Problematics of a structured social codification: Re-reading Kannaki/Pattini in Cillapatikaram
Did she know,
Before the ladder of fire
Raised her to heaven
What would become
Of her sweet Tamil Country?
(Parthasarathy 58)
Epics prove to be an integral part in the depiction and reflection of life. The narratives, tradition and
custom that form the essentialities of an epic are drawn from reflective life. Narratives are
documentation of things that have existed long before it was written and hence can be taken as
validation of the life and culture that is our own and that is to be emulated or rejected. The oldest Tamil
literature dates back to 150 to 250 BC and is to be found in many anthologies which were then grouped
in two large collections, Ettothokai(The Eight Anthologies) and Pathupattu(The Ten Long Poems).
These together with ‘The Tale of an Anklet’ (5th C AD), The Descent of Rama (12 th c AD) and the
medieval hymns of the Saivia and Vaishnava poets are outstanding produce of the Tamil mind. R.
Parthasarathy says that later Tamil literature in the last two thousand years have not been able to surpass
an achievement of this kind. (253)
Chronologically, Tamil literature began to take shape and find articulation around 600 BC,
which approximately marked the beginning of the Sangam Age. The age derived its name from the three
successive Buddhist Sangams or Poetic assemblies that are said to have flourished under the royal
patronage of the Pantiya kings in Madurai. This age is known as the Sangam Age and extends roughly
between 300 BC and 300 AD and produced almost the entire bulk of the literary work of the time
available to us now. The first sangam, which according to tradition had more than 4,000 member-poets
and the second sangam of more than 3,500 poets are now lost to us. The literature of the third sangam
that flourished for two thousand years in Madurai had around 500 poets.(Mangalam 3) Sangam
literature was primarily secular in nature dealing with everyday themes. Some extant poetry of the third
sangam is available to us. Cilappatikaram belongs to this third sangam. Others include Manimekalai,
, Civaka Chinthamani, Valayapati and Kundalakesi. These were written towards the fading end of the
Sangam era and scholars are in doubt about their exact date and authorship.
Cilappatikaram is a Tamil epic of 5,730 lines written in ‘akaval’ metre and is supposed to be
composed around the fifth century CE. The book is credited to the Prince–ascetic IlangoAdigal who is
said to be the younger brother of the Chera King Cenkuttavan and is said to have renounced the princely
life due to an oracle that he, the younger brother, would ascend the throne (Canto 30, lines 171-73). The
epic was lost due to neglect until U. V. Swaminatha Iyer collected the crumbling palm leaf manuscripts
and published it in 1892CE. He added a lot of commentary and explanatory notes explaining the context.
The book was translated into English first by the French historian and Indologist Alain Danielou as
Shilappadikâram, The Ankle Bracelet in 1965 and later by the noted Indian poet R. Parthasarthy from
Columbia University Press in 1993. This book won Parthasarathy the A. K. Ramanujan book prize for
Translation in 1996. On his translation Parthasarathy wrote “I envied Ilango his great epic, and the only
way I could possess the poem, make it my own was to rewrite it in English. My assimilation of Ilango is
a form of translation – rewriting a poem in English that I could not myself write in Tamil…The Tale of
anklet is India’s finest epic in a language other than Sanskrit. It is to the Tamils what the Iliad is to the
Greeks: the story of their civilization.”(253)
Cilappatikaram narrates itself across the three major Tamil kingdoms-the Chola kingdom with
its capital in Pukar, the Pantiya kingdom with its capital in Maturai and the Chera kingdom with its
capital in Banci. Cilappatikaram is divided into three books and each book is divided further into cantos
– The Book of Pukar(10cantos), the Book of Maturai(13 cantos) and The Book of Banci(7 cantos) and
moves from ‘akam’or the erotic in the first book to the mythic in the second book to the ‘puram’ or
heroic in the third book. The narrative structure of the poem indicates the vision of an epic in its
presentation of the landscape, people, prosperity, poetry, music, dance, adherence to the tenets of
dharma and karma, heroism and notions of justice, patronage to arts and religion, ruler-subject
relationship, tradition etc in the three Tamil kingdoms. The conspicuous absence of the powerful Pallava
kingdom is evidence of the hostile relationship existing between the Pallavas and the Cholas and the
Pantiyas.
Cilappatikaram incorporates the essence that makes Dravidian epic literature distinctly different
from Aryan literature – “it does not imitate the Sanskrit epic…it builds upon forms indigenous to Tamil
Did she know,
Before the ladder of fire
Raised her to heaven
What would become
Of her sweet Tamil Country?
(Parthasarathy 58)
Epics prove to be an integral part in the depiction and reflection of life. The narratives, tradition and
custom that form the essentialities of an epic are drawn from reflective life. Narratives are
documentation of things that have existed long before it was written and hence can be taken as
validation of the life and culture that is our own and that is to be emulated or rejected. The oldest Tamil
literature dates back to 150 to 250 BC and is to be found in many anthologies which were then grouped
in two large collections, Ettothokai(The Eight Anthologies) and Pathupattu(The Ten Long Poems).
These together with ‘The Tale of an Anklet’ (5th C AD), The Descent of Rama (12 th c AD) and the
medieval hymns of the Saivia and Vaishnava poets are outstanding produce of the Tamil mind. R.
Parthasarathy says that later Tamil literature in the last two thousand years have not been able to surpass
an achievement of this kind. (253)
Chronologically, Tamil literature began to take shape and find articulation around 600 BC,
which approximately marked the beginning of the Sangam Age. The age derived its name from the three
successive Buddhist Sangams or Poetic assemblies that are said to have flourished under the royal
patronage of the Pantiya kings in Madurai. This age is known as the Sangam Age and extends roughly
between 300 BC and 300 AD and produced almost the entire bulk of the literary work of the time
available to us now. The first sangam, which according to tradition had more than 4,000 member-poets
and the second sangam of more than 3,500 poets are now lost to us. The literature of the third sangam
that flourished for two thousand years in Madurai had around 500 poets.(Mangalam 3) Sangam
literature was primarily secular in nature dealing with everyday themes. Some extant poetry of the third
sangam is available to us. Cilappatikaram belongs to this third sangam. Others include Manimekalai,
, Civaka Chinthamani, Valayapati and Kundalakesi. These were written towards the fading end of the
Sangam era and scholars are in doubt about their exact date and authorship.
Cilappatikaram is a Tamil epic of 5,730 lines written in ‘akaval’ metre and is supposed to be
composed around the fifth century CE. The book is credited to the Prince–ascetic IlangoAdigal who is
said to be the younger brother of the Chera King Cenkuttavan and is said to have renounced the princely
life due to an oracle that he, the younger brother, would ascend the throne (Canto 30, lines 171-73). The
epic was lost due to neglect until U. V. Swaminatha Iyer collected the crumbling palm leaf manuscripts
and published it in 1892CE. He added a lot of commentary and explanatory notes explaining the context.
The book was translated into English first by the French historian and Indologist Alain Danielou as
Shilappadikâram, The Ankle Bracelet in 1965 and later by the noted Indian poet R. Parthasarthy from
Columbia University Press in 1993. This book won Parthasarathy the A. K. Ramanujan book prize for
Translation in 1996. On his translation Parthasarathy wrote “I envied Ilango his great epic, and the only
way I could possess the poem, make it my own was to rewrite it in English. My assimilation of Ilango is
a form of translation – rewriting a poem in English that I could not myself write in Tamil…The Tale of
anklet is India’s finest epic in a language other than Sanskrit. It is to the Tamils what the Iliad is to the
Greeks: the story of their civilization.”(253)
Cilappatikaram narrates itself across the three major Tamil kingdoms-the Chola kingdom with
its capital in Pukar, the Pantiya kingdom with its capital in Maturai and the Chera kingdom with its
capital in Banci. Cilappatikaram is divided into three books and each book is divided further into cantos
– The Book of Pukar(10cantos), the Book of Maturai(13 cantos) and The Book of Banci(7 cantos) and
moves from ‘akam’or the erotic in the first book to the mythic in the second book to the ‘puram’ or
heroic in the third book. The narrative structure of the poem indicates the vision of an epic in its
presentation of the landscape, people, prosperity, poetry, music, dance, adherence to the tenets of
dharma and karma, heroism and notions of justice, patronage to arts and religion, ruler-subject
relationship, tradition etc in the three Tamil kingdoms. The conspicuous absence of the powerful Pallava
kingdom is evidence of the hostile relationship existing between the Pallavas and the Cholas and the
Pantiyas.
Cilappatikaram incorporates the essence that makes Dravidian epic literature distinctly different
from Aryan literature – “it does not imitate the Sanskrit epic…it builds upon forms indigenous to Tamil
