Introduction
As Jan Assmann has aptly outlined in his fascinating work on cultural memory, “The rupture between yesterday and today, in which the choice to obliterate or preserve must be considered, is experienced in its most basic and, in a sense, primal form in death. Life only assumes the form of the past on which a memory culture can be built through its end, through its irremediable discontinuity.”1 If we look around South India, megalithic monuments, menhirs, dolmens, cairn- and stone circles, pillars, and other memorials proclaim the unalterable victory of death, the mourning of the contemporaries, and their zealous effort to keep their dead “as members of their community and to take them with them into their progressive present.”2 As a general observation, when an ordinary man without memorable acts or remarkable deeds passes away, the life of his narrow environment dissolves into chaos for an indefinite period but, as usually happens, certain rituals and sooner or later time itself heals the wounds. When the monarch leaves the physical world behind, the heirs have the duty, following the tradition of succession, to urgently eliminate the social disorder, to restore the political order of the kingdom, and to ensure the continuous flow of the legitimate rule of the dynasty. In both cases, between the mournful chaos and the re-created harmony of the “progressive present,” one of the most important steps is the funeral, and if the dead was a worthy member of the society, the establishment of his memorial, a place for remembrance, but also a place for reminder. In this study, an attempt is made to examine the poems of Old Tamil literature in order to discover the different memorialising techniques after the demise of the heroes and to get an answer to the question, how did the ancient Tamils establish memorials for their kings? Thus, I consider it necessary to discuss the following sub-sections: The heroic death in the Old Tamil Caṅkam literature, to understand the attitude of the Old Tamil sources towards heroic death and transiency; The promises of the upper sphere, since the heaven is the next station for the dead hero after his demise; Funeral of the kings, to present the ways in which the mourning society said farewell to their heroic paragons, as a means of re-creating harmony; The memorial stones for the heroes, as the establishment of memory places (lieux de mémoire ) and the long-lasting earthly fame of the heroes; so after all we can discuss The memory of the king in the Caṅkam literature, in which sub-section I will point out that the memorial stones, as well as the literature, proved to be de facto memory places, and the puṟam literature itself became “a literary burial ground” of the ancient kings and heroes at the latest from the Middle Ages.
As is typical with many other topics of the young field of Dravidology, the subject of this chapter is still not satisfactorily explored neither by Indologists nor by historians. Although important articles and book chapters have already been published, the observations in them cannot be regarded as complete. The monograph of George L. Hart on the ancient Tamil poetry has to be mentioned first, which includes thoughtful remarks on the king’s person and his death, the conception of the upper spheres, and the funerary rites.3 K. Rajan’s recent paper on South Indian funerary monuments and his monograph on South Indian memorial stones proved to be very useful, but from this historical approach, although these works refer to a commendable amount of literary sources, his mainly archaeological perspective is not sufficient.4 Kailasapathy’s volume on Tamil heroic poetry discusses the heroic world in ancient Tamil countries, along with the tradition of the erection of memorial stones, on which topics his remarks cannot be ignored.5 There are other relevant works in which short passages or subchapters can be found on funerary rites, memorial stones, ancestors’ cults, and other related topics, but overall there is not a thorough work, which would strictly and critically examine the poems on the memory of the monarch in the Caṅkam literature and evaluate the results with the methodology of a historian, so the main task for this study is to fill this gap somewhat and to mark the direction for an even more detailed study.6
First of all, we should make a few introductory remarks on our main primary sources, the anthologies of Old Tamil Caṅkam literature. Tamil is in fact the second oldest among the Indian languages in line after Sanskrit, which has, as carefully as it is possible to estimate, an inscriptional tradition from the second century B.C. and a literary tradition from circa first century A.D.7 The designation of “Caṅkam literature” covers an old corpus, composed by the bards, who lived on the lands of the ancient Tamil kings, which contains thousands of love songs and heroic poems written (or better to say have reached their final form) in the first half of the first millennium A.D. Eva Wilden briefly summarises the changes of the Caṅkam corpus from antiquity up to the Middle Ages: “From a fluid body of oral poems it was transformed, during a period of cultural restoration after political upheaval, into written lyrical anthologies which some centuries later were canonised and supplied with a commentarial tradition.”8 In the second millennium the Caṅkam texts were regularly copied on palm leaves, later on papers, by scribes, but the texts themselves received significantly less attention besides other medieval religious corpora. The situation changed only after the Press Act of 1835 (also known as Metcalfe Act), when Tamil book-printing could begin and finally the ancient Caṅkam poems and their manuscripts started to be systematically collected, edited, and printed.
