Cilappatikaram -the Tale of an Anklet

AuthorshËp.
Tamil tradition aseribes the composition eof the epie to Ilanko Atikal (the Venerable Ascetic
Prince), the younger brother of the Ceral King. Cenkuttuvan.
Not much is knovwn about poct Even his namnc is not known. "Ilanko Atikal" is a generic name,
not a Proper Namc.

Probably he took the story from oral tradition and put it into writing. Ilanko is a Jain monk who
renounces the world.

His name appears in the Prologue (Patikam) which could bea later interpolation.
Like Homer, he was a redactor. perhaps. That the author was a Jain monk there is little doubt as
Jain ideas crisscross the narrative. Kavuni Atikal, a Jain nun and Kovalan's spiritual guide is an
eloquent and persuasive apologist for Jainism.
Since the King's recognition of the cult of Pattini gave it legitimacy, and institutionalized its
status, it is keeping with Indian literary convention to ascribe the composition to a Prince of
royal house. This cnsures an appropriate pedigree for the poem.
The Title
The title explicitly signals the poem's intention.
It tells the story ( Ta. 'atikaram") of the events centred around an anklet ( Ta. 'cilappu'?
'cilampu).
Since the anklet is one of the insignias of the goddess Pattini, the title establishes the sacred
character of the story: the heroine Kannaki's apotheosis into the goddess.
Genre and standing
When we talk of the Indian epic tradition, the Ramayana, and the Mahablharata dominate the
discourse to the exclusion of poems in the vernaculars.
The Cilappatikaram is a great Tamil epic from the South of India. It is a quintessential Tamil
poem that, in the words of Subramania Bharati, "rends the hearts"
The epic has possessed the imagination of the Tamil people for more than 1500 years as a staple
in both its oral and its written traditions, crossing generic boundaries to be retold in verse, prose.
fiction, drama and film.
Cilappatikaram abounds in Jain, Buddhist and Hindu traditions. It spells out the problems that
humanity has been wrestling with for a long time: love, war, the inevitability of death, evil and
God's justice. Chastity and destiny are important themes here.
The Enic word-Traditianand Desiation
The Sanskrit and Greek epics are centered around the ruling class, and war is integral to it. The
protagonists of Cilappatikaram are from the merchant class, and war is not the ecentral foeus, The
tamil epic , having a Jain bias, has non-violence as integral to it. Kavunthi is the mouthpiece of
this philosophy.
The fact that the central character- the protagonist- of Cilappatikaram is a woman makes it stand
in a subversive relationship with, say, The Mahablharata. The epic tradition is being re written by
Ilanko.

The semi divine (demi-gods) warriors of the traditional epics are replaced with a mortal woman
who is transformed into a divinity.
llanko does not imitate the Sanskrit epic. It builds upon forms indigenous to Tamil, which it
perfects.
As a female protagonist, Kannaki disrupts the epie structure and calls its presuppositions into
question. In her grief, she becomes a woman out of control, and, therefore, dangerous.

Viewed in this light, The Book Of Vanci is probably an elaborate rite of propitiation to appease
the wrath of Kannaki and to invoke her blessings as goddess Pattini. By foregrounding Kannaki,
rather than one of the Tamil kings, as would be normal in an epic, Ilanko shows his preference
for the mythic, and to a lesser extent, the erotic over the heroic aspects of the poem.
It is a bold departure from the Indo-Furopcan epic tradition. While in the Mahabharata , the
society is based on caste (varna'), Ilanko depicts a form of social organization indigenous to the
Tamils. The orgunization follows the traditional division of the Tamil country into its five
regions (hill, forest, famand, seashore and waste land) and the occupation of the people
associated with them.

There are convergences too. The sacred and ritual quality is one such convergence with the
traditionul Sanskrit epies. In these cpics, the poct is never prinarily and entertainer, but
essentiallya guide who offers enlightenment beyond the local social and political knowledge.
The Hernine Kannaki
Subversive in being female.
. She unsexes herself-the breaking of the anklet., and the wrenching of a breast.
" Myth of Antigone.
 Abandoncd women in epics : Sita, Penelopc.
" Kannaki's rage and apotheosis-recovering the women's voice.
" A goddess.
The Story
The Book of Pukar
Pukar, the Cola capita, is celebrating the wedding of Kovalan and Kannaki who belong to two
prominent families. They live happily after their marriage: Kannaki excels in keeping house, and
Kovalan dotes on her.

Matavi, a courtesan, is honoured by the Cola King for her talent as a dancer with a garland and
one thousand and eight pieces of gold. Matavi puts the garland for sale through her maid
Vacantamalai, who announces that her mistress will welcome the buyer as her husband. On
hearing this, Kovalan buys the garland. He lcaves Kannaki and moves in with Matavi.
Abandoned by Kovalan, Kannaki is heart broken.

