Shilappadikaram Read online

  ALEPH CLASSICS

  * * *

  SHILAPPADIKARAM

  The Indian subcontinent’s literary heritage is unparalleled. For thousands of years significant literary works have been created in many languages—Sanskrit, Tamil, Prakrit, Pali, Urdu and Persian to name a few. Aleph Classics is committed to publishing new translations of the most significant of these works from time to time. These translations will be aimed squarely at the twenty-first-century reader—they will be distinguished by their readability, accessibility and scholarship. Aleph Classics will be elegantly laid out, designed and printed, and will carry on the company’s tradition of publishing handsome, enduring books.

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  promoted by Rupa Publications India

  First published in India in 2016 by

  Aleph Book Company

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  New Delhi 110 002

  Copyright © Alain Daniélou 1965

  All rights reserved.

  The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him/her which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.

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  eISBN: 978-93-84067-72-4

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  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Book One: Puhar

  Book Two: Madurai

  Book Three: The Book of Vanji

  Appendix I: Preamble

  Appendix II: Foreword of a Commentator

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION

  India is a land of many races, many cultures, many languages, many religions. The origins of most of them are lost in the mists of ages so distant that we call it prehistory for mere lack of dated documents. Though many languages in India had very ancient literatures, they all came to be overshadowed by the development of Sanskrit, which became the language of Indian culture, not only because it was the language of the Vedas and all subsequent religious literature, but also because the various parts of India had constant need of a common tongue. Sanskrit, an ‘artificial language’, as its name indicates, was derived from Vedic for this purpose; and it remains to our day, though now in a more limited sense, the link connecting the various cultures of India.

  Many ancient legends and myths and much historical information that we know today only through Sanskrit versions came originally from non-Sanskritic sources. The great epics—the Mahabharata and the Ramayana—and the myths and tales compiled in the vast encyclopaedic works known as the Puranas, probably belonged originally to other languages of India.

  Among these non-Sanskritic languages, the only important ones that have maintained their independent existence and preserved their individuality until our day are the Dravidian languages, probably spoken at one time in most of India but later pushed down into the extreme south. Among these languages Tamil has maintained the greatest purity and has preserved some of its original literature.

  We need not accept as fact the fabulous antiquity that south Indians often claim for the earliest poetical works in Tamil. But most scholars agree that ancient Tamil literature passed through three epochs, known as the Academies, or Sangams. Only the works of the Third Sangam have in part survived. According to Tamil tradition, this Third Sangam, extending over 1,850 years, ended in the third century AD. The third century seems to the present writer to be accurate for the extant last works of the Third Sangam, but its opening date may have been set too early.

  Five major poetical works in Tamil, usually called the Great Poems (Maha Kavya), are attributed to the last part of the Third Sangam and subsequent centuries, i.e., between the third and seventh centuries AD. These poems are really novels in verse. The texts of only three of them have survived, the most important being the Shilappadikaram, The Lay of the Ankle Bracelet. Composed towards the end of the Third Sangam, it may have been slightly reshaped and enlarged during the following centuries.

  The author of The Ankle Bracelet was Prince Ilango Adigal, a brother of King Shenguttuvan, who ruled over the western coast of south India. This prince seems to have been a Jain. As we learn in the novel, all three of the great religions of India—Brahmanism (Hinduism), Jainism, and Buddhism—were at that time harmoniously coexisting in the south.

  The Ankle Bracelet provides us with an astonishing amount of information about the civilization of the period—its arts, customs, religion, and philosophy—as well as a political map of south India and the names of a number of north Indian monarchs, which may, one day, permit us to date accurately the events it relates.

  Already, however, certain internal and external evidence permits a reasonable estimate of its date of composition. The absence of any mention of the Pallavas in the south or of any paramount power in the north would indicate a date anterior to the Gupta-Pallava period. We know, furthermore, that Gajabahu, king of Ceylon, who is mentioned in the Shilappadikaram, began his reign in AD 171. This would set the story near the end of the second century and its composition at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. The date of AD 171, suggested by V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, for the composition of The Ankle Bracelet cannot be very far from reality. This does not exclude, naturally, the possibility of later additions. On the whole, however, the style and vocabulary of the work as we know it seem quite homogeneous and do not indicate multiple authorship.

  There exist two commentaries on the text. One of these, the Arumpadavurai, by an unknown author, is ancient and incomplete; the other, by Adiyarkunallar, was written in the fifteenth century.

  This translation follows the Tamil text established by U. V. Swaminatha Iyer. For difficult passages, I have generally kept to the interpretation suggested by the commentaries.

  For the identification of the names of plants, countries, and peoples, I have most often followed the Tamil Lexicon published by the University of Madras.

