generally types of the veṇbā. Certainly the best known of them all, and possibly also among the earliest, is the Kural of Tiruvaḷḷuvar, a comprehensive manual of ethics, polity and love. It contains 1,330 distichs divided into 133 sections of ten distichs each—the first 38 on ethics (aram), the following 70 on political and economic topics (poruḷ) and the rest on love (kāmam). The author was most probably a learned Jaina divine and his close acquaintance with the works of Manu, Kautilya and Vātsyāyana is unmistakable. We have little authentic information of his life, and the great merits and continued influence of his work have naturally led to the growth of many popular legends around his name. If, as is often affirmed, he and some other writers of this age belonged to a Saṅgam, it must have been a later institution than the one which flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era: 450-500 may be suggested as the best date for the *Kural*. To the same period must be assigned the *Kalavali* of Poygaiyār, already noticed, and the *Mudumolikkāñji*, a short work of 100 stanzas on mutability by Kūḍalūrkiḷār of Madura.

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The age of the remaining works in the collection may be given, tentatively and within broad limits, as follows: between 550 and 650—*Kārnārpadu*, *Innā-nārpadu*, *Aindiṇai-aimbadu*, *Nālaḍi*, *Nāṇmaṇikkaḍigai*, and *Paḷamoḷi*; between 650 and 750—*Tirikaḍukam*, *Aindiṇai-yeḷubadu*, *Tiṇai-mālai-aimbadu*, *Kainnilai*, *Elādi*, *Tiṇai-mālai-nūrraimbadu*, *Śirupañcamūlam*, *Iniya-nārpadu* and *Āśārakkōvai*. The figures *nārpadu* (40), *aimbadu* (50), and so on, with which some of these names end indicate the number of stanzas in the work. The *Kār-nārpadu* is a love poem in which a love-lorn lady is supposed to describe the dreadful approach of the rainy season in the absence of her lover; the four other poems whose titles contain the word *tiṇai*, as well as *Kainnilai*, are also on the theme of love and belong to the class of *aham* works. *Innā-nārpadu* and *Iniya-nārpadu* are catalogues of painful and unpleasant, and pleasurable and joyous, things and deeds respectively. *Nālaḍi* is a Jaina anthology (400 verses) put together by Padumanār and arranged in forty chapters on the lines of the *Kural*; the names of the poets whose songs are collected are unknown, but the reference to Muttaraiyar in two of the stanzas gives the clue to the date of the collection. *Nāṇmaṇikkaḍigai* (100 stanzas) by a Vaishnava poet, Viḷambi Nāganār, contains four sententious statements in each stanza; it is a work of high literary merit and ranks next only to the *Kural*. The *Paḷamoḷi* is a Jaina work of 400 *veṇbās*, each citing a proverb and mentioning some incident or story to illustrate it. *Tirikaḍukam* (‘three pungents’), *Elādi* (cardamom and others) and *Śirupañcamūlam* (‘the five minor roots’) take their names from well-known medicinal preparations; just as the medicines cure the illnesses of the body and restore health, the morals inculcated in these works cure the diseases of mind and spirit and set the reader on the road to virtue and happiness. The author of *Tirikaḍukam* was a worshipper of Vishnu; the other two works were by Jains. The *Āśārakkōvai* is a veritable Tamil *smriti* by a Śaiva author based avowedly on Sanskrit originals. It is among the latest, if not the last, works of this type in this period.

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The widespread Hindu religious revival for which many Śaiva *nāyaṇārs* and Vaishnava *āḷvārs* worked together furnished a powerful stimulus to the growth of a popular devotional literature. It was of great importance alike for its volume and for its influence on the life of the people. Groups of devotees headed by some prominent religious leader moved from place to place and shrine to shrine singing the hymns they composed in the course of these pilgrimages. The result was the use of simple diction and catchy tunes. In this golden age of Tamil Hinduism there must have come into existence a much larger volume of literature than has been preserved in the canonical editions of hymns made in the tenth century by Nambi Āṇḍār Nambi for the Śaiva group, and Nāthamuni for the Vaishnava. For instance, a hymn of Ñāna-sambandar, which is unknown to the canonical collection, is found engraved on stone in the temple at Tiruviḍaiyavāyil in the Tanjore district.

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Perhaps the earliest author in the group whose works have entered the Śaiva canon is Kāraikkāl Ammai, ‘the woman of Kāraikkāl’. Tradition makes her the contemporary of Pūdam, one of the early āḻvārs, and both may be assigned to about 550. The Ammai sang the praises of the deity of Tiruvālangāḍu where she witnessed the dance of Śiva. The two other poems she wrote which mark the beginning of Prabandha literature in Tamil—a genre which counted in course of time no fewer than ninety-six types—are Tiru-iraṭṭai-maṇi-mālai with twenty pairs of stanzas each including a kaḷittuṟai verse and a veṇbā and the Adbhutat-tiruvandādi of 100 veṇbā verses. Next comes Aiyaḍigaḷ Kāḍavarkōn who is reputed to have handed over the rule of his principality to his son and devoted himself to a religious life. His Kshetrattiru-veṇbā is an andādi (a poem in which the last word or syllable of one verse recurs at the beginning of the next) and contains a list of twenty-one Śaiva shrines including Ujjain (Mākāḷam) which were held in esteem in his day. The 307 padigams (hymns) of Appar constitute books 4-6 of the Śaiva canon. They contain many notable anticipations of the Śaiva-siddhānta philosophical system; the intensity of devotion that characterizes them is excelled only in the Tiruvāśagam of Māṇikka-vāśagar. Ñānasambandar, the most celebrated Śaiva hymnist, heads the canon, and 384 hymns sung by him constitute its first three sections. It is said that he began singing hymns of his own composition at the age of three, and that he met Appar and Śiruṭṭoṇḍar in person, but the story of his meeting with the Vaishnava saint Tirumangai seems to be no more than a beautiful legend. Sambandar’s hymns are marked by an exceptionally high literary quality, but towards the end of each one the Buddhists and Jains come in for round denunciation—evidence of the most active part he took in the campaign against the heretical faiths.