At the time when the songs of Old Tamil poetry arose, three crowned kings (mūvēntar) reigned over the Tamil countries (Tamiḻakam), the lands of Southern India, including mostly the territories of modern Kerala and Tamil Nadu, namely the Cēra, the Cōḻa, and the Pāṇṭiya kings.9 Besides them, powerful chieftains (vēḷir) and village elders (kiḻār) ruled over certain areas. Chiefs were either independent or somehow dependent on the crowned kings’ power, but because in most of the cases the nature of their dependence is not so clear, and because in their territories the contemporary societies treated them as omnipotent rulers, we should include them in our research when we talk about the memory of the monarch. We must agree with Kailasapathy’s definition, based on G. Thomson’s idea, that “the politics of the Tamil Heroic Age were marked by the ascendancy of an ‘energetic military caste, which, torn by internecine conflicts of succession and inheritance, breaks loose from its tribal bonds into a career of violent, self-assertive individualism’.”10
Around the beginning of the Christian Era, we can already distinguish two pathways in the old literature of the Tamil kingdoms: the erotic, “inner” (akam) poetry; and the heroic, “outer” (puṟam ) poetry. As Kailasapathy states, “those treating wars, exploits of kings and chieftains, the splendour of courts, and the liberality and munificence of heroes may be called heroic poems; those in which the love theme is predominant may be called love songs.”11 Following the statements of the Tolkāppiyam, in the erotic poetry, poets are not allowed to mention the names of the dramatis personae, while in the heroic poetry it is allowed.12 It was not only allowed, but it was quite remunerative, considering that the heroic poetry was ordered and funded by the kings and chieftains.13 So, while the poets, as “the counterparts in the Heroic Age of the modern mass-media,”14 were flattering the rulers reciting their masterful compositions, the kings and chiefs showered on them fabulous gifts and offered them abundant feasts, encouraging the bards to wander from one palace to another or in some cases to settle down as loyal court poets.15 What is more, in agreement with Ganapathy Subbiah, in ancient South India the liberality and the boundless capacity of gifting (koṭai, īkai) were the most important criteria to distinguish a hero from others.16 In the Old Tamil puṟam poetry, the heroes (talaivaṉ, kiḻavōṉ) were the perfect men, paragons (cāṉṟōr) of the age. The term cāṉṟōṉ,17 as Zvelebil states, is “one of the key-words in Tamil poetry, if not the key-word of the best in Tamil culture.”18 It refers to a wise, learned, and respectable man, a great, noble person, a warrior, or a poet of the Caṅkam literature.19 The kings and the chieftains were almost always20 considered as noble warriors and liberal protectors (puravalaṉ), whose generosity was not dependent on reciprocation but was limitless and always available for the suppliants (paricilar, iravalaṉ).21 The level of the donations was dependent only on military successes, capturing a booty or receiving tributes.22 As we shall see, it was necessary and favourable for the rulers to ritually keep these liberal and iconic heroes alive in collective memory, whose memorialising act could be: the fertile medium of the hero-cult; the assurance for the survival of generosity as a social norm and a tradition of redistributing wealth; the legitimation of the ancestors’ deeds, which made them “immortal” and also legitimised their heirs; emphasis on the moral path on which the forefathers were walking; and the source of livelihood for bards, musicians, and dancers.
Heroic Death in the Old Tamil Caṅkam Literature
Those warriors, who were fighting in the armies of kings or chieftains, had to face the inevitable nature of death every day. As the poet Aiyāticciṟuveṇtēraiyār sang on death in the 363rd poem of Puṟanāṉūṟu: “there is no life, that stays without perishing along with the body. Dying is reality, not just an illusion!”,23 which is itself a quite a wise statement,24 or as Kaṇiyaṉ Pūṅkuṉṟaṉār said in his much-quoted poem, beside other illusionary things “there is no novelty not even in death” (cātalum putuvatu aṉṟē).25 Death is indeed the last, irreversible event of the individual, who says farewell to the society, leaving behind a lifeless body, but also long-living memories. Of course, the durability and value of these memories were dependent on the social status of the individuals, the famous acts which they had performed, and the dramatic/heroic/fabulous way, in which they passed away. From the royal perspective of memorialising, the death of a carpenter had probably a less important political value than the heroic death of a loyal soldier. In the latter case, the memorialising policy of the monarch, together with the heroic poetry of the loyal poets, were able to turn the sorrowful grief of the society into a proud, festal event of the kingdom and provided the support of the people and the continuous supply of the army. For a well-functioning military system a sovereign Tamil monarch needed a well-established policy of memorialising, a festive and ritualised way to remember and remind, and a desirable conception of after-life. In fact, death was an opening door either to the upper world of the heroic ancestors or to reincarnation into a new body.
In battles, fearless heroism was expected from the warriors. Those who bravely persevered until the end of the battle were glorified, regardless of whether they survived or died. Those who betrayed their king and ran away from the battle were humiliated or killed. To observe what happened if someone abortively left his martial duties, the best example is the poem of Kākkai Pāṭiṉiyār Nacceḷḷaiyār:
When it was uttered by many, that the son of the old woman, whose belly is [wrinkled] like a lotus-leaf and whose slack, soft arms with bulging veins are parched, had withdrawn after his weapon was ruined, she got enraged and said: “If he deserted the crowded battle, then I will cut off my breasts that fed him.” She took a sword and searched [him] on the reddened battlefield turning over the fallen corpses. Once she saw the place, where the pieces of her fallen boy were scattered, she became even more glad than on the day she had given birth to him.26
This research now turns to a deeper analysis of the different passages of Old Tamil poetry, where fearless kings and warriors passed away on the battlefield. First of all, we examine the horrors of the battlefield. In the 77th poem of the Akanāṉūṟu, the poet sang about “the red-eared kites, which perched at the crossing of stony roads, as they got scared from the emerging fire, which embraced the brave men who traversed the good battlefield, so their animate substance departed.”27 In the 253rd poem of Puṟanāṉūṟu a wife arrived to the battlefield lamenting the death of her warrior-husband, who was no longer able to join to his comrades’ mirth (iḷaiyar tiḷaippa/nakāal eṉa vantamārē), so she persuades the dead to speak (kūṟu niṉ uraiyē), whether she should run to his relatives (kiḷaiyuḷ oyvalō) since she became a widow.28 In the 368th poem of the Puṟanāṉūṟu, the king appears like a farmer29 having his sword as a plough (vāḷ ēr uḻava) heaping up the men into straw bales (āḷ aḻippaṭuṭṭa), so that the poets cannot get their gifts (here horses and elephants) in exchange for their songs, since the elephants laid dead like mountains, and the horses fell down like the ships without wind in the huge flood of blood.30 The murderous king and a very similar flood simile appear in the 49th poem of the Patiṟṟuppattu:
