from town to town, they were accompanied by their wives and children who carried with them their begging bowls and cooking utensils. The Kooththar were actors, who sang as well as acted plays, which were more of the character of a ballet than of a regular dramatic exhibition. The Porunar or war-bards were generally members of the suite of a chief or king. They carried a small, drum to which was tied a short stick with which they sounded the drum. “Each time I strike my drum with the short stick which is attached to it, your enemies tremble,” says the bard Kovur-kilar addressing the Chola king Nalank-Killi, fore when the war-bard sounds his drum it is generally the signal for an army to march.[1] Female bards of this class were known as Viraliyar. It is these warbards that were the authors of a considerable portion of the literature of this ancient period.
We have a vivid picture of Madura in the verses left by the poets of this period which may well conclude this Chapter on the social life of the Tamils.[2] “Long before dawn Brahmin students begin to recite Vedic hymns; musicians tune their Jutes and practise upon them; pastry cooks clean the floors of their shops.; and toddy sellers open their taverns for early customers.[3] Minstrels go round, singing their morning blessings. In the temples, in the monasteries and in the palace of the Pandya conch shells boom, and big drums resound with deafening noise.[4] The rays of the morning sun now gild the tops of the fort towers and reveal the proportions of the city. The main streets “are long and broad as rivers” and the buildings on either side of the main streets are, most of them, lofty mansions with upper stories, furnished with many windows.[5] At every temple a flag is hoisted Over each liquor shop floats a merry steamer. Each trader’s ware-
- ↑ Puram, 382.
- ↑ Mânkudi Maruthanar’s Mathuraik-kânchi—Nakkirer’s Nedu-aal-vâdai and Ilanko-adikals’ Chilappathikâram.
- ↑ Mathuraik-kânchi, line 654 and ff. Two very interesting articles On the “Ten Tamil Idylla” which appeared in the Christian College Magazine, from the pen of Mr. Sundaram Pillay, M.A., have been of much use to me, as they contain translations of extracts from the Nedu-nal-vâdi and Mathuraik-kânchi–C. C. Magazine Vol. VIII No. 9, page 661 and Vol. IX No. 2, page 114.
- ↑ Chilapp-athikâram, XIV—7 to 14.
- ↑ Mathuraik-kânchi, 357 and ff.
