Every visitor to
Parnassus looking up and beyond catches a glimpse of misty mountains, whole
ranges in fact fading into the distance promising glories too great for a
lifetime, while the trekker hears that further yet beyond are fabled range upon
range rarely entered even by the footloose.
Who can know the languages to appreciate the Persian Shahnameh, the
Kievan Rus Tale of Igor’s Campaign, the Malinke Epic of Sundiata,
or the Epic of Siri, in Tulu language from old Mysore? Yet
even a glance or a day-stroll into these unknown realms is salutary for the
reader who wishes to come to know literature in general.
I came upon the Shilappadikakaram
(The Ankle Bracelet) [1] in a chance encounter, as a remaindered volume of
which I was entirely ignorant, knowing of Tamil only that it was spoken in the
south of India and in Sri Lanka. Upon
the most superficial inquiry I learned that this poem, dated to about the fifth
century C. E. is only one of Tamil’s “Five Great Epics.” These epics in turn were a portion of the
vast literary compendium known as The Eighteen Greater Texts which included as
well the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Idylls.
Then follow the so-called Eighteen Lesser Texts as well as countless
other works, and we are still in the period in which Beowulf had yet to
find its written form.
The poems deep
roots in orality and performance are most evident in the recurring
formulae. Kannaki (at age eleven) ”had
the graces of a golden liana” (4). She
is not, however, unique, as a few lines later we encounter a whole troupe (5)
“lithe as golden lianas.” A reader may
tire of hearing of all the lovely women wearing “shining bracelets,” with
“collyrium-painted” eyes, putting musk in their hair and patterns of sandalwood
paste on their breasts. King
Shenguttuvan is called “the king, whose army is invincible,” the king, before
whom all lances tremble” and “the king, whose army, vast as the ocean.” [2] The
use of such conventional phrases and epithets occurs throughout.
These set phrases
define significant elements of culture, beginning with the view of beauty for
women and power for monarchs as the most prominent signs of excellence. Yet, just as Homeric set formulae define
practices of sacrifice and of hospitality, the Tamil poem sets forth expected
standards of behavior. For instance,
Kannaki complains of Kovalan’s death as though her grief results from her
inability to perform the ordinary practices of her day, saying, “In my
husband’s absence, I could not distribute presents to good men, honor Brahmins,
welcome saintly monks, or receive friends, as is done in all noble homes.”
(107) Here the final words make it clear
that she is simply detailing what was expected of all respectable people.
In the most
general sense the patterns of language construct a particular ambiance setting
the tone of the story rather like a production designer might do for a
film. In the Shilappadikaram a
luxurious, richly woven tapestry of aestheticism underlies every scene. When vassals approach Shenguttuvan, the list
of their tribute goes on for ten lines, including millet, garlic, “creepers in
bloom,” tigers, lions, elephants, “deer with their fawns,” wildcats, and
“sweet-spoken parrots.” (156) The mere
length of the list is an index to the king’s might.
Preparation for
the feast of Indra, the most regal of deities, in Puhār
is grandly magnificent, recalling descriptions of tournaments in medieval
European romances. The viewing stands
are “studded with emeralds and brilliants, and had pillars of coral.” Elaborate embroideries are hung about as well
as elephant tusks, and strings of pearls.
Gold vases are set out and “metal lamps shaped like girls” along with
“golden flags, feather fans, scented paste, and fragrant flower festoons.” A “thousand and eight kings” bring “on their
heads “jars filled with the sacred water, scented with fresh pollen.” (22-3) Such passages may be considered like
cinematic special effects, simulating for all the most spectacular scenes in a
manner reminiscent of extravagant film scenes from Intolerance to Ben-Hur.
The splendor of
such displays is matched by the poet’s reveling in sensual experience in less
public scenes. The description of the
music to accompany Madhāvi’s performance is so technical and precise, it could
only have been written for connoisseurs.
The description of the dancer’s dressing to please Kovalan alone implies
a taste for opulence. She washes her
hair with “oil mixed with ten kinds of astringents, five spices, and a blend of
thirty-two pungent herbs. She dried it
in the smoke of incense and anointed each tress with heavy musk paste.” Madhavi proceeds to adorn herself with foot
make-up and a fabulous array of jewelry -- gold, coral, and gemstones – until
“within her elaborate love-chamber, she offered Kovalan pleasures ever
renewed.” (28-9)
In fact the most
intense and consistent notes of the poem’s sensuality are sexual. Kovalan is identified with Kama, the
personification of desire as well as Krishna, the lover of Radha and the gopis.