The many great desolations, which were created [by the king], so that heaps of corpses arose and the blood from the vital spots of warriors of bloody, red hands, rolls since it has overflown the pits, similarly to the stream of a rainy day, spreading and rushing on the fields.31
We may not need to quote more from the numerous poems about the devastation of war during which, as we have seen, great warriors lost their lives, but it is necessary to talk about what we have not yet touched upon, the death of kings. In the 56th poem of the Patiṟṟuppattu, we see the victorious Cēra “king dancing on the battlefield where [other] kings, who got enraged because of their huge ignorance, marched up [against him] and fell, their lives lost, leaving [their] bodies behind.”32 In the Puṟanāṉūṟu’s 62nd poem written by Kaḻāttalaiyār, we see how both the Cēra and the Cōḻa kings died together on the battlefield: “ [In] a highly virtuous and valorous battle, [both] kings perished, their parasols drooped and their superior royal drums, which excel in fame, became silent.”33
The death of coward kings can be seen in the 93rd poem of Puṟanāṉūṟu written by the famous poetess, Auvaiyār. Here the kings were killed by the army of a chieftain called Atiyamāṉ Neṭumāṉ Añci, as we read “those, who came [to fight] could not even endure the van [of your army], so they, the escaping coward kings, scattered and died.”34 Later we see the high priests (mutalvar) of the four Vedas whose doctrines abound in virtues (aṟam puri koḷkai nāṉmaṟai), who embraced the bodies and laid them on the grassy ground, cut their bodies into pieces and buried them pretending that they died a heroic death, while saying, “go [to that] place, where warriors with bright anklets go, who fell in good battles, so that their valour became [immortalized in] pillars!”35 This quotation of the song might be a faint imitation of the Ṛgveda line from the famous funerary hymn for Yama: “Go forth, go forth on the ancient paths on which our forefathers departed!”36 Even so, we see another parallel image, when Yama was invited to sit down on the grass while the poet, who carried him there to the funeral, had to sing funerary songs,37 which reminds us of what we read in the Tamil poem: “those who are [wearing] cord [on their] body and spreading the green grass, laid down [the bodies].”38 It is interesting to entertain the idea of whether the Tamil poetess had an insight into Vedic rituals.39 In fact, the sin of these kings was that they did not fight until death in the murderous battle, but ran away and were deadly wounded on their backs. To liberate them from the disgrace, the priests cut them and provided them with a burial worthy for heroes. The rhetorical question taken by the poetess is, whether in this way “they have escaped [from their sins]” (uyntaṉarmātō). Regarding the “real hero” Atiyamāṉ Neṭumāṉ Añci, he received a grievous wound (viḻuppuṇ) in a duel with a war-elephant, which was indeed an honourable mark worthy for a warrior.
If we look at other poems talking about the death of chieftains we can arrange the data into schematic literary trends. To give a few examples, the chieftain Evvi was killed on the battlefield, so the bards put down their harps (yāḻ);40 the chieftain Āy Eyiṉaṉ, son of Veḷiyaṉ, who was famous for his charity was killed on the field of Pāḻi when fighting against Miñili41; the liberal chieftain called Pāri was murdered when the armies of the three crowned kings attacked his country;42 and Atiyamāṉ Neṭumāṉ Añci was also killed on the battlefield by spears.43 To conclude, all the memorable kings and chieftains of the Tamil heroic poetry happened to die a heroic death in battles, except for a few cases when the king went to the forest and became a hermit,44 or starved to death for various reasons.45 All these cases were glorious enough for the establishment of memorials, as we will see later in the chapter. In contrast those kings and chiefs, who surrendered or fled from battle, got a wound on their back, whose tutelary tree had been cut off,46 who were not generous to others and did not shower gifts, or committed sinful acts, did not deserve to be praised, their doubtful heroic memories were not worthy enough to be preserved, and they were definitely unworthy of heroic monuments to be erected for them.
The Promises of the Upper Sphere
According to the poets of the Caṅkam literature, the heroes who die in battle will reach the upper world47 (vāṉ, vāṉam; uyar nilai ulakam; arum peṟal ulakam; tuṟakkam; etc.), which has been already “obtained by the ancestors who have unchanging strength and unfailing good fame,” as Māmūlaṉār sang.48 However, it was not just those warriors who obtained heaven, who won the battle, but also the defeated ones, as we see in several poems where the king’s army sent the enemies to the upper world,49 and perhaps also the people who had established good fame on earth.50 The reward for those who do not turn back in battle, is similar to the Northern tradition, as mentioned in the 89th verse of the seventh book of the Mānavadharmaśāstra: “when kings fight each other in battles with all their strength, seeking to kill each other and refusing to turn back, they go to heaven.”51
The upper world was not only inhabited by famous ancestors but also by deities like Māyōṉ, Koṟṟavai, and Murukaṉ, amongst others, and celestial damsels, who lived there in constant happiness.52 One among the deities, Kūṟṟu, the God of Death, seems to be the only one who lives on Earth, because his divine duty was to collect his victims in the material world. The poems, which have the pūvai nilai (bilberry flower-theme) as a dominant theme,53 enumerate the qualities shared by the king and the deities (in most of the cases comparing with Kūṟṟu), the comparison of which was, according to Kailasapathy not empty, since “the bards began to compare the kings to gods” as “the highest form of encomium.”54
We should emphasise that despite the feeling that the conception of heroic heaven might have been original among the Dravidians, we are still not always able to distinguish the different religious and cultural layers and borrowings in the texts, since the reconstruction of the chronology of Caṅkam texts is almost impossible and the only well-functioning tool is philology. Nonetheless, it should not be surprising to find rudimentary brāhmaṇical ideas and certain Indo-Aryan terms in the Tamil poems even around the early centuries of Christian Era, since the ancient tenets of the Vedas were already represented by different groups all over the subcontinent in varying degrees. We can see certain Northern impacts, for instance the role of a heavenly chariot (Skt. vāhana; Tam. vāṉa ūrti) without driver, which helps the hero to reach the upper sphere.
