Tolkappiyar1595374Tolkappiyam in English — Love affairs (Agam composition) Section 3 Chapter 1 [Akaththin’ai-iyal] 58 Verses 4th century BCESengai Podhuvan
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Source in Tamil
Note
The serial number at the end denotes the verse in the part of the literature
Translation
Example to the verse, cited by Elamburanar, an interpreter to the literature ‘Tolkappiyam’ who belongs to 11th century A.D. and others is given indented star-mark.
Notes to follow
Section 3 of Tolkappiyam - ‘subject matter of life and literature’ is dealt in 9 chapters; 1 love affairs, 2 public life, 3 personal life before marriage, 4 personal life after marriage, 5 general classified information on the previous four chapters, 6 manifest emotions in human life, 7 modes of compression in literature, 8 prosody and 9 traditional usage of classified words, life, habits life and literature laid by some others nearly after 500 years
This chapter deals the life of the literature that followed by Tamils.
Personal life is classified into seven strands, according to scholars. They are from [kaikkil’ai] to [perunthin’ai]. 1
Among them the middle five strands of life style are habits of five lands classified. 1 [kur’inji] the hilly tract, 2 [mullai] the meadow of forest-tracts, 3 paalai] the arid tract by seasons in the above two tracts, 4 the cultivate land on river bed and 5 the littoral tract on sea bed. 2
The matter and subjects found in poetry are discerned in three structures; 1 [mutar’porul’] the primary things (land and seasons), 2 [karupporul’] the living things in the tract and 3 [uripporul’] the personal behavior of the persons belonging to the tract. 3
Aspects of land and time are [muthar’porul’], the linguistic discerns. 4
The landscape divisions are (four); 1 the meadow tract which God [Maayoo’n] tends, 2 the hilly tract which God [See’yoo’n] tends, 3 the fertile cultivated land-tract which God [Indhiran] tends and 4 the littoral tract which God [Varun’an] tends. 5
Time connected with the personal behavior of the landscape
Two moods of separations (1 the hero parting from heroine on his male quest and 2 the hero and heroine parting the heroine’s parents going on elopement) are assigned to the behavior of arid land. 13
Except the behavior of land-stand, will be changed to other-land-strand; (behavior of one land-strand will not come in other strand). 15
Tract behavior are five; lovers 1 union (hilly tract [kur’inji]), 2 separation (arid tract [paalai]), 3 endurance (meadow tract [mullai]), 4 sulking (rever-bed tract [maruthm]) and 5 longing(littoral land [n”e’thal]). 16
Apart from the five, elopement of hero with the heroine and hero sorrowing when the heroine recovered back by her parents is also a behavior in arid tract of action. 17
Happiness of the heroine when she happened to meet her beloved is another action of behavior interlude in hilly-tract-behavior. 18
The distinctive physical features of the tract land are God, food, animal, tree, bird, drum, occupation, lute-music, etc. come in second part. 20
A flower of a tree or plant that does not come to its tract, the tract in which it comes is accepted. 21
The common name of people live in each tract is inferred on (two base) 1 region and 2 occupations. 22
[Aayar] (Masculine plural name of meadow people), [vee’ttuvaar] (masculine plural name of arid people), etc. are the common names created on the base of land. 23
The common names based on land of tract are derived in such a way to the people of other tracts of land. 24
The names of workers and artists are also derived in this way of pattern. 25
Obeying people are also eligible to participate in the poems of love affairs. 26
The mother of the heroine, on elopement of her daughter with her beloved, would pour her anguished concern over her daughter’s girl-friend and witness by saying; the relationship between them, the cause of such event behind God’s decision, good, evil, fear, friendship, etc. 39
Some mothers will go to the village where her daughter living with her beloved. 40
Even the place of elopement is nearby to the heroine’s parents, the event is taken as elopement. 41
The contexts of utterance of the girl-friend of the heroine
The girl-friend of the heroine utters her intimacy by saying; future happenings, sending her along with her beloved, denying her elopement, her anguished concern over departure, defending the words of witness before the parents, consoling and comforting the heroine’s mother and step-mother, etc. 42
The contexts of utterance of the witness of elopement
The witness utters; the inconvenient time of elopement, favorable note on nearby destination, encouraging the lovers elopement, discouraging the event, sending the heroine’s mother back or forward, consoling her mother ongoing or returning, etc. 43
The contexts of the situations that warrant utterance by hero are; as the heroine’s parents would not concern to their union in wedlock, in rendezvous time, on elopement, persuading elopement, denying elopement, bewildering grievance on her parents get her back on elopement, etc. are one kind of context. The hero leaves the heroine in quest of wealth considering the shortness of the life span, the preciousness of the youth hood, the hazards and excretions that the quest entails, the unbecomingness of lust for wealth, for the men of nobility and standing, the feebleness of poverty, the dignity of wealth, the broad mindedness of kindness, the difficulty of being without her as well as wealth are another context, where the hero utters. Speaking about the glory of life, prestige and ambassador-duty are yet another context, he speaks. Thinking about the stars’ position in sky, being anguished in the military camp after the war-end, speaking to the chariot-driver while returning home, while perfuming duty of protection to the country, are another contexts. Begging and consoling his wife regretting for his mistake of illegal lust-connection with another woman, is another context. 44
The features of unrequited (one sided) love are; one has pleasure in uttering his love feelings before an unmeasured girl, on whom he fall on, from whom he receive nothing, revealing his and her personifications. 53
The aspects of abnormal sexual behavior are four; 1 one who reveals his passion (to the village) by riding a horse made of Palmyra stem when the lover do not agree, 2 diverting his love in an aged woman who lost youth, 3 the lust in excess which cannot be satisfied and 4 the lust satisfied by the method of violence. 54
Considering the above four (that not in action), are not of abnormal lust but of unrequited love. 55
Love aspects are spoken on the basis of imaginary constructions and the actions of day-to-day life those are composed in the prosody form of [kali] and [paripaadal]. 56