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The *Tirumandiram* of Tirumūlar is a manual of Śaiva mysticism in 3,000 verses. It constitutes the tenth book in the canon, though it does not appear to be mentioned by name by any author before Śēkkilār. The life of Tirumūlar is wrapped in a fantastic legend: a *siddha* from Kailāsa, the abode of Śiva, migrated to the South to meet his friend Agastya; near Tiruvāḍutuṛai he entered the dead body of a shepherd out of pity for the herd which had just lost him; he led the herd back home in the evening, and then abandoned the shepherd’s family; then as a penance he sat under a tree for 3,000 years composing the work at the rate of one verse per year. In spite of its almost unredeemed obscurity, it is held in great veneration by Tamil Śaivas.

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Sundaramūrtti, the last of the three hymnists of *Dēvāram*, contributed the 100 hymns which make the seventh book of the canon. His devotion to God was that of an intimate friend and he was known as the ‘Friend of God’ (*tambirān tōḻan*). Legend credits him with having sent the deity as a messenger to his first love when she was cross with him for his temporary unfaithfulness. His *Tiruṭṭoṇḍattogai* sung at Tiruvālūr in the presence of Aḍiyārs (devotees) is the classic list of Śaiva saints, individual and collective, of whom sixty-two are named, including the author’s father and mother; by adding Sundaramūrtti himself we get the celebrated sixty-three *nāyaṉārs*, the story of whose lives was told briefly by Nambi Āṇḍār Nambi in the tenth century and, with epic elaboration, by Śēkkilār in the twelfth. One of Sundara’s friends, Cheramān Perumāl, was the author of other devotional works of high literary quality: *Tiruvālūr-mummaṇik-kōvai*, a schematic poem of ten groups of three stanzas each in a different metre—an *ahaval* followed by a *veṇbā* and a *kalittuṛai*; *Ponvaṇṇattandādi* in a hundred verses; and the *Tirukkailāya-ñāna-ulā* reputed to be the first poem in this genre and to have been promulgated at Kailāsa after the *nāyaṉār* reached the sacred mountain in the company of Sundaramūrtti.

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Last but by no means least of the Śaiva saints of this period who earned themselves an abiding place in the literature and hearts of the Tamils was Māṇikka-vāśagar whose *Tiruvāśagam* forms the eighth book of the canon, to which some would add his *Tirukkōvai* also. The transparent sincerity of the passionate outpourings of the saint in the *Tiruvāśagam* makes a deep impression on the reader's mind, and the fifty-one hymns, in spite of their many strange mythical allusions, strike him as a true record of a vivid religious experience which traces the progress of a soul from the bondage of passion and ignorance to the liberty of light and love. The supreme power of divine grace to liberate the soul is the main theme. Some would trace Christian influences in the trend of the saint's thought and feeling; the parallel with some aspects of Christian experience is clear enough, but of any direct borrowing there is no proof; and on the whole the differences are more important than the resemblances. The *Tirukkōvai* is among the earliest of the full-fledged *kōvais* which treat of love in a schematic poem of 400 stanzas, each depicting a particular situation. Māṇikka-vāśagar's poem has a double meaning throughout, the main theme being the love of the soul for God. Some are inclined to doubt the authorship of the poem, which is, however, marked by a devotional intensity not unworthy of the author of the *Tiruvāśagam*, though its diction is less popular. The *Kārikkōvai* of Kāri-nāyaṉār and the *Muttaraiyar-kōvai* mentioned in the commentary to the *Yāpparungalam* (tenth century) may be earlier than *Tirukkōvai*, but they are no longer extant; and the *Pāndikkōvai*, also perhaps an earlier poem, is available only in numerous citations.

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Side by side with the Śaiva nāyaṉārs, the Vaishnava āḻvārs also laboured along the same lines for the revival of Hinduism, and their devotional songs constitute in their final redaction the ‘Four Thousand Sacred Hymns’—*Nālāyira Divyaprabandham*. The three earliest āḻvārs were Poygai, Pūdam, and Pēy, and later literary tradition avers that Pūdam was the contemporary of Karaikkāl Ammai. These saints are each represented by one *andādi* of one hundred *veṇbās*, remarkable for their non-sectarian outlook and for the purity and gentleness of their devotion. Then came Tirumaliśai, a contemporary of Mahendravarman I, in whose works, the *Nānmugantiruvandādi* and *Tiruccandaviruttam*, a somewhat more controversial tone can be traced than in the writings of the first three āḻvārs. He is reputed to have tried both Jainism and Buddhism before turning Vaishnava yogi, and this explains the state of religion in his day and the tone of his poems. Tirumangai (eighth century) was a much more voluminous writer and a keen controversialist. His poems constitute about a third of the entire collection in volume, and ensure him a high place both as poet and devotee. In its literary quality and in sentiment his work has many resemblances with that of Sambandar. He has many flings at Jains and Buddhists, and some even against Śaivas. Periyāḻvār and his daughter Āṇḍāḷ contribute nearly 650 verses to the collection between them.