  I was led to the study of The Ankle Bracelet in the course of my work on ancient Indian literature concerning musical theory. The interest of the novel seemed to me so great that I undertook its complete translation. The interpretation of the numerous technical terms on music in the text—many of which earlier editors had considered obscure—is based on my analysis of the theoretical possibilities of the ancient musical system, and on parallel theories found in Sanskrit works on music dating between the commencement of the Christian Era and the tenth century. Certain of these interpretations, however, remain hypotheses, and further research may produce a few variants.

  I am very grateful to Mr R. N. Desikan of Madras for his help in preparing the first draft of the translation, to Pandit N. R. Bhatt of the French Institute of Indology, Pondicherry, for his constant help and suggestions, and to Miss May Swenson, the late Sherry Mangan, Hayden Carruth, and James Laughlin of New Directions for their copy-editing.

  Alain Daniélou

  Book One

  PUHAR

  CANTO ONE

  THE BLESSINGS

  Mangalavalttuppadal

  Blessed be the Moon!

  Blessed be the Moon that wraps the Earth

  in misty veils
of cooling light,

  and looms, a royal parasol

  festooned with pollen-laden flowers,

  protecting us.

  Blessed be the Sun!

  Blessed be the Sun that, endless pilgrim,

  slowly circles round the axial mountain,

  image of the royal emblem

  of the beloved monarch of the land

  where the Kaveri flows.

  Blessed be the mighty clouds!

  Blessed be the mighty clouds that on the Earth

  shower down rain as generous

  as he who rules the land

  a raging sea surrounds.

  Blessed be Puhar, city of wonders!

  Blessed be the city of wonders,

  immortal testimony to the power

  of a glorious line of kings

  whose fame has spread to every land

  the boundless sea surrounds.

  Wise men, who study all that man can learn and know, say that Puhar, the wealthy river port, resplendent with the fame of illustrious clans, once raised its head as strong and proud as Mount Podiyil, abode of the sage Agastya, and the peaks of the Himalayas. The splendour of the town rivalled that of heaven. Its pleasures were worthy of the underworld of the Nagas, the divine serpents.

  In this wealthy city lived Manaikan, a famous shipowner, who was more generous than the clouds in the season of the rains. His daughter Kannaki was the most perfect branch ever grown from his tree. Though not yet twelve, she had the grace of a golden liana. The women of Puhar all sang her praises. Admiring her virtues, they said: ‘She is beautiful as Lakshmi, goddess of fortune, as she appears before the gods on her lotus throne. Yet she is more shy than Arundhati, wife of the sage Vasishtha, as she gleams, a tiny star, in the constellation of the seven sages.’

  In Puhar, there also lived a princely merchant named Mashattuvan, whose wealth was boundless. On him and on his parents the monarch had bestowed the highest honours of the realm. Possessor of vast treasure, he gave to the poor a good part of the wealth that his skill had gathered. This Mashattuvan had a son named Kovalan, a youth of sixteen, whose growing fame had already travelled beyond the boundaries of the country.

  Many a young maiden, with face gentle and pale as the new moon in autumn, would say to her trusted friend in a warm voice made tremulous by heavy sighs: ‘Can there be any doubt that Kovalan is really an incarnation of Murugan, god of youth and beauty?’

  The noble parents of Kannaki and Kovalan wished to see them united in the bonds of wedlock on an auspicious day. At this prospect their hearts were filled with joy and pride. They sent maidens of uncommon beauty, mounted on elephants, throughout the city to summon with courteous words many a guest to a splendid bridal feast.

  When, on the chosen day, the bride and groom advanced, white parasols shone high in the sky, as if for a royal parade, through streets echoing with the din of conch and drum. With youthful grace they entered together a pavilion of blue silk sown with pearls, its glittering pillars studded with precious gems and adorned with garlands of auspicious flowers. This was the day when the moon in the sky came nearest to Rohini, the star of happiness.

  Shyly, Kovalan went round the sacred fire according to the Aryan rite, while the priest sang the fateful words. He approached his young bride, who, in her tender grace, stood humble as the faithful star Arundhati. Blessed were the eyes that could witness a sight so rare and delightful.

  Gentle maidens with timid looks laid fragrant spices and odorous blossoms at their feet. Matrons with ample breasts and gleaming plaited hair carried scented powders, sandalwood paste, and incense. Ladies with smiling lips bore lamps and golden ware and tender buds of the hare-leaf palikai. Young women, lithe as golden lianas, with flowers in their hair, scattered rose petals over the newlyweds, singing: May your faultless love last eternally. May you lie forever on one couch, bound in the embrace of a love that shall never fade.

  Then they led the tender Kannaki, the Arundhati of this earth, towards the nuptial bed. Leaving her, they withdrew, murmuring a prayer:

  May the tiger, emblem of our king,

  carved on the Himalayas’ golden peak,

  forever stamp that king-of-mountains’ brow.