It is Spring, and Pukar celcbrates the festival of ndra. People throng the sea shore to take part in
the revels. Kovalan and Matavi join the revelers and set up a pavilion on the sea shore. Matavi
takes her lute out and puts it in Kovaan's hands, and he sings one song after another about a
lovely woman who hurts her lover. Matavi hastily assumes that Kivalan is no longer interested in
her. She takes the lute from him and sings about a lady betrayed in love. Kovalan too thinks that
she is in love with some one clse, and leaves her at once. Matavi returns home with an empty
heart. She writes Kovalan a touching letter sent through her maid. In Kovalan's view, Matavi's
love for him was nothing but an elaborate masquerade. After all, he tells Vacantimalai, Matavi is
only a dancing girl, and he should have known better. Unsuccessful in persuading him to return,
Matavi quietly endures the agony of her loss.
Meanwhile, Kannaki has a terrible dream in which she leans of some misfortune striking
Kovalan. Soon Kovalan arrives and confesses his indiseretion. Together, they decide to leave for
Maturai, the Pantiya capital, to recover their fortunes with a pair of Kannaki's anklets, since
Kovalan had squandered all he had on Matavi.carly next morming, unbeknownst to their parents,
they leave Pukar. On the way they are joined by Kavunti, a Jain ascetic, with whom they travel
to Uraiyur. The three journey south through the bleak forests separating the Cola and Pantiya
kingdoms.
The Book of MMaturai
Kovalan and his two companions arrive on the banks of Vaiyai overlooking the towers of
Maturai. IHe leaves Kannaki in Kavunti's care and slips unnoticed into maturai past the Yavana
guards to take the sights of the city. When he returns to the grove where Kavunti is, the Brahman
Matalan informs him of the birth of Manimakalai, his daughter by Matavi. Kovalan tells the
Brahman of his dream in Pukar in which he saw himself riding a horned buffalo, the mount of
Yama, the King of the dead. Thinking that misfotune might strike him there, Kovalan explains,
he left Maturai immediately. Kavunti entrusts Kannaki to the care of the herdswoman Matari.
Both Kovalan and Kannaki follow her to her herds people's quarters, while Kavunti remains
behind in the grove outside the city.
Kannaki, with the help of Matari's daughter. Aiyai. prepares food and serves it to Kovalan. A
deeply troubled Kovalan, once agsin. despises himself for the troubles he has brought on
Kannaki and their parents, and confesses that he hadn't kept to the straight and narrow path.
Kannaki, for the first and only time, reproaches him and speaks her heart out about the pin his
indiscretion has caused her. Afier a tearful farewell, he leaves for the market place with one of
the anklets. which he hopes to sell and put aside as capita. As he walks out a humped bull
appears before him, but he does not notice it. It is a bad omen. He sees the royal goldsmith and
approaches him to estimate the picce of anklet. The gold smith examines it and asks Kovalan to
wait near his hut. The goldsmith hurries to the palace and reports to the King that he has caught
the thief who had stolen the queen's unklet. The King is on his way to pacify the queen following
a quarrel with her. He orders his guards to execute Kovalan and recover the anklet, thus
bypassing the law and doing avway with a trial in his anxiety to be reconciled to the queen. The
King's guards follow the goldsmith to his hut. Struck by Kovalan's innocence they hesitate to
kill him. But the goldsmith lectures to them on the skill and cunning of thieves. Just then, one of
the guards cuts Kovalan down with his sword. The goldsmith feels relieved that his crime will
now remain a secret, for of course, it is he who had stolen the queen's anklet.
Matari, notices inauspicious omens in the herds pcople's quarters and suspects that some evil is
about to happen. To ward off any calamity, she arranges for a round dance enacting incidents
from the life of the god Krishna to be performed innhis prate When the dance is over, Matari
walks down to the river Vaiyai to bathe. There she hears about Kovalan's murder but does not
have the heart to tell Kannaki. Instead, a stranger breaks the news to Kannaki. Kannaki is in deep
grief and denounces the Pantiya King. The peopte of Maturai condemn their King for his
injustice. Kannaki finds her husband ina pool of blood, and embraces him. It appears to her that
he rises on his feet, wipes the tears from her eyes and ascends to heaven, telling her to live in
peace.