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The daughter claimed that the Lord of Śrīrangam was her lover, and her poems are suffused by her passionate longing for companionship with the Lord; she is reputed to have been accepted as his bride, and her poems, with her father's are placed first in the canon. The cycle of Krishna stories is most effectively used to rouse the devotion of the hearer, and to a Hindu the repeated allusions to the tales in different settings constitute not the least attractive feature of her work. The hymn of Āṇḍāḷ which starts with the words vāraṇam-āyiram (' one thousand elephants '), telling of her dream-marriage with Vishnu, is sung at all Vaishnava Brahmin marriages to this day. Tiruppāṇ and Toṇḍar-aḍip-poḍi may be placed next; the former has only one hymn while the latter has two, Tirumālai and Tiruppaḷḷiyeḻucci, to his credit. The last-named presupposes the existence of the order of worship in temples as the offering of royal honour, rājopacāra, to the deity; it is a song meant to rouse the god from his sleep at break of day. Tirumangai, Toṇḍar-aḍip-poḍi and Kulaśekhara are said to have been contemporaries, but we may well doubt this. Kulaśekhara calls himself king of Kongar, Kūḍal and Kōḷi in his poems. He was the author of a notable devotional poem in Sanskrit, Mukundamālā, besides the 105 Tamil verses forming the Perumāḷ Tirumoḻi in the Tamil canon of the Vaishnavas. The Veḷḷāla saint Nammāḻvār, also called Śaṭhakōpa, and his Brahmin pupil Madhurakavi were the latest of the āḻvārs.

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Nammāḻvār's work is held in the highest respect as it is believed to embody the deepest philosophical truths taught by the Upanishads. The 1,101 stanzas comprising the Tiruvāymoḻi hold the place of honour and have been most elaborately commented on by later expositors of the Viśishtādvaita system of philosophy. The Tiruvāśiriyam, Tiruviruttam and Tiruvandādi are other works comprising together less than 200 stanzas. They relate to the deities of some thirty shrines, of which all but six are found in the Pāndya and Chera countries. Nammāḻvār was a yogi, and his Tiruvāymoḻi is replete with a convincing narration of his mystical experiences. Like the other *ālvārs*, he delights in the contemplation of the *avatārs* of Vishnu and their achievements, and his handling of themes from the lives of Rāma and Krishna has found expression in some very charming child poetry. Not only as philosopher and mystic, but even as a pure literary artist, Nammālvār takes a very high rank. Nāthamuni, the first of the *ācāryas* of the next epoch, is said to have been his pupil and received from him the entire canon of 4,000 hymns. The other pupil, Madhurakavi, himself an *ālvār*, wrote only one hymn in praise of his guru. It is quite probable that the last two *ālvārs* lived for many years after 850, the limit of our second period.

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In the field of general literature, the three most outstanding works are by Jaina and Buddhist authors. The *Silappadikāram* is an unsurpassed gem, though its authorship and date are not free from besetting doubts. The work is in some ways unique in the whole range of Tamil literature, and the vivid portraiture of its scenes and its skilful metrical effects are practically unknown to any other work. Its theme is an old popular saga, the story of a merchant prince, Kōvalan, who neglects his wife Kaṇṇagi and loses his fortune through love of the celebrated hetaera Mādhavi of Puhār. A quarrel between the lovers sends Kōvalan back to his wedded wife, and they both migrate from Puhār to Madura to start a new life with the money to be raised by the sale of Kaṇṇagi's jewels—particularly her precious anklet (*silambu*) which gives the name to the poem. As the result of the machinations of the royal goldsmith, Kōvalan is suspected of being the thief who stole the queen's anklet from the palace and is cut down by the king's officers in the streets of Madura. When Kaṇṇagi hears the news, she rushes to the palace with the second anklet as proof of Kōvalan's innocence. The king realizes his injustice and dies of a broken heart. Kaṇṇagi wreaks her vengeance on Madura by consigning the city to flames, and moves into the Chera country where she is received into heaven with her husband. Śenguṭṭuvan enshrines her as the Goddess of Chastity. Despite its supernatural elements, the bulk of the story is a moving human tale powerfully told, its scenes laid in all three kingdoms of the Tamil land. The author is called Iḷango Aḍigaḷ (‘Prince ascetic’) and is reputed to be the brother of the Chera monarch Śenguṭṭuvan; but of such a brother the Sangam poems have no knowledge. The mystery deepens when we learn further that Iḷango was a contemporary of Śāttanār, a grain-merchant of Madura, the author of Maṇimēkalai. This is a Buddhist poem, which tells the life-story, mainly of religious interest, of Maṇimēkalai, the daughter of Mādhavi by Kōvalan. The prologues to the two poems say that each was read out to the author of the other. And there is actually among the Śangam poets a Śittalaic-Cāttanār, who contributes ten poems to four of the eight anthologies, though there is no trace of any leaning to Buddhism on his part. In its present form the Maṇimēkalai contains a long exposition of fallacies in logic which is obviously based on the Nyāyapravēśa of Diṅnāga, a work of the fifth century A.D. And the literary form of the two epics is so different from anything known in the real age of Śangam literature that it would not be wrong to postulate an interval of several centuries between that age and that of the Śilappadikāram and Maṇimēkalai.

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The Perungadai (Sanskrit, Brihat-kathā) of Kongu-Vēḷir is another great poem by a Jaina author, of which only parts are available. It tells of the adventures of Naravānadatta, the son of the celebrated Udayana of Kauśāmbī and is apparently based on a Sanskrit original which was a rendering of Guṇādhya's famous poem in the Paiśāci dialect. The Western Ganga king Durvinita is said to have composed a Sanskrit version of that work at the end of the sixth century. As a narrative poem the Perungadai has exceptional merits and is deservedly popular. Vaḷaiyāpati and Kuṇḍalakēśi are the names of two other Jaina Kāvyas in Tamil which have been lost but were once counted among the five great Kāvyas. The commentary on the Yāpparungalam, a Jaina grammar of the next period, cites many works on grammar by Jaina authors which must have been composed at this time; so also the commentary on the Viraśōliyam, a Buddhist grammatical work of the eleventh century, cites verses from many Buddhist Kāvyas of this period no longer accessible to us.