  And may the Chola, our great king,

  whose spear is sharp, unfailing in the fight,

  uphold, before the nations of the world,

  the golden discus, symbol of his power.

  CANTO TWO

  THE INSTALLATION OF A HOME

  Manaiyarampatuttakadai

  The riches of the Puhar shipowners made the kings of faraway lands envious. The most costly merchandise, the rarest foreign produce, reached the city by sea and caravans. Such was the abundance that, had all the world’s inhabitants been assembled within the city walls, the stocks would have lasted for many years. The city spread wide, vast as the capital of the northern Kuru—beyond the Gandhara country—where dwelt sages famous for their asceticism. Puhar was unrivalled for the pleasures it afforded and for the rare magnificence of its noble citizens, such as lotus-eyed Kannaki and her tender husband Kovalan, cultivated and endowed with inexhaustible wealth.

  In one of the rooms of Mashattuvan’s stately house stood a large couch. Its legs, studded with precious stones, were made with such art that they were thought to be the work of Maya, the craftsman of the genii. During the love play of Kannaki and Kovalan, the southern breeze, drifting in through curtains sown with precious gems, softly caressed their limbs. It wafted to them the hum of the bees, the cool fragrance of lotuses, the scent of newly open red lilies, the perfume of all that blossoms in field and pond. It brought them the pleasing scent of talai, the intense odour of wide-open kodai, while the bees, drunk with honey stolen from the warm heart of the champak, danced round the scented tresses and the smiling face of the happy girl.

  Hand in hand, they went out on the breeze-swept terrace. There, in the moonlight, the god of love was waiting with flowery arrows in his exquisite hands. The bees murmured songs to their ears while they lay on a bed strewn with fragrant pollen. On the naked shoulders of his bride, Kovalan traced the form of a sugar cane, of which the bow of the god of love is made, and a morning glory, the valli, which poets compare to a woman in love.

  It seemed as if the Sun and Moon, for once conjoined, were blessing the sea-girt Earth with their interwoven light. Kovalan was wearing a garland of jasmine buds, their hearts forced open by the bees; Kannaki, a wreath of blue lotus. In the ardour of their embraces the garlands became entangled. When he was satiated by love’s pleasures, Kovalan looked fondly at the radiant face of his new bride, and said tenderly: ‘Beloved! To appear more handsome before the gods, Shiva adorned his brow with the fair crescent of the moon, but he lost this crown when the moon became your pale forehead. The limbless god of love gave up his bow to make your dark eyebrows, for is it not the law of war that the victor takes his weapon from the vanquished?

  ‘Leaving the gods at the mercy of the demons, Indra their king gave up his double-trident thunderbolt, that your waist might be wrought from its steel, for you are a treasure rarer than the life of the immortals. Against his nature, the beauteous young 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. Shamed by your complexion, the peacock ran into the woods to hide his jewelled robes. Radiant maiden, your sinuous walk so shamed the swan that now he stays hidden among the cool lotuses in the ponds.

  ‘To hear your voice, soft as the ancient harp called yal and sweeter than nectar, the green parrot keeps silent. Woman of noble gait, he perches, drunk with pleasure, on the flower of your hand.

  ‘O girl with blossom-scented hair, the weight of jewels and the art of your maids add nothing to your loveliness. Save for those few flowers in your hair, what need have you of these heavy garlands? Why anoint with musk these tresses that the humble myrrh makes fragrant? Why these ropes of pearls when your breasts are already traced with a
rabesques of sandal paste? A foolish vanity has laden you with ornaments that bend your too frail waist and bring these tear-like pearls of perspiration to your tender brow. Set in pure gold, you are yourself a jewel without rival.

  ‘You are the pure perfume, the sweet sugar cane, the translucent honey, on which I feast. Your grace is a ritual, your lips a spring of nectar. Noble maiden born of a noble line of merchants! You are a precious stone that has never known the darkness of a mountain mine. You are a nectar more fragrant than that distilled from sea foam, you are a harmony such as never arose from the strings of a harp. Your floating hair is darker than the night.’

  On the bed, strewn with broken garlands, the lovers spent sweet, pleasure-filled days in close embrace. Inspired by delight, he murmured in her ear choice blandishments coined with subtle art.

  One day Kovalan’s noble mother thought of giving her dark-haired daughter a home of her own. She chose faithful servants and set aside ample wealth so that Kannaki might increase her renown by receiving relatives, wandering monks, and other visitors, in a manner suited to her rank.

  As the years passed, Kannaki won great praise from all for the charm of her home, the grace of her hospitality.

  Image of Kama and Rati,

  the god of love and his consort,

  Kovalan and Kannaki lay entwined

  like two black serpents on their couch,

  drank to its depths their cup of love,

  already having felt, perhaps,

  how transient is human joy.

  CANTO THREE

  PRELUDE TO TRAGEDY