[3] Their relations are clothed in
hyperbolic rhetoric implying that she derives her beauty from the gods. “The limbless god of love gave up his bow to
make your dark eyebrows -. . . Shiva
lost his crow n when the moon became your pale forehead . . .Indra their king
gave up his double-trident thunderbolt, that you waist might be wrought from
its steel . . . Murugan, six-faced god of War, gave up his fiery arrowheads so
that your long eyes with their blood-red inner corners might frighten away the
dark clouds of your hair.” (7) “On the bed, strewn with broken garlands, the
lovers spent sweet, pleasure-filled days in close embrace.” (8) In European literature this pinnacle of
exalted jouissance is approached perhaps by Gottfried’s Tristan and Iseult
during their first night together on shipboard.
In springtime “the
celebrated god of Love, with Spring, his gracious friend, ruled the fertile
Tamil land,” heralded by spring’s “messenger, the south wind,” and “the cuckoo,
bugler of the great army of Eros.” (46-7)
“The breeze gently caressed many a lotus-eyed woman lying voluptuously
against the strong chest of her lord.” (16)
And, later: “A soft breeze from the hills wafted the odor of wild and
garden jasmine, of mayilai, of blue water lilies, and of the aphrodisiac
purple lotus . . .” (23) That seductive
wind, like Europe’s west wind Zephyr, signals the annual resurrection of nature
with the violent associations of the “army” image for the moment subdued. Yet the readers will find that this pair of
lovers, like Tristan and Isolde, is headed for disaster. What had seemed an idealized love is
followed by immense suffering -- his infidelity, his death, and the general
destruction that follows. One is
impossible without the other. Just as in
the world at large, life and death, joy and pain, are inextricably linked.
For the ecstasy
of lovers like Kovalan and Kannaki is inevitably fractured by anxiety and
ultimately by death. Indeed the eroticism
of the Shilappadikakaram is profoundly
problematized from the start. The lyric
sequences that divide the narrative are, for the most part songs of love but
they are far from untroubled. In what
Danielou titles an “Ode to the Kaveri” the river is figured as a “fish-eyed
beauty” who is asked not to lament if the monarch “courts” “the lovely Ganges
or “marries” the Virgin of the southern tip of the subcontinent, the Kanya
Kumari. The servant girl then sings of
the distress caused by deceptive seducers who take advantage of their
mistresses. This reminder of duplicity
is succeeded by a song that warns that Death might be concealed “in a young
girl’s form.” The motif is repeated with “cruel Death, disguised as a young
girl,”
. . .conches from the
sea,
bruised by the shameless waves,
Are thrown upon the beach and crash
Upon sand-castles that our girls have built. (34)
The motif of the ruined sand-castles returns, explicitly
identified as sexual assault.
. . . . a
male sea rapes
The sandy castles that we girls construct,
And eyes, sharp as spears, on full-moon faces,
shed bitterest regret’s too tardy tears. (41)
The Shilappadikakaram
is traditionally attributed to a ruler turned Jain monk Ilango Adigal whose
name is first mentioned in a prologue appended to the poem considerably after
its first appearance. However that may
be, though the poem includes many Hindu (and some Buddhist) references, its
primary orientation seems to be a syncretistic Jainism. The depiction in the poem of a simultaneously
creative and destructive love recalls the Jain teaching of a sort of profound
skepticism associated with the many-sidedness doctrine, suggesting the
vulnerability of a single view. In a
broader sense, it also recalls the frequent representation of Hindu deities in
forms multiplying in bipolar oppositions: a beneficent and a malevolent aspect,
a male and female form. Not only are
both genuine; they are in a real sense identical, two sides of the same
experience. The human sensations of joy
and suffering do not exist from a higher perspective.
In my admittedly
uninformed reading of South Asian literature, this poem leads on the one hand
toward the other Tamil writings to capture a fuller vision of India’s deep
south. On the other it suggests
parallels with other cultural manifestations in that vast country such as with
the marvelous erotic carvings of Khajuraho.
The Shilappadikakaram is, however, in itself, and read with
little aid other than the minimal introduction provided by Danielou, a lovely
poem, achingly lyrical, representing a rounded view of the joy and suffering of
human experience. The paradoxes of the
poem are the paradoxes of life.
1.
1. So-called in Alain Danielou’s though Silappatikāram
is more commonly used today. The
photographs Danielou’s partner Raymond Burnier took of the temples in Khajuraho
did much to publicize the site. The
translator’s expertise in Indian music as well as languages and his literary
sensibilities produced a useful and readable edition, though R. Parthasarathy's
1993 English translation is more scholarly and, as it was reprinted in 2004 by
Penguin Books, more easily available.
2.
2. See pages 4 and 5 for the phrases associated
with female beauty and pages 161, 166, and 167 for praise of the king.
3.
3. See pages 9 and 106. According to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
(Fourth Adhyya, Fourth Brahmana), human beings are made of desire.
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