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The commentary on the Iraiyanār Ahapporuḷ traditionally ascribed to Nakkirar must have been composed late in this period. It is worthy of note as the earliest of the great prose commentaries which occupy so conspicuous a place in the development of Tamil prose. The style of the commentaries is by no means easy or popular, and is often marred by the authors' desire to show off their learning and by their straining after alliteration; the earliest commentary exhibits in full all the demerits of this class of writing.

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The *Muttoḷḷāyiram* must have been a work of 900 *veṇbās*, made up of 300 verses in praise of each of the three monarchs of the Tamil country. It is now known only from about 100 verses, which are often very good poetry, cited by different writers, but its authorship cannot be traced. The *Tagaḍūr-Yāttirai* is another lost work of the age, which is likewise only known from stray citations. Its theme was the war between the Chera monarch and Adigaimān of Tagaḍūr which took place relatively late in the Śangam Age.

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Finally, mention must be made of two works of the time of Pallava Nandivarman III. The anonymous *Nandikkalambakam*, that has come down with many interpolations, is a quasi-historical poem of about eighty stanzas dealing, in various metres, with events of the reign of the last great Pallava monarch. The *Bhāratam* of Perundēvanār of which only a small part has survived raises questions which cannot now be satisfactorily answered. The extant portions include the whole of the Udyoga and Bhishma *parvas*, and part of the Droṇa *parva*,—to the battle on the thirteenth day. The work consists of *veṇbās* interspersed with connecting prose passages, and thus attains the form of a *Campū*. But it has been doubted if the poetry and prose are from the same pen, and the problem is complicated by the fact that the *Bhāratam* was rendered into Tamil by a Perundēvanār in the Śangam Age. The present work, poetry and prose taken together, is a straightforward and simple narrative of the main story not devoid of eloquence and charm. It may well be that the entire work was written by a single author in the ninth century, his poetry conforming to a long-established tradition regarding its diction, while his prose was modelled on the style of the learned commentaries, the only prose then known.

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The age of the imperial Cholas (850-1200) was the golden age of Tamil culture, and it was naturally marked by the widespread practice and patronage of literature. The Prabandha form became dominant and the systematic treatment of Śaiva-siddhānta in philosophical treatises began. Great Śiva temples were built anew and celebrated in hymns on the model of those of the previous period by new authors (among whom was a prince), and the hagiology of Śaivism was standardized in a great Purāṇa by Śēkkilār. A quantum of Vaishnava devotional literature and commentaries on the canon also came into existence. Jaina and Buddhist authors continued to flourish though not in such numbers as in the earlier age. Many works mentioned in the numerous inscriptions of the period have been lost beyond recovery.

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In general literature, the Jīvakacintāmaṇi of the Jaina ascetic and poet Tiruttakkadēvar was composed early in the tenth century. It follows late ninth-century Sanskrit originals and tells the life story of Jivaka, an ideal hero, equally distinguished in the arts of war and peace, the perfect saint no less than the charming lover. After a stormy youth marked by many adventures Jivaka finds himself, in the prime of life, the monarch of a splendid kingdom. For some years thereafter he leads a life of pleasure in the company of his eight queens; in fact the poem has another name, Maṇa-nūl, ‘The Book of Marriages’, on account of each of Jivaka’s early adventures culminating in a happy marriage. Jivaka is shaken from his complacency by an incident, trivial in itself, but full of deep significance to him. He sees in a moment’s flash the hollowness of human life and the wisdom of seeking release from its bonds. He installs his son on the throne and seeks the peace of the forest, and attains salvation in the end. In its present form the work contains 3,154 stanzas, of which it is thought that only 2,700 were composed by the original author, two contributed by his guru, with whose permission he wrote the poem, and the rest by a later writer. The annotator has marked out the guru’s two verses, but there is no means of identifying the work of the third writer. The art of Tiruttakkadēvar is marked by all the qualities of great poetry and even, as is well known, furnished the model for the genius of Kamban. The poem is said to have been the author’s answer to a challenge that while Jaina writers were admittedly distinguished in the field of religious literature, they could make no contribution to the literature of love. Tiruttakkadēvar was allowed to take up the challenge and write this long erotic poem after he had satisfied his guru that he had the literary capacity for the task and that he would not lose his spiritual balance by writing it. He is thought to have been a Chola prince by birth. Another Jaina writer of the time was Tōlāmoḷi (‘a man of unsurpassed eloquence’) whose Śūḷāmaṇi handles a Jaina purāṇic theme in very mellifluous verse and is counted among the five minor Kāvyas of Tamil literature.

