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In this episode, we listen to music rendered in a picturesque place, as portrayed in Sangam Literary work, Puranaanooru 374, penned for the Velir King Aay Andiran by the poet Uraiyoor Enicheri Mudamosiyaar. The verse is situated in the category of ‘Paadaan Thinai’ or ‘Praise’ and extols the glory of a king.
கானல் மேய்ந்து வியன் புலத்து அல்கும்
புல்வாய் இரலை நெற்றி அன்ன,
பொலம் இலங்கு சென்னிய பாறு மயிர் அவியத்
தண் பனி உறைக்கும் புலரா ஞாங்கர்,
மன்றப் பலவின் மால் வரை பொருந்தி, என்
தெண் கண் மாக் கிணை தெளிர்ப்ப ஒற்றி,
இருங் கலை ஓர்ப்ப இசைஇ, காண்வர,
கருங் கோல் குறிஞ்சி அடுக்கம் பாட,
புலிப் பல் தாலிப் புன் தலைச் சிறாஅர்
மான் கண் மகளிர்க்கு ஆன்றோர் அகன் துறை
சிலைப்பாற் பட்ட முளவுமான் கொழுங் குறை,
விடர் முகை அடுக்கத்துச் சினை முதிர் சாந்தம்,
புகர் முக வேழத்து மருப்பொடு, மூன்றும்,
இருங் கேழ் வயப் புலி வரி அதள் குவைஇ,
விருந்து இறை நல்கும் நாடன், எம் கோன்,
கழல் தொடி ஆஅய் அண்டிரன் போல,
வண்மையும் உடையையோ? ஞாயிறு!
கொன் விளங்குதியால் விசும்பினானே!
Finally, we have left those scary images of the battlefield in the previous verses and are stepping into a delightful, new territory. The poet’s words about this Velir King can be translated as follows:
“After grazing in the forest, the male of a deer rests in the wide field. Akin to its forehead, was my hair, rough and unkempt upon on my head, which had been crowned with gold; To make this hair smooth and pressed down, poured cool dew on a morn, when it was not yet dawn. At this time, leaning on the huge trunk of the jackfruit tree in the centre, I played on my clear-eyed, huge ‘kinai’ drum and rendered music that made the male deer listen intently. In this picturesque place, I sang of the mountains around filled with the black-stemmed ‘kurinji’. Here, around me arrived scanty-haired little children, wearing tiger teeth on their necklaces, along with doe-eyed maiden. The husbands of these maiden offered fleshy meat of porcupines that had fallen to the skill of their wide bows, in addition to mature branches of sandalwood that flourishes near mountain clefts and tusks of spotted-faced elephants. All three, they heaped on the striped skin of a huge and strong tiger, and rendered as their feast unto me. Such is the country of my king, Aay Andiran, the one adorned with warrior anklets! Do you think you have his great generosity, O sun, shining so pointlessly in the sky above?”
A verse full of intricate observations, into which we shall take a dive into! The poet starts with a serene image of a stag grazing in the forest and then arriving to rest in a wide space there. He explains he has called the stag into the verse only to talk about its forehead, and this, he compares to his own unkempt hair. To truly understand the connection, we have to go beyond the forehead that the poet refers to and see what’s the prominent feature of the stag in this part of its body. It’s the antlers! When we compare the way antlers stand stiff and tall, radiating in all directions, the simile connecting it to the rough hair, belonging to the poet, will become clear. But why is the poet talking about his hair now? This is no shampoo ad of the twenty-first century! Turns out it is to talk about how the cool dew falling in that still-dark morning, when the dawn is hovering close, and the way this dew is making the poet’s porcupine hair settle down. There you have it- Nature’s hair gel, at your service!
Returning to the verse, our poet with his pressed down hair says at that time, he was leaning on a jackfruit tree in the village centre, playing on his huge ‘kinai’ drum and sending out notes of music that made a stag bend its ears, listening. Just a moment to note the jackfruit tree that happens to be there in that village centre, giving indication that this should be a mountainous area. That is the poet’s way of foreshadowing what he’s going to say next! He talks about how he looks around and sees mountains there, that too growing with the alluring ‘Kurinji’ flowers, the delight of the Western Ghats in the south, and specially seen and loved in the contemporary states of Tamilnadu and Kerala. This makes him sing about all the beauty around. Didn’t we see just now how even the deer is listening so intently to his music… so how can the humans there resist? As expected, mountain children wearing tiger teeth around their necks, testaments to their fathers’ courage, and mountain maiden, having eyes like a female deer, arrive around listening. Then, the husbands of those maiden offer their tribute to this poet in the form of fleshy meat of porcupine that they are known to hunt in these parts. Not only food, but also the bounty of nature like mature mountain sandalwood and tusks of fallen elephants they offer to this poet. And how do they offer it? By heaping all this on a huge tiger skin. Elements of the hills abound in this verse!
Now, the poet makes it clear why he has made references to this place by saying this is the domain of his king, Aay Andiran. We have to turn back to a tiny reference we have overlooked when talking about the poet’s hair. Originally, he says that his head with that unkempt hair was crowned in gold, meaning that he was wearing a golden lotus, which as we seen in many Sangam verses, was often rendered to poets for their excellent work. This talks about the extraordinary generosity of this king, and now referring to this very quality of the king, the poet turns to the sun, and concludes by asking, ‘Can you claim to have that much generosity as my king, even as you ceaselessly roam the skies?’
While we know that the life of all beings on earth is only because of the generosity of the sun, we can forgive the poet and see this perspective as a technique to praise his good king. Leaving this clash of scientific truth and poetic license, we can instead focus on the exceptional lines of the verse, which talks about the places and people of a country, their love for art and hospitality from the heart. The generosity of the common people is an illustration of the ceaseless generosity of the king who rules them, so much so that this poet challenges the sun in the sky. A verse that takes us on a memorable journey to the mountains on the wings of this poet’s words!
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