They say, that those who were praised by the singing learned bards, reach [heaven] on a heavenly vehicle not commanded by a celestial charioteer, after they accomplished their works to be done.55
And the same idea in Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṁśa:
A certain warrior having his head severed off by his adversary’s sword instantly became the master of a celestial car, and with a heavenly nymph clung to his left side beheld his own headless trunk dancing about on the battle-field.56
The idea might have originated in the Mahābhārata, in which we read about Sudeva, the commander of Ambarīṣa’s army, who was sitting in a vimāna, which was ascending to other worlds and rising above his king, after dying a heroic death on the battlefield.57 Although it is outside the scope of my current study, the comparison of puṟam poems with the Mahābhārata would be excessively fruitful for further studies because of the remarkable number of similarities.
As another otherworldly option, we must mention reincarnation, which was again either a mindset of the ancient Tamils which emerged independently from the North, or as Hart states, an adaptation of Aryan ideas in the South.58 Overall, the idea of reincarnation does not seem to be universally accepted in old Tamil societies, although it was present and became widespread from the Middle Ages.
Nonetheless, we find references to reincarnation among the ancient poems, for instance the poet Ammuvaṉār sang the following sorrowful line: “I don’t fear dying, I fear, if I die, if birth becomes another, will I forget that he [is] my lover?”59 On the contrary, we read the critique of reincarnation in the 134th verse of the Puṟanāṉūṟu written by Uṟaiyūr Ēṇiccēri Muṭamōciyār about the chieftain called Āy Aṇṭiraṉ:
Āy is not a trader for the reward of virtue, saying that which you have done in this birth is for the next life. The path on which other worthy men used to walk, as they say, became [the path for] his hands’ generosity.60
Be that as it may, the heroic death meant the liberation from the ancient cycle; so once the monarch died in a glorious way, it was generally believed that he departed to the upper world, which was inhabited by his ancestors, and when it happened, it was time to prepare and perform the funerary rites and to establish his long-lasting fame on earth.
Funerals of the Kings
In the Caṅkam texts we see two regular funerary customs: cremation and urn-burial. The funerals took place at the designated places, which were found in the wilderness, near the battlefield, at the crossroads, or around other deserted places. These cremation fields and burial grounds were considered as fierce and dangerous areas, where owls were hooting, vultures were hunting, jackals were howling, demons were dancing and eating the corpses, and an invisible and unpredictable power called aṇaṅku was potentially present. The 238th poem of the Puṟanāṉūṟu speaks about the different birds of prey (ceñcēval, pokuval), crows (kākkai), owls (kūkai), and demonesses with their attendants (pēey āyamōṭu) around the red burial urn (centāḻi) in the burial ground (kāṭu). The 364th poem also mentions the great burial ground (perum kāṭu),61 where innumerable burial urns (ānā tāḻiya) can be found and an owl hoots in a fast manner (katum eṉa iyampum kūkaikkōḻi).62 The poetess Auvaiyār sang the following lines in the 231st poem of the Puṟanāṉūṟu:
If the bright fire of the pyre with charred fuel, which is like the wooden pieces of the hillman’s field cleared [by fire], approaches [his body], let it approach! [However,] if [the fire] did not approach [his body] and [he] went and rose to reach to sky, let [him] rise! The fame of the man will not die, who was like the bright sun and whose parasol was like the moon with cool rays.63
There is a possibility that the meaning behind the lines is the dilemma, whether the king has to be burnt or buried, as we see in another poem: “The head of the man who desired esteem, either let it be left or burnt, let it happen [according to] the way [it has to] happen!”64
Once the urn-burial was chosen, it was the duty of the local potter to create a large urn (tāḻi), which was able to receive the body or the remains of the dead. In case of the king’s death, the poet Aiyūr Muṭavaṉār asks the master of the pots (kalam cey kō): “Are you able to form [your urn, using] the big world as the wheel and the Great Hill65 as the clay?”66
We see references in the Caṅkam corpus, when the king was burnt on a pyre,67 which sometimes integrated the story of the queen who stepped on her husband’s pyre and committed a ritual suicide or satī, but it is extremely difficult to determine the nature and the origin of these literary motifs, because at first glance they do not seem to be original, but were more likely patterns from Indo-Aryan literatures.