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Kallāḍanār, the author of Kallāḍam, must be distinguished from his namesake of the Śangam Age. He can perhaps be identified with the author who figures in the eleventh book of the Śaiva canon. Kallāḍam is a place-name and possibly the writer was born there. He is said to have chosen one hundred verses from the Tirukkōvai as the basis of his work which deals with the sixty-four sacred sports of Śiva. The style of the work is very stilted as a result of the author's attempt to revive the poetic forms and diction of the Śangam Age. The whole poem of 100 pieces, each purporting to depict a particular mood of love (ahatturai), is a curious instance of extreme pedantry. The Kalingattup-paraṇi of the poet-laureate of the Chola court, Jayangoṇdār, dates from the end of the reign of Kulottunga I and is the earliest and best of the Paraṇis now accessible. It is a splendid little masterpiece which keeps clear the line between history and fictitious convention; its choice diction and the sustained harmony between the metres employed and the incidents portrayed are unique. The Paraṇi is the war poem par excellence and depicts not only the pomp and circumstance of war, but all the gruesome details of the field. The Kalinga war of Kulottunga, the theme of this poem, was celebrated in several other works, none of which could survive in the face of Jayangoṇdār's poem. Another poet-laureate of the Chola court was Kūttan or Oṭṭakkūttan who graced the reigns of three successors of Kulottunga (viz. Vikrama Chola, Kulottunga II and Rājarāja II) and sang eloquent Ulās of each of them. Born of a poor Śengundar (weaver) family in Malari, a village in the Chola country, Kūttan sought service under Śankaran, the chieftain of Puduvai and father of Śaḍaiyan, the patron of the more celebrated Kamban. Kūttan had other patrons like Gāngēya, whom he praised in a Nālāyirakkōvai, and a certain Soman of Tribhuvani. When his fame rose he was invited to the imperial court and entertained there as Kaviccakravarti (‘Emperor of Poets’) by the three successive monarchs named. Besides the three Ulās, he composed a Paraṇi, no longer extant, on the Kalinga war of Vikrama Chola, and a piḷḷaittamiḷ (a poem describing the hero's childhood) on Kulottunga II. The last is easily the best of the poet's compositions on account of its copious diction, the rich melody and fine imagery of its verse. The same poet's Takkayāgapparaṇi, obviously an imitation of Kalingattup-paraṇi, in its metres and style, handles the legendary theme of Daksha's sacrifice with considerable force and power, but must take a rank well below its model. Other poems attributed to him are *Sarasvatiyan-dādi* in praise of the Goddess of Learning by whose grace he became a poet, reputed to be his first composition, and *Arumbaittoḷḷāyiram*, besides *Iṭṭiyeḻupadu* and *Eḻuppeḻupadu*, poems of no merit about the composition of which popular imagination has trumped up wild legends which reflect no credit on their inventors or the poet. The village of Kūttanūr on the banks of the Ariśil river (Tanjore district) keeps the poet's memory alive, and has a Sarasvati temple with a record of the twelfth century mentioning the installation of the image of the goddess by Kavipperumāḷ alias Ōvāda-Kūttar, the grandson of Oṭṭakkūttan.

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A greater poet than Kūttan was Kamban, the celebrated author of the Tamil *Rāmāyaṇam* or *Rāmāvatāram*, who flourished in the reign of Kulottunga III. This poem is the greatest epic in Tamil literature, and though the author states that he follows in the wake of Vālmīki, still his work is no translation or even adaptation of the Sanskrit original. Like the other great poets who have enriched the literatures of the different languages of India by their works on the Rāma saga, Kamban imports into his narration the colour of his own time and place. Thus his description of Kosala is an idealized account of the features of the Chola country, and he compares the brightness of moonlight to the fame of his patron, Śaḍaiyan of Veṇṇai-nallūr. Rāma himself was as much master of the Tamil idiom as of Sanskrit. Sometimes Kamban yields to the somewhat rigid canons of Tamil poetics as when he enters on an elaborate analysis of the emotions of Rāma and Sītā after a chance meeting which takes place immediately after Rāma's entry into Mithilā. Elsewhere, as in the description of Sītā's behaviour on receiving Rāma's ring from Hanumān, Kamban elaborates a brief hint thrown out by Vālmīki who says that she rejoiced as if she had rejoined her husband. He compresses Vālmīki's account at other points, as in Daśaratha's *aśvamedha*. Few authentic details of the poet's life are forthcoming. He is believed to have belonged to the *Uvaccar* caste, priests in the temples of Kālī and similar deities, and stray verses attributed to him seek to bring him into some relation with all the great monarchs of South India including the Pāndya and Kākatīya rulers. Kamban's poem carried the story of Rāma up to his return to Ayodhyā and his coronation as king; the *Uttarakāṇḍam* being the work of another hand. The Rāmāvatāram attained great popularity, and there was a family of hereditary expounders of the Kambarāmāyaņa in Hassan in Mysore State at the end of the fourteenth century. Two mediocre poems Ereḷupadu and Śaṭakōparandādi are attributed to Kamban; the former is in praise of agriculture, and the praise of Śaṭakōpa (Nammāḷvār) is said to have been composed to please the god of Śrīrangam whose approval was sought by the poet for the Rāmāyaņa and who ordered him to praise his beloved devotee in a centum of verses. One of the best known works of secular literature belonging to the late Chola period is the Kulōttungankōvai, on Kumāra Kulottunga, afterwards Kulottunga III. Little is known of the author, and the poem has no conspicuous merit except that it has a great Chola monarch for its hero and contains passing allusions to some of his achievements in war.

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The impulse to produce devotional religious literature which was so active in the last period (500-850) continued with some force far into this (850-1200), and the extant arrangement of the Śaiva canon into eleven books was the work of Nambi Āṇḍār Nambi who lived at the close of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century. His part in the collection and editing of the canon became the subject of Umāpatiśivācārya's poem Tirumuṟai-kaṇḍa-purāṇam (fourteenth century). Nambi's own works include six Prabandhas on Ñānasambandar and one on Appar, besides Tiruttoṇḍar-tiruvandādi which gives brief accounts of the lives of the sixty-three saints and is based on Sundaramūrtti's Tiruttoṇḍattogai. All these and the poems he wrote in praise of Vināyaka and Chidambaram, find a place in the eleventh book of the canon. The same book includes five compositions of Paṭṭinattu-piḷḷaiyār in which this senior contemporary of Nambi celebrates the Śaiva shrines of Chidambaram, Kaḷumalam (Shiyali), Tiruviḍaimarudūr, Kāñchipuram and Oṟṟiyūr. Earlier than Nambi but not far removed from him were the authors represented in the ninth book of the canon, Tiruviśaippā. There are nine of them including Gandarāditya, the son of Parāntaka I, and a Karuvūr Dēvan who has hymns on the three famous Chola temples newly erected in his day—the Ādityēśvara at Kaḷandai, the Rājarājēśvara at Tanjore and the Gangaikonda-śōḷēśvara at Gangaikonda-śōḷapuram.

