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The Māhabhārata in Tamil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

M. S. H. Thompson
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Extract

As in kannada, the earliest Tamil versions of the Mahābhārata were in the Sanskrit campū style of verse and prose. Tradition has it that one such work appeared in the early days of Tamil literature when the last of three academies or sangams flourished in the south under royal patronage at Madurai, the capital city of the Pāṇdiyan kingdom. Epigraphical support for this view is found, it is thought, in line 29 of the panegyric referred to below, where there is a reference to a translation of the Mahābhārata into Tamil and the founding of a sangam. The extract comes from the Ciṉṉamaṉūr copper plate grants, which Dr. S. Krishṇnasāmi Ayyangar thinks belong to the tenth century. Certain citations in the commentary of the learned Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar on sūtras 17 and 21 of Tolkāppiyam, iii, 2, may have come from this early Sangam Pāratam, as they have the true Sangam ring. So thinks M. Rāghava Ayyangar, who has done good work in dating Tamil literature. The verse of the Sangam Pāratam consisted, it is said, mainly of quatrains in veṇpā metre interspersed with passages of akaval, akaval being the declamatory form of verse and veṇpā the form nearer normal speech. Citations in both these forms are found in the commentary just referred to, the first said to be from “Peruntēvaṉār” (reputed author of the Sangam Pāratam) and the rest from “Pāratam”. Peruntēvanār was a name common among poets of Sangam times and the author of the Pāratam was consequently referred to as the one who composed the Pāratam to distinguish him from his namesakes. Two of his poems are included in two of the eight old anthologies of mostly fugitive verse and five of the invocatory poems are his, all eight poems being in akaval. The Sangam Pāratam is also referred to as Pāratavepāṇ, because most of its verse is said to have been in the veṇpā metre.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 92 , Issue 3-4 , July 1960 , pp. 115 - 123
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1960

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References

page 115 note 1 Ayyangar, M. Rāghava, Peruntokai, 892, Madura Tamil Sangam, Madura, 1936Google Scholar.

page 115 note 2 South Indian Inscriptions, iii, part iv.

page 115 note 3 Ayyangar, M. Rāghava, Cācana Tamiḷkkavi Caritai, p. 4, Madras, 1937Google Scholar.

page 115 note 4 Tolkāppiyam, iii, 8, s. 92. A recent study of this comprehensive grammar of old Tamil stresses its antiquity (K. Veḷḷaivāraṇaṉ, Tolkāppiyam, Annamalai University Tamil Series, 1957).

page 115 note 5 In common with other commentators, Nacciṉāārkkiṉiyar does not as a rule, as here, give the title of the work he is quoting from or the name of the author, when known. Dr. Sāminātha Ayyar, who has traced to their source many of his citations, gives the titles of eighty-three works he quotes from, many of which have now been lost (Pattuppāṭṭu, p. 64, Madras, 1931)Google Scholar.

page 116 note 1 Peruntēvaṉār Pāratam Eṉṉum Pārataveṇpā, ed. Gōpālaiyan, A., Madras, 1925Google Scholar.

page 116 note 2 Peruntēvaṉār Pāratam (Makāvintam), ed. Mudaliar, Muturatna, Tanjore Sarasvati Mahāl Publication 9, Tanjore, 1950Google Scholar.

page 116 note 3 Piḷḷai, Rājamālṇikkam, Pallavar Varalāṟu, p. 202, Saiva Siddhānta Publishing Co., Madras, 1952Google Scholar. Nandikkalambakam, ed. Mudaliar, Punaivananāta and Piḷḷai, Rāmasāmi, Saiva Siddhānta Publishing Co., Madras, 1955Google Scholar.

page 117 note 1 Ilakkiya Mañcari, i, i, p. 55, Oxford University Press, Madras, 1953Google Scholar.

page 117 note 2 Ilakkiya Maṇimālai, p. 59, Tamiḷ Puttakālaiyam, Madras, 1954Google Scholar.

page 117 note 3 The Chronology of the Early Tamils, p. 33, University of Madras, 1932Google Scholar. Cf. Ayyar, Sāminātha, Aiṅkuṟunūṟu, pp. xiv–v, Madras, 1944Google Scholar.

page 117 note 4 Kanakarājayyar argues that since Peruntēvanār was considered to have belonged to Toṇṭaimaṇṭalam, Patikācu Pulavar must have had the later Pāratam in mind (History of Tamil Poets, ii, pp. 68–9, Gōpālakrishṇa Kōne, Madura, 1930)Google Scholar.

page 117 note 5 See, for example, the commentary of Krishṇamācāriar on Uttiyōka Paruvam, i, 3, 14; iv, 27, 54, 75; vii, 2.

page 118 note 1 Vol. i, no. 2, pp. 25–32. The editor thinks the verse is not inferior in quality to that of the rest of the work—though not so easy or pleasant to read.