Memorial Stones for the Heroes
When a hero died in ancient Tamiḻakam, his memory deserved a worthy funeral (burial or cremation) and the erection of his memorial stone, of which a qualified case would be the heroic death of the monarch. According to K. Rajan, in the first stage of the memorials, Iron Age graves (patukkai) were raised for the people who were killed by warlike tribes (maṟavars, kāṉavars) by charging arrows, of which patukkai was most probably a stone heap (kaṟkuvai) or a cairn.68 The second stage was, when Iron Age graves were raised, and menhirs (naṭukal) were erected for those who died in cattle raids, but as we will see, not just for them but also for other warriors and kings, although the literary and archaeological evidence is very limited. Rajan identifies a third stage, when only the menhir (naṭukal) was raised in memory of the heroes and the grave seems to have been abandoned,69 and a fourth stage when we see the reduced size of the menhir reaching the level of later hero stones.70 Archaeologists have already discovered Iron Age edifices (13th c.–5th c. B.C.), hero stones with inscriptions, but without sculptural representation (4th c. B.C.–5th c. A.D.), hero stones with Tamil-Brāhmī script (the earliest are from the 4th c. B.C.)71 and hero stones with inscriptions and sculptural representations (from the 5th c.–16th–17th c. A.D.).72
But what can we find in the literary works? The Aiṅkuṟunūṟu’s 352nd poem mentions the inscribed memorial stones of those who died from the arrows of maṟavars73 (maṟavar vil iṭa tolaintōr eḻutt’ uṭai naṭukal), similar to the 53rd poem of the Akanāṉūṟu, where we find the same formulaic pattern with almost the same words (maṟavar vil iṭa viḻntōr eḻutt’ uṭai naṭukal). Nōy Pāṭiyār, the author of the 67th Akam provided more details:
The shields and the implanted spears looked like another frontline around the towering memorial stones, which were adorned with peacock feathers at all the paths, having carved the names and the proud [acts] of [those] modest warriors who overcame in good battles.74
Among the ancient love (akam) poems, many of the poets refer to the memorial stones, for example to the well-standing, imprinted stones (nal nilai poṟitta kal),75 to erected stones (nāṭṭiya kal),76 to the names on the fierce ancient memorial stones (pēem mutir naṭukal peyar),77 to the naturally standing tall stones, which look like they are planted, where many names have been carved on the vast surfaces.78 Other referrals are to the neglected, hard memorial stones with parched and broken top, having withered garlands and shabby writings made by sharp chisels,79 to the memorial stones standing in rows (nirai nilai naṭukal), which were erected for those modest warriors, whose good fame has been established, who were crowded and killing in the difficult battle,80 or the memorial stone at the difficult path, which was ruined by a forest elephant thinking that it was a man.81
The heroic puṟam literature provides a more specific picture about the rituals around the memorial stones. The 232nd poem of the Puṟanāṉūṟu refers to the memorial stones adorned with peacock feathers (pīli), where fibre-filtered palm wine (nār ari) used to be offered.82 In another, the 260th poem mentions the names (peyar) on the surface, the decorative feathers of a bashful peacock (maṭañcāl maññai aṇi mayir), which has been used as adornment and the shady pavilion (pantar) above the stone.83 The 263rd poem gives the advice that one should refrain him/herself from not bowing down, when going near the memorial stone of the man, who seized and brought many cattle from the enemies.84 The 264th poem tells about a stone erected by people (naṭṭaṉar) on a mound (patukkai) of a gravelly site (paral uṭai maruṅkil), on which the names were carved (peyar poṟitta), which was adorned by decorative peacock feathers (aṇi mayil pīli cūṭṭi), together with garlands of red flowers (cem pūṅ kaṇṇiyoṭu) with the picked leaves of bowstring hemp (maral vakuntu toṭutta).85 The hero hereby performed the same heroic act, which we have seen before, when he seized cattle with calves, but also chased away his enemies.86 In the 306th poem, the young woman with sprouting, tender tresses and a shiny forehead (oli meṉ kūntal oḷ nutal arivai) was praising the memorial stone with joined hands without a break (naṭukal kai toḻutu paravum oṭiyātu).87 The 329th poem refers to the little village, where liquor was brewed in the houses (il aṭu kaḷḷiṉ cil kuṭi cīṟūr), and to the memorial stones nearby, where daily sacrificial offerings (nāḷ pali ūṭṭi) were given, which were washed with good water (naṉṉīr āṭṭi), where butter-lamps were lit for the sake of incense (neyynaṟai koḷīi). The author of the somewhat later Malaipaṭukaṭām refers to the sweet-sounding music of the bards (iṉ puṟu muraṟkai num pāṭṭu), which used to be performed around the erected stones with names.88 The Puṟanāṉūṟu’s 335th poem states that there are no other gods than the glorious memorial stones of the heroes who stopped the enemies and killed their elephants, on which stones the paddy was scattered.89 The 314th poem mentions a wasteland (parantalai), which is densely crowded with memorial stones (piṟaṅkiya naṭukal), covered with dried leaves (ival iṭu).90 Another text, the Paṭṭiṉappālai refers to the memorial stones, surrounded with swords/spears and shields, as a part of a simile.91 Among the subdivisions of the “literary setting” veṭci, the Tolkāppiyam Poruḷatikāram Puṟattiṇaiyiyal gives six themes on the erection and the function of memorial stones: kāṭci: the selection of a particular stone for worship; kalkōḷ: the process of taking the stone; nīrppaṭai: pouring water on the stone; naṭutal: installing the stone; cīrttaku marapiṉ perumpaṭai: accomplish the great offering according to the superior tradition92; and vāḻttu: praising the stone.93 As we have seen, there was a widespread tradition of the establishment of memorials for the heroes in ancient Tamiḻakam, so this investigation turns to what monuments were erected to the kings.