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The Tiruttoṇḍar-purāṇam or Periya Purāṇam of Śēkkijār composed in the reign of Kulottunga II (1133-50) is a landmark in the history of Tamil Śaivism. Umāpati-śivācārya has celebrated the event in a short Purāṇa called Śekkiḷār-nāyaṉār-purāṇam. A Veḷḷāḷa by caste, Śekkiḷār was born at Kuṉṟattūr very near Madras, and having entered the service of the Chola monarch, he rose to a high position and earned the title Uttamaśōḷa Pallavarāyan. He built a Śiva temple closely modelled on that at Tirunāgēśvaram (near Kumbakonam), a shrine to which he was greatly devoted. The story goes that the king's study of Jivakacintāmaṇi offended Śekkiḷār's deeply religious nature and that he exhorted the king to abandon the pursuit of impious erotic literature and turn instead to the lives of the Śaiva saints celebrated by Sundaramūrtti and Nambi Āṇḍār Nambi. The king thereupon commanded Śekkiḷār to expound these lives, and being greatly attracted by the theme, he wanted Śekkiḷār to write them out in extenso in a great poem and gave him much wealth to enable him to do so. Śekkiḷār then went over to Chidambaram, and with his mind filled with divine grace—there was a voice commanding him to begin his work with the words Ulagelām—he began to compose the Purāṇa in the beautiful thousand-pillared maṇḍapa within the precincts of the temple. On its completion, the Chola monarch himself came to Chidambaram and, in accordance with another divine command, he listened attentively to Śekkiḷār's exposition of the work from day to day for a whole year. It was hailed universally as a veritable fifth Veda in Tamil and immediately took its place as the twelfth and last book in the Śaiva canon. It has influenced profoundly the lives of all the Śaivas of the Tamil country and of those in Andhra and Karṇātaka through translations and adaptations. It is one of the masterpieces of Tamil literature, and worthily commemorates the great age of the Imperial Cholas and their sustained devotion to Śaivism.

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Vaishnava religious literature during this period was mostly composed in Sanskrit. It is possible that the last two āḻvārs lived far into this period, but the ācāryas who succeeded them, Nāthamuni, the redactor of the 4,000 hymns, his grandson Āḷavandār or Yāmunācārya and the great Rāmānuja himself wrote almost all their works in Sanskrit, a rather strange transformation for a movement which began with a more popular appeal than Śaivism. Even the commentators on the early Tamil hymns like Piḷḷān, the author of the shortest extant commentary on Tiruvāymoḻi, Nañjiyar, Nambiḷḷai, Periyavāccān and Vaḍakkuttiruvidippiḷḷai, all authors of more elaborate commentaries, developed a quaint style, *manipravāla* (lit. crystal and coral), loaded with Sanskrit words not easily understood outside the narrow learned circle. The centum of verses in praise of Rāmānuja, the *Rāmānuja-nūṛṛandādi*, by his disciple Tiruvarangattu Amudanār is a conspicuous exception; it is a poem in simple devotional style held in great esteem to this day and often repeated as a daily prayer; the central idea of the poem is that there is no way to salvation without the grace of the guru.

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Jivasambodanai of Devendra-munivar is a Jaina work expounding in detail twelve modes of meditation in the form of an address to the soul. The work is replete with mythical stories and anecdotes, and its metres resemble those employed in contemporary Tamil inscriptions.

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In the field of Tamil grammar, the *Yāpparungalam* and *Yāpparungalakkārigai*, two authoritative works on prosody, were composed by Amitasāgara, a Jaina ascetic of the close of the tenth century. Both the works have lucid commentaries, that on the *Kārigai* being by a certain Guṇasāgara, also a Jaina ascetic and most probably a pupil of Amitasāgara. The *Yāpparungalam* is unique in its range and offers an exhaustive treatment of the metres in Tamil, and the *Kārigai* (Skt. *Kārikā*) is its abridgement. Amitasāgara quotes the *Sūḷāmaṇi* and is himself quoted by Buddhamitra, the Buddhist author of *Vīraśōliyam*. Both Amitasāgara and Buddhamitra were patronized by the contemporary Chola monarchs and granted liberal assignments of territory. The latter mentions king Virarājēndra as a great Tamil scholar. His work written in *kalittuṛai* metre attempts a synthesis between the Tamil and Sanskrit systems of grammar, and comprises all the five sections of a complete treatise—*sandhi* (*eḻuttu*), *śol*, *poruḷ*, *yāppu* and *alaṅkāra* (*aṇi*). The work is full of interest for a student of the history of grammatical theory in Tamil; it has a commentary by Perundēvanār, a pupil of the author. The *Daṇḍiyalaṅkāram* treats mainly of figures of speech and, as its name implies, it is modelled on the famous *Kāvyādarśa* of Dandin. It is composed in *sūtra* (aphoristic) style and, like its model, it treats of the nature of poetry and *Kāvya*, and of figures of speech under two generic heads—*arthālaṅkāra* (*poruḷaṇi*) and *śabdālaṅkāra* (*śollaṇi*). Each *sūtra* is followed by an explanation and illustration, all believed to be by the author, and some of the illustrative stanzas are in praise of Anapāya Chola (Kulottunga II). The name of the author and the details of the life are lost. The *Neminādam* of Guṇavirapaṇḍita is a short treatise of less than 100 verses in the *veṇbā* metre treating of the orthographs and parts of speech (*eḻuttu* and *śol*) of the Tamil language. The author, a Jain of the time of Kulottunga III, named his work after Neminātha, the *tīrthankara* of South Mylapore. Another work of the same writer on prosody was *Vaccaṇandi-mālai* (‘the Garland of Vaccaṇandi’), named after the author’s guru; it is also known as *Veṇbāppāṭṭiyal*. The *Nannūl* (‘The Good Book’) was the work of Pavaṇandi, another Jaina grammarian patronized by a Ganga feudatory of Kulottunga III. It treats only of *eḻuttu* and *śol*, and it is not known whether the author stopped there or the rest of the work has been lost. By its simplicity and terseness, it has practically displaced all other books as the beginner’s handbook of Tamil grammar. The *Purapporuḷ-veṇbāmālai* of Aiyanāridanār, yet another Jaina writer, defines the conventions governing the *tuṟais* (situations) of *puṟam* and illustrates each *tuṟai* by a *veṇbā*; in some respects it differs from the *Tolkāppiyam*, and is said to be based on an early work called *Pannirupaḍalam*.