page 118 note 2 i, 9, s. 50 (or 69); iv, 4, s. 104; viii, 1, s. 90, and 2, s. 53.

page 119 note 1 Tamiḷ Nāvalar Caritai, ed. Piḷḷai, Auvai Duraisāmi, Saiva Siddhānta Publishing Co., Madras, 1949Google Scholar.

page 119 note 2 Sewell, , Historical Inscriptions of South India, pp. 388–9, University of Madras, 1932Google Scholar. Ayyangar, M. Rāghava, Cācana Tamiḷkkavi Caritam, p. 122Google Scholar.

page 119 note 3 Piḷḷai, K. Subramania, Ilakkiya Varalāṟu, p. 402, Teachers' Publishing House, Madras, 1949, and Rāghava Ayyangar, op. cit., pp. 125–7Google Scholar.

page 119 note 4 Makāpāratam, Ātiparuvam, p. 11, Vitiānupālana Press, Madras, 1934Google Scholar. In his prose version of Tiruviḷaiyāṭal Purāṇam, ii, 30, s. 30, issued by the same press, Arumuka Nāvalar has kaṉṉaṭar for karunāṭar in the original.

page 120 note 1 In, for example, Turōṇa Paruvam, iii, s. 36. In a similar list of people of foreign lands, Kampar (Irāmāyaṇam, i, 19, ss. 47–8) omits kaṉṉaḍar, but includes tuḷuvar in some MSS. In his commentary on Naṉṉūl, s. 272, Mailaināaṉ includes a citation from Akattiyaṉār in which we have kaṉṉaṭam, while in his commentary on Tolkāppiyam, ii, s. 400, Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar, has karunaṭam (ed. Piḷḷai, Vēṇugōpāla, Pavānanta Kaḷakam, Madras, 1941)Google Scholar.

page 120 note 2 The proverbial saying—found also in Nēminādam, ii, s. 10—begins “Vaṭukar Aruvālar vāṉ Karunāṭar”, these races being referred to in the next line in the neuter and classed with cremation grounds, fiends, and buffaloes. The Aruvālar, we learn from Nacciṉārkkiṇiyar in his commentary on the preface to Tolkāppiyam, i, were a race settled by Agastya in the south, the Vaṭukar being Telugus resident in the Tamil country. In the earlier version (a.d. 1227–28) of Tiruvilaiyāṭal Purāṇam, 39, s. 25 (ed. Ayyar, Sāminātha, Madras, 1927)Google Scholar, we have tiṇ cen Karunāṭar (= brave fair Karunāṭar). Taṇṭi Alaṅkāram, ed. Tambirāṇ, Rāmalinga, p. 143, Saiva Siddhānta Publishing Co., Madras, 1945Google Scholar.

page 120 note 3 The commentary gives the king's name as Cantirakaurī Vallavaṉ, presumably a Chāḷukya chieftain, who lost his life in a raid into the Cōḷa country, being burnt alive in a forest in which he had taken refuge.

page 121 note 1 Tolkāppiyam, iii, 9, s. 97, with Pērāciriyar's interesting comments; also Ilakkaṇa Viḷakkam, s. 529, and Naṉṉūl, ss. 7–9.

page 121 note 2 The Pampa Bhārata or Vikramārjuna Vijaya of Pampa, ed. Rice, E. P., Bangalore, 1898. Rice considers the Jaina modifications as “slight variants of the Mahābhārata story” (History of Kanarese Literature, pp. 35–6). It was not till the sixteenth century that Vyāsa's Mahābhārata was translated into Kannada at the court of Krishṇadēva RāyaGoogle Scholar.

page 121 note 3 The Makāpāratam of Villiputtūrāḷvār, ed. Kavirāyar, Subramania, Madura Tamil Sangam, Madura, 1926Google Scholar.

page 122 note 1 This work is available at 17 Teḷisinga Perumāḷ Koil Street, Madras 5.

page 122 note 2 Tirāviṭap-prakācikai, p. 301, Sadhu Press, Madras14, 1927Google Scholar.

page 122 note 3 Maturai Tamiḷ Pērakarāti, Gōpālakrishṇa Kōne, Madura, 1937Google Scholar.

page 122 note 4 K. Subramania Piḷḷai, op. cit., p. 429.

page 122 note 5 The copy of the work found in the India Office Library (Tam. F. 233) was printed in 1888 at two separate presses in Madras, the cost of printing it having been met by Muturāmalinga Dēvar, a zemindar of the Madura District. The editor was one Sāminātha Ayyar, son of Mutusāmi Ayyar.

page 123 note 1 Ayyar, Sāminātha, Peruṅkatai, pp. xxviii–ix, Madras, 1935Google Scholar.

page 123 note 2 Rāghava Ayyangar, op. cit., pp. 90–1.