The Memory of the King in the Caṅkam Literature
We read in the 221st poem of the Puṟanāṉūṟu that the king as the protector (puravalaṉ), who performed noble, memorable acts including liberal donations, ruling with a straight sceptre, sheltering the high persons of the Vedas, and so forth, turned into a memorial stone (naṭukal āyiṉaṉ), because of the ignorant God of Death (niṉaiyā Kūṟṟam), who seized his sweet life (iṉ uyir uyttaṉṟu) without considering his qualities.94 The king, who turned into a memorial stone, was Kōpperuñcōḻaṉ, whose story we vaguely know from other poems: it appears that his sons rebelled against him so that he chose to sit down facing the North and died in this manner. This custom could be introduced under the influence of a Jaina religious practice of voluntarily fasting to death (sallekhanā). According to Māmūlaṉār and Veṇṇikkuyattiyār, there is another king, who chose the same way to die, a Cēra king, who received a shameful wound on his back from Karikāl Vaḷavaṉ on the battlefield of Veṇṇi, so the king starved himself to death, whilst sitting and facing the North.95 We see the king’s loyal people with their old friendship (tol nāṭpuṭaiyār) in the Puṟanāṉūṟu’s 223rd poem, who decided to follow the king to death, so they also turned into lasting memorial stones (nilai peṟu naṭukal ākiya).96 In the 261st poem we see the young hero who became a memorial stone and we see his suffering widow with shaved head (maḻi talaiyoṭu), although the hero here was a generous village elder (kiḻār) and not a king.97 In the 265th poem we read about another unknown ruler who turned into stone (kal āyiṉaiyē).98 These seem to be so far all the references we could extract from the Caṅkam corpus on memorial stones of the monarchs and chiefs, although it seems clear that the heroes, the heroic warriors, the cattle-raiders, the chiefs, and the kings, who died in battle or passed away in a honourable manner, were worthy for a memorial monument.99
After the king’s death, the widowed queen either chose the sorrowful life of widows or stepped on to the pyre of her beloved, but either way she reached a turning point in her life. Again we cannot be sure whether these details are the projections of the author’s fantasy, memories of real historical events, or literary loans of Northern ideas. Whatever it is, the 246th poem of the Puṟanāṉūṟu suggests that some of the noble warriors intended to force a queen, namely Peruṅkōppeṇṭu, the wife of Pūta Pāṇṭiyaṉ, to adopt the life of widows sleeping on the bed of pebbles and following an ascetic lifestyle. Even the opening lines are suggestive, “Many warriors, o many warriors! You do not let me go, but forbid me to die, o intriguing wicked warriors!”,100 but finally the queen, who was the author of the poem, proclaimed her courageous determination, addressed to the cunning men around the court, as she sang: “the black twigs of the funeral pyre, which were piled up at the burning ground, might be difficult for you, but for me, since my husband with big shoulders passed away, […] the pond and the fire are all the same.”101 The Puṟanāṉūṟu preserved the last episode of the life of Peruṅkōppeṇṭu in the 247th poem, when the poet, as an eye-witness, saw the queen entering the funeral pyre of her husband. In the 240th poem the chieftain Āy Āṇṭiraṉ has reached the world of the celestials together with his woman102 (makaḷiroṭu … mēlōr ulakam eytiṉaṉ),103 when he was burnt on a pyre so that the poets headed for other countries. In fact when the king died, his queen had only two choices, either agree with her bitter destiny or step on her husband’s pyre. In the opposite case of the queen’s death, this unfortunate destiny had no effect on the widowed king. As we see in the Puṟanāṉūṟu’s 245th poem, beyond the Cēra king’s terrible pain, there were no social restrictions, so he retained his political role and importance. In the case of the queen, her life in the royal dynasty hung between two threads, which started with the wedding ceremony and ended with death, either of the king or of her. As a queen, she was the source of life and the base of the dynasty’s continuity: generally her and women’s wombs were like a “rock shelter” for the tiger-like soldiers,104 but once the king died, she lost her previous significance together with her royal rights and became an ordinary widow who had to begin her bitter penance.
At the end of our chapter, we may conclude that the memorialising process of the ancient Tamils had different techniques and layers through the centuries. First of all, the ancient heroic literature was not only a means to praise the great warriors but to keep them alive through their glorious memories mixed with a great quantity of literary topoi. Once the ancient literature of the Tamils has been edited and formed into a canon in the early Middle Ages, this canon was continuously studied (with more or less intensity), copied, and preserved through the ages, which meant to be the next step of memorialising. I strongly believe that the puṟam literature became sensu lato a memory space (lieu de mémoire) in which the poems were quasi-symbolic memorials for the heroes. Following the criteria of Pierre Nora on lieux de mémoire ,105 the Tamil heroic literature was able to crystallise and conceal the memory of the ancient heroes; it used a clear literary language full of symbolic patterns, but later itself became symbolic as a literary treasury of the ancient heydays; was functional as an initially oral, later semi-oral and court-poetry which was preserved by the Tamils through the millennia; and is material as a written canon, which has stood the test of time and survived the ages on palm-leaf manuscripts. Adding the fact that Old Tamil literature is our only indigenous textual source for the reconstruction of the early history of Tamiḻakam (except for the very sporadic inscriptions), we have the impression that the Tamils themselves looked upon the old literature as an imaginary locus memoriae, as a vast material of their collective memory, which became a part of their collective identity. Reading the texts of Old Tamil literature, we have the feeling that the poets intended to sing the universal and the eternal when they praised the fabulous acts and the memory of the heroes (hiding the unpleasant), rather than reflect to the fragile/fragmented history which appears in the texts sporadically and indirectly with a secondary importance. The puṟam literature as well as the erected memorials both could be identified as the bearers of the collective memory and seem to serve the dual purpose of remembering and reminding. Remembering, and in this sense praising the kings and the heroes as the protectors of the society by means of the “panegyric ritual”106 as a social mechanism, and the establishment of their memorials together with its rites, and reminding the society to the principles that heroes have designated with their lives, and to the heroic acts that could illuminate the unexperienced past. The literary references on the erection of memorials together with the more abundant archaeological findings show the strong efforts of contemporaries to take the worthy members of the old societies with them into their “progressive present.” The old heroic literature, which was delightful and entertaining, indirectly recorded moral and social duties of heroes, highlighted symbolic events, fabulous memories, and retouched historical records and was no doubt a guarantee of the legitimate survival of clans and of the stable functioning of societies. Thus, the memory of the monarch was part of a larger conglomeration called the memory of the heroes, which was reflected in the flattering court poetry of the ancient Tamils, which secured the livelihood of the poets, gave icons and stories to the societies, and as a symbolic memorial preserved the glory of the monarchs so that they obtained the long-lasting earthly fame as the Cēra king did, who “lived in the mouths of learned poets with uttering tongues, after his good fame shining from afar has been established” (cēṇ viḷaṅku nal icai niṟīi nā navil pulavar vāy uḷāṉē).107
Bibliography
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9. Rajan, K. South Indian Memorial Stones. Thanjavur: Manoo Pathippakam, 2000.
