A History Of Indian Literature, Volume X: Dravidian Literature, Fasc. 1: Tamil Literature

A HISTORY OF INDIAN LITERATURE KAMIL VEITH ZVELEBIL TAMIL LITERATURE OTTO HARRASSOWITZ • WIESBADEN A HISTORY OF INDIAN LITERATURE EDITED BY JAN GONDA VOLUME X Fasc. 1 1974 OTTO HARRASSOWITZ . WIESBADEN KAMIL VEITH ZVELEBIL TAMIL LITERATURE 1974 OTTO HARRASSOWITZ . WIESBADEN A HISTORY OF INDIAN LITERATURE Contents of Vol. X Vol. X: Dravidian Literatures Fase. 1: K. V. Zvelebil G. L. Hart Tamil Literature Relations between Tamil and Classical Sanskrit Literatures R. E. Asher Malayalam Literature K. Mahadeva Sastri Telugu Literature H. M. Nayak Kannada Literature J. Filliozat/F. Gros/ Scientific Literatures in Dravidian J. R. Marr and others Languages © Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1974 Alle Rechte vorbehalten Photographfsche und photoraechanische Wiedergabe nur mit ausdrticklicher Genehmigung des Verlages Gesamtherstellung: Allgauer Zeitungsverlag GmbH, Kempten Printed in GermanyISBN 3 447 01582 9 DEDICATION I am indebted to all my Tamil friends and colleagues who have helped me during the past three decades to understand Tamil culture and literature. "The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it," said Dr. S. Johnson. I dedicate this book to Tamil poets and writers, past and present, who enabled the Tamil people both; and to the Tamil people themselves. Wassenaar, Nederland, 31. 12. 1973 Kamil V. Zvelebil CONTENTS Note on transliteration and pronunciation 1 Introduction 2 1. The solitary stanza 1.1. Classical Tamil poetry of the two superanthologies 1.1.2. The Bardic Corpus 1.1.3. Beginnings of Tamil poetry 1.1.4. The anthology-poems and the songs 1.1.5. The structure of the Tamil bardic poems 1.1.6. Language and prosody 1.1.7. Poetics and rhetorics 1.1.8. The bardic poet 1.1.9. The achievement of classical Tamil poetry 1.1.10. Late classical poetry 1.2. Medieval anthologies and occasional stanzas 1.3. Pre-modern and modern poetry 7 7 9 11 12 26 31 34 42 44 47 51 58 2. The literature of devotion 88 3. Didactic heresy 117 4. The 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5. 4.6. 4.7. epic poetry The Jaina cycle The Buddhist cycle Hindu epics Christian epics Muslim epics Modern Tamil narrative poetry Tamil puranas 128 131 140 142 159 162 162 170 5. Pirapantam 5.1. Older and traditional genres 5.2. Late and non-traditional genres 193 194 220 6. Literature in prose 6.1. The fonts of prose 6.2. Foreigners 6.3. Printing and journalism 6.4. Subrahmanya Bharati; V. V. S. Aiyar 6.5. Short forms 6.6. Novel 6.6.1. Beginnings 6.6.2. Interlude 6.6.3. Historical novel 6.6.4. Didactic novels 231 231 234 236 239 242 267 267 273 274 276 VIII 6.6.5. 6.6.6. 6.6.7. 6.6.8. 6.6.9. 6.6.10. The contemporary situation Realistic and regional writings. Naturalism Interest in social change Autobiography and documentary writing Male-female relationship Experimental novel . , 277 278 282 283 286 291 7. Dramatic writing 294 Index 299 Kamil Veith Zvelebil TAMIL LITERATURE NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND PRONUNCIATION The transcription used for Tamil words in this book is a strict transliteration as a system adopted by the Madras University Tamil Lexicon. The only exception are names of modern and contemporary Tamil writers (and their literary heroes) where I follow in addition their own anglicized spelling, e.g. Subrahmanya Bharati (Cuppiramaniya Parati), Jeyakanthan's heroine Ganga. The following Roman letters are used for the Tamil characters: Vowels Short Long a i u e o a i u e 5 ai au Teeth Lips Stops Nasals Liqui