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In lexicography the large *nigaṇḍu* (lexicon) called *Pingalam* after its author belongs to this period. Its topical divisions are different from those of *Divākaram*, the earliest extant lexicon composed by Divākara under the patronage of a Śendan of Ambar sometime in the eighth century A.D. Little is known of the author of *Pingalam*; he is mentioned in the *Nannūl* and seems to have been a Śaiva.

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The philosophical literature of Śaiva-siddhānta had its beginnings date in this period in two works, *Tiruvundiyār* by Tiruviyalūruyyavanda-dēvar and *Tirukkaḷiṟṟuppaḍiyar* by Tirukkaḍavūruyyavanda-dēvar; the latter is said to have been the pupil of the former and these two works composed in 1148 and 1178 are the only ones among the fourteen works comprising the Siddhānta-śāstra that precede *Śiva-Ñāna-Bōdam* of Meykaṇḍār, the celebrated manual of Śaivism.

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The fourth and last great period of Tamil literature that will engage our attention extended from 1200 to 1650 and was marked by a large output of philosophical works, commentaries, Purāṇas and Prabandhas. Much of this literature is derivative and second-rate, and one gets the impression that the age of creative achievement has given place to imitation and criticism. A somewhat arid scholasticism found much encouragement in the numerous *maṭhas* that begin to play a prominent part in the educational system of the country. The numerous authors of the period belonged mostly to the Śaiva or Vaishnava sects, though some Jaina writers continued to write also. Though the emperors of Vijayanagar and most of their feudatories even as far south as Madura were Telugus with a decided preference for Sanskrit and Telugu, there is no reason to think that there was any setback in Tamil literary work, and the Pāndyas, confined to the extreme south from the fifteenth century, bestowed particular attention to the cultivation of Tamil.

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Early in this period, in the first half of the thirteenth century, came Meykaṇḍār who formulated the tenets of Śaiva-siddhānta in his Śiva-Ñāna-Bōdam, a short treatise of a dozen Sūtras, perhaps translated from a Sanskrit original. The author has added vārttikas which explain and illustrate the argument of each of the Sūtras. The scheme of the work is simple: the first three Sūtras affirm the existence of the three entities—God (pati), Bondage (pāśa), and Soul (paśu); the three next define and explain their nature and interrelation; the next triad deals with the means of release, and the last with its nature. ‘The Veda,’ it has been said, ‘is the cow; its milk is the true āgama; the Tamil sung by the four in Dēvāram and Tiruvāśagam is the ghee extracted from it; and the virtue of the Tamil work of Meykaṇḍār of the celebrated (city of) Veṇṇai is the fine taste of the ghee.’ After the Bōdam, the next work of importance on Śaiva doctrine is the Śiva-Ñāna-Sittiyār of Aruṇandi, reputed to have been first the guru of Meykaṇḍār’s father and then the disciple of Meykaṇḍār himself. Written altogether in verse, this work is a statement of the true doctrine (supakkam) in viruttam verses, following the order of the Sūtras in the Bōdam; this statement is preceded by a critical discussion of rival systems (para-pakkam) of which no fewer than fourteen, including four schools of Buddhism and two of Jainism, are passed under review. This is the great classic of Tamil Śaiva doctrine; often commented on, it has been the most widely read manual on the subject. The Irupāv-irupahdu by the same writer owes its name to the alternate use of two metres in its twenty verses in the form of a dialogue between teacher and pupil. The name of the author’s guru, Meykaṇḍār, occurs in each of these twenty verses. The Uṇmai-viḷakkam (‘Explanation of the Truth’) of Manavāśagan-gaḍandār of Tiruvadi (South Arcot) is the simplest of the manuals on the doctrine, true to the essence of the Āgamas. Umāpati-śivācārya (end of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century) was the author of the remaining eight works which complete the tale of the fourteen Śaiva-siddhānta-śāstras.¹ One of them, Saṅkarpanirākaraṇam, is dated 1313. Like the para-pakkam of the Sittiyār, it is a critique of other creeds; but, unlike the earlier work, it is much exercised with the minute differences within the fold of Śaivism. Both these works were commented on in the sixteenth century by Ñānaprakāśar of Tiruvorriyūr who also composed a Purāṇa on his birthplace (c. 1580).