Kannaki rushes to the palace to demund an explanation from the King. e queen sees
inauspicious omens in a dream and is telling the King about them when Kannaki's cries rends the
air insisting on an audience with the King. Ankles in hand, she charges the king with murder of
her husband. The king defends himself sying that it was his duty to kill a thief. Kannaki then
breaks open her anklet and gems leap out proving Kovalan's innocence since the queen's anklet
only contains pcarls.
Kannaki proves her husband's innocence. The king acknowledges his guilt and dies : the queen
follows him. In a rage, Kannaki walks out of the palace. She curses Maturai, wrenches her left
breast off her body, and huris it over the city, which instantly goes up in flames. The tutelary
deity of Maturai appears before Kannaki and consoles her. She tells her that Kovalan, in a former
birth was known as Bharata. While he was in service of the King. Vasu, he mistook one
Cankaman, a merchant, for a spy and beheaded him. Distraught beyond words, Cankaman's wife
Nilli cursed Bharata as she jumped offa clift. The deity tells Kannaki that in fourteen days she
will join her husband in heaven. Kannaki then leaves Maturai and travels West till she arrives at
Netuval Hill in the Ceral country from where she ascends to heaven in Indra's chariot.
The Book of Vanci
The hill dwellers witness Kannaki's uscension. They meet the Ceral King, Cenkuttuvan camping
on the banks of the Periyar and reports to him what they had seen. The poet, Cattan is also there.
und he relates to the king the unhappy tale of the events that hud occurred in Maturai. Queen
Ilanko venmal tells the king that Kannaki should be worshipped as a goddess. Cenkuttuvan
decides to install a memorial stone for Kannaki taken from the Himalaya and inscribed with her
image. He prepares to march to northern India to obtain the stone and also vows to subdue the
Arya rulers who had spoken with contempt about the Tamil kings. He defeats them in a pitched
battle. He engraves the image of Kannaki as the goddess Pattini on the stone brought from the
Himalayas, and has it lustrated in the river Ganga. The Brahman, Matalan arrives at the King's
camp, and informs him that both Kavunti and Matari have taken their lives to atone for their
failure to protect Kannaki, and Matavi has entered a Buddhist nunnery and taken the holy vowvs.

Cenkuttuvan then returns home to his capital Vanci. He installs the image of Pattini in a temple,
dedicates it and orders the daily worship of the goddess. On the advice of Matalan, he performs
the Rajasuya , the royal sacrifice', as a mark of his undisputed sovereignty and establishes
himself as the universal emperor of the Tamil country. He endows the temple of Pattini and
offers worship with a host of kings, including Gajabahu of Lanka. The goddess herself blesses
the occasion.
Form

Cilappatikuram is conjectured to have been composed in the s century C.E. Originally

consisting of 5730 lines, the epic is written pralominntly in the akaval meter-"the master's
meter"- predominant meter of epic poetry. Each ine has four feet except the penultimate which
has only three feet. The shortened penultimate line indicates the approaching end of a Canto
(major division of a long poem). There are a few passages of prose too in the poem- the earliest
examples of prose in Tamil literature.
The poem is divided into 3 Books( Kantams). Fach Book is divided into Cantos (Katais).

The Books are namned after the capitals of the 3 Tamil Kingdoms- Cola, Pantiya and Ceral- that
constitute the poem's setting.
In addition to the Cantos, there are song cycles that function as a Chorus ( a group of singers and
dancers in ancient Greek plays who take part in or talk about thee things that are happening on
stage) to comment on the events of the narrative. The song cycles follow the conventions of
classical Tamil poetry

The 3 Books represent the three distinct phases throuuh which the narrative moves-the Erotic
(akam). the Mythic ( Puranam), and the Heroic( Puram). The Erotic and the heroic are the
traditional categories of Tamil discourse. The poet enlarges it and deepens its resonanee by
ndding a mythic dimension to it.
Love in all its aspeets is explored in the 'Book of Pukar" using the conventions of Tamil erotie
poetry. The 'Book of Maturai" retells the myth of Kannaki's apotheosis into the goddess Pattini.
The heroic aspects of Kingship are the subject of the 'Book of Vanci". Here again, the poet
follows the conventions of Tamil heroic poetry. Kannaki's exemplary life as a chaste wife
impacts on all three phases of the narrative, and makes it structurally coherent.
The Tamill countrv, the Tale and the Themes
For ncarly 2000 years, the Tamil country has had a distinct culture of its own. It consisted of
three Kingdoms- Cola, Pantiya and Ceral. Ilanko, like other poets, sings the praise of the Tamil
country. The Cilappatikarm speaks for all the Tamils as no other work of Tamil literature does; it
presents them with an expansive vision of the Tamil imperium, and at the sume time embodies a
concem for spiritual knowledge represented by Kanaki's apotheosis. No other work has
endeared itself more to the Tamils than the unhappy tale of Kannaki and Kovalan.
The Cilappatikur is one of the literary masterpicces of the world : it is to the Tamils what the
Iliad is to the Grecks- the story of their civilisation.