10. ———. “Life after Death: From Mortal Remains to Monuments.” in Mapping the Chronology of Bhakti: Milestones, Stepping Stones, and Stumbling Stones; Proceedings of a workshop held in honour of Paṇḍit R. Varadadesikan, edited by Valérie Gillet. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry / École française d’Extrême-Orient, 2014.
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17. Wilden, Eva. “Agricultural Metaphors in Sangam Literature.” in Pandanus ’06, Nature in Literature and Ritual, edited by Jaroslav Vacek, 191–209. Prague: Triton, 2006.
18. ———. Manuscript, Print and Memory: Relics of the Caṅkam in Tamilnadu. Berlin and München and Boston: De Gruyter, 2014.
19. Zvelebil, Kamil. The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973.
Footnotes
1
Jan Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance and Political Imagination (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 19. On the following pages, the recent English translation of the original work [Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (München: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1997)] has been cited.
2
Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization, 19.
3
George L. Hart, The Poems of Ancient Tamil: Their Milieu and their Sanskrit Counterparts (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1975), 13–21, 21–51, 82–86, 86–93.
4
K. Rajan, “Life After Death: From Mortal Remains to Monuments,” in Mapping the Chronology of Bhakti: Milestones, Stepping Stones, and Stumbling Stones: Proceedings of a workshop held in honour of Pandit R. Varadadesikan, ed. Valérie Gillet (Pondichéry: Institut Français de Pondichéry/École française d’Extrême-Orient, 2014), 221–239; K. Rajan, South Indian memorial stones (Thanjavur: Manoo Pathippakam, 2000).
5
K. Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).
6
For example, see N. Subrahmanian, Śaṅgam Polity: The Administration and Social Life of the Śaṅgam Tamils (Madurai: Ennes Publications, 1980), 321–322. Xavier S. Thani Nayagam, Landscape and Poetry: A Study of Nature in Classical Tamil Poetry (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1966), 64. M. E. M. Pillai, Culture of the Ancient Cheras: A Treatise on Cultural Reconstruction (Kovilpatti: Vijayalakshmi Printers, 1970), 41; 94; 170–171.
7
Eva Wilden, Manuscript, Print and Memory: Relics of the Caṅkam in Tamilnadu (Berlin/München/Boston: De Gruyter, 2014), 6. The dating of the Caṅkam literature is still the subject of disagreement; for example it might be enough to mention Herman Tieken’s much-debated theory, which dates Caṅkam literature to the Middle Ages (8th–9th c. A.D.). See Herman Tieken, “Old Tamil Caṅkam literature and the so-called Caṅkam period,” The Indian Economic & Social History Review 40 (2003): 247–278.
8
Wilden, Manuscript, Print and Memory, 1.
9
The Cēra, Cōḻa, and Pāṇṭiya rulers have been mentioned not just in literary works, but on Tamil inscriptions and also in other, non-Tamil sources, for example the fragments of Megasthenes, the edicts of Aśoka (II. and XIII.), the Mahābhārata, the Hāthigumphā inscription of Khāravela, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, the Periplus Maris Erythraei, and the geographical work of Ptolemy. For further details, see K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, Foreign Notices of South India: From Megasthenes to Ma Huan (Madras: University of Madras, 1939).
10
Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, 73.
11
Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, 5.
12
Tolkāppiyam is known as the ancient grammarly (ilakkaṇam) sister-tradition of the literary (ilakkiyam) corpus, which is divided into three books: (1) the phonology and the accidence (Eḻuttatikāram), (2) the morphology and the semantics (Collatikāram), (3) the literary compositions, their subject-matter, and the literary conventions regarding the form and the content (Poruḷatikāram). Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, 49; Tolkāppiyam Poruḷatikāram: An English Translation with Critical Notes, trans. L. Gloria Sundramathy and Indra Manuel. (Thiruvananthapuram: International School of Dravidian Linguistics, 2010); Tolkāppiyam Poruḷatikāram Akattiṇaiyiyal cū. 57–58. (cited by Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, 5).
13
Alexander Dubiansky, “Royal Attributes as Reflected in “Caṅkam” Poetry,” Cracow Indological Studies 15 (2013): 308.
14
Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, 77.
15
In the collection of Ten Idylls (Pattuppāṭṭu) there are certain texts called āṟṟuppaṭai songs, which have the literary program to guide poets, dancers, artists, and suppliants to the liberal donors of Tamiḻakam. Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, 35–48.
16
Ganapathy Subbiah, The Roots of Tamil Religious Thoughts. (Pondicherry: Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, 1991), 133.
17
The noun cāṉṟōṉ can be derived from the verb cāl-tal, which means to be abundant, full, or extensive; to excel in moral worth; to be great or noble; to be suitable or fitting; or to be finished or exhausted. Tamil Lexicon, vol. 3, part 1 (Madras: University of Madras, 1928), 1389.
18
Kamil Zvelebil, The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), 17.
19
Tamil Lexicon, vol. 3, part 1, 1397.
20
Not in the case of Iḷaveḷimāṉ, who was a famous tightwad, see Puṟanāṉūṟu, 162.
21
For further details, see Subbiah, The Roots of Tamil Religious Thoughts, 133–158.
22
Dubiansky, “Royal Attributes as Reflected in “Caṅkam” Poetry,” 308.
23
‘… vīyātu/uṭampoṭu niṉṟa uyirum illai/maṭaṅkal uṇmai māyamō aṉṟē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 363: 7–9. Cf. the end of the 366th puṟam written by Kōtamaṉār: Puṟanāṉūṟu, 366: 23.
24
The idea was probably the effect of certain Buddhist/Jaina tenets, propagating the instability (nillāmai) of life.
25
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 192: 4.
26
‘narampu eḻuntu ulaṟiya nirampā meṉtōḷ/muḷari maruṅkiṉ mutiyōḷ ciṟuvaṉ/paṭai aḻintu māṟiṉaṉ eṉṟu palar kūṟa/maṇṭu/amarkku uṭaintaṉaṉ āyiṉ uṇṭa eṉ/mulai aṟuttiṭuveṉ yāṉ eṉa ciṉaii/koṇṭa vāḷoṭu paṭu piṇam peyarā/ceṅkaḷam tuḻavuvōḷ citaintu vēṟākiya/paṭumakaṉ kiṭakkai kāṇūu/īṉṟa ñāṉṟiṉum peritu uvantaṉaḷē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 278.
27
‘uyir tiṟai peyara nal amar kaṭanta/taṟukaṇ āḷar taḻīi teṟuvara/cem cevi eruvai añcuvara irukkum/kal atar kavalai.’ Akanāṉūṟu, 77: 9–12.
28
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 253: 1–6.
29
Eva Wilden, “Agricultural Metaphors in Sangam Literature,” in Pandanus ’06, Nature in Literature and Ritual, ed. Jaroslav Vacek (Prague: Triton, 2006), 191–209.
30
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 368: 1–18.
31
‘neyttōr toṭṭa ceṅkai maṟavar/niṟam paṭu kuruti nilam paṭarnt’ ōṭi/maḻai nāḷ puṉaliṉ aval parant’ oḻuka/paṭu piṇam piṟaṅka pāḻ pala ceytu.’ Patiṟṟuppattu, 49: 10–13.
32
‘maṭam perumaiyiṉ uṭaṉṟu mēl vanta/vēntu mey maṟanta vāḻcci/vīnt’ uku pōrkkaḷatt’ āṭum kōvē.’ Patiṟṟuppattu, 56: 6–8.
33
‘aṟattiṉ maṇṭiya maṟappōr vēntar/tām māyntaṉarē kuṭai tuḷaṅkiṉavē/urai cāl ciṟappiṉ muraicu oḻintaṉavē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 62: 7–9. Although the literary theme of the simultaneous death of both kings can be found among the subdivisions of the tumpai tiṇai in the Tolkāppiyam (iruvar talaivar taputi pakkamum. Tolkāppiyam Poruḷatikāram Puṟattiṇaiyiyal cū. 14: 5.), it is difficult to deal whether the description was a memory of a real event (as suggested by the proper names found in the probably later colophon) or just a part of literary program.
34
‘… vantōr/tār tāṅkutalum āṟṟār veṭipaṭṭu/ōṭal marīiya pīṭu il maṉṉar.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 93: 2–3.
35
‘maṟam kant’ āka nal amar vīḻnta/nīḷ kaḻal maṟavar celvuḻi celka.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 93: 9–10.
36
‘prehi prehi pathibhiḥ pūrvyebhir yatrā naḥ pūrve pitaraḥ pareyuḥ.’ Ṛgveda, X.14.7. The Rigveda: the earliest religious poetry of India, trans. Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1392.
37
“This strewn grass here, Yama—just sit here on it, in concord with the Aṅgirases, our forefathers. Let mantras pronounced by poets convey you hither. Become exhilarated on this oblation, o king.” ‘(imaṃ yama prastaramā hi sīdāṅghirobhiḥ pitṛbhiḥsaṃvidānaḥ/ā tvā mantrāḥ kaviśastā vahantvenā rājanhaviṣā mādayasva).’ Rgveda, X.14. 4. The Rigveda, 1391.
38
‘tiṟam puri pacum pul parappiṉar kiṭappi.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 93: 8.
39
Hart suggests that the costume of laying the bodies on grass is similar to Indo-Aryan rituals (Hart, The Poems of Ancient Tamil, 85), but since he refers only the above-cited poem from the Caṅkam corpus and we cannot find other reference on this rite, we believe that the poem refers to a custom performed by Vedic priests of South India.
40
Akanāṉūṟu, 115. Cf. Puṟanāṉūṟu, 233, on the death of Evvi.
41
Akanāṉūṟu