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¹ Some Mss. include Tugaḷarubōdam of Śirrambalanāḍigaḷ of Shiyali (fourteenth century) in the place of Uṇmaineri-viḷakkam ascribed to Umāpati.

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At the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century came Svarūpānanda Dēśikar and his pupil Tattuvarāyar, authors of two celebrated anthologies bearing on the philosophy of Advaita. The Śivaprakāśap-perundiraṭṭu comprising 2,824 verses is the work of the teacher; that of the pupil, called Kurundiraṭṭu, (short anthology), includes almost exactly half as many verses as the bigger work. The two anthologies together conserve much of the religious and philosophical literature of the silver age of Śaivism in the Tamil country that would otherwise have been lost. Tattuvarāyar was an ascetic, like his guru, and author of many devotional poems and songs, some of which were remarkable for the simplicity of their diction and their wide appeal to the common man; the songs in particular were of the nature of ditties and created many new models that were extensively followed by subsequent composers. Among the poems may be named Pāḍutuṟai, Ñānavinōdan Kalambakam, Mōhavadaip-paraṇi and Aññavadaip-paraṇi. Even wider in its appeal was the Tiruppugaḷ of Aruṇagiri-nātha, over 1,360 songs in various metres handled with the utmost skill and characterized by a unique lilt. The diction is highly Sanskritized and the imagery vivid; the author's wide knowledge of the sacred lore of Hinduism is evident in every song. His mention of Praudhadeva Rāya places him in the fifteenth century. His life has become the subject of many legends, but the references in the songs show that for a time he led the life of a libertine which he afterwards regretted. He accepted Muruga or Kārttikeya as the supreme deity, and in philosophy he followed the Śaiva-siddhānta system. He seems to have visited all the shrines of Muruga and been particularly attached to Paḷani which figures largely in the Tiruppugaḷ. A number of shorter devotional poems, all in praise of Muruga also are attributed to him. A certain Śivaprakāśar of Madura (1489) wrote valuable commentaries on Irupāv-irupahdu of Aruṇandi and Śivaprakāśam of Umāpati. Haridāsa was a Vaishnava poet who adorned the court of the celebrated Krishnadeva Rāya of Vijayanagar, and wrote the Irusamaya-viḷakkam, an exposition of the two systems, viz. Śaivism and Vaishnavism, with a bias towards the latter. The Śivadaru-mōttaram (1553) of Maṟaiñānasambandar, who lived in a maṭha in Chidambaram, contains over 1,200 verses in twelve sections based on the Āgamas and dealing with cosmology, with the temple and its constitution, and with theology. The same author wrote also the Śaiva-samaya-neṟi (‘the path of the Śaiva creed’), 727 small stanzas (kuṟaḷ veṇbās) on the daily religious observances of Śaivas. About the same time (1564) Śivāgrayogi alias Śivak-koḷundu Dēśikar composed an authoritative commentary on the whole of the Sittiyār, besides other works on ritualism, asceticism and other religious subjects. Another famous writer who flourished at the same time was Kamalai Ñānaprakāśar, the author of many manuals of Śaiva worship, besides the Purāṇa on Tirumaḷuvāḍi, and a kōvai on Tiruvaṇṇāmalai. Māśilāmaṇi Sambandar’s Purāṇa on Uttarakōśamangai is very important for the life-story of Māṇikka-vāśagar. Niramba Aḷagiya Dēśikar wrote Sētu-purāṇam which is popular among scholars as it uses all the rare words listed in the lexicons and is considered helpful in enriching the vocabulary of aspiring writers. He wrote also Purāṇas on Tiruppaṟangiri and Tiruvaiyāṟu, and a commentary on the Sittiyār, differing in some ways from his elder contemporary Śivāgrayogi. He had many pupils who composed several minor Purāṇas and religious works including the well-known Tiruvālūr-purāṇam (1592). Turaśai Ambalavāṇa-Dēśikar (c. 1605) was the author of many religious works like the Sittānta-śikāmaṇi, Niṭṭai-viḷakkam and Sanmārga-śittiyār, besides the Pūppiḷḷai-aṭṭavaṇai, an easy prose exposition of Śaiva philosophy said to have been composed for the edification of a loyal attendant.

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A certain Tuṟaiyūr Śivaprakāśa-svāmi was a contemporary of Lingama Nāyaka of Vellore (early seventeenth century). He is said to have embraced Vira-śaivism to win the Nāyaka’s favour and induce him to restore worship in the shrine of Naṭarāja at Chidambaram, interrupted by the intolerance of the Vaishnava officials of Vijayanagar. Among his works Advaita-veṇbā expounds the Śaiva philosophy in 218 verses based on the Āgamas, particularly the Vātula, while others like Gaṇa-bhāshita-ratnamālai and Śatakatrayam deal with the theology and philosophy of Viraśaivism. Of more than ordinary interest is the work of Mādai Tiruvengaḍanāthar, an officer of the Nāyak of Madura at Kayattār in the Tinnevelly district about 1633. He undertook the exposition of Advaita Vedānta in a long Tamil poem and sought to excel Krishna Miśra who expounded the same system in the popular Sanskrit drama Prabodha-Candrodaya. The Tamil work also bears the name of its model and has an alternative name Meyññāna-viḷakkam (exposition of true knowledge), 48 cantos comprising 2,019 verses. Being a high official, Tiruvengaḍa patronized many poets. One of the latest works of Śaiva philosophy was Ñānā-bharaṇa-viḷakkam, a commentary on Śiva-Ñāna-Śittiyār by Veḷḷiyambala Tambirān (c. 1650), a disciple of the famous Kumaraguruparar. It is an extensive Bhāshya replete with citations from Āgamas of which the author also translated some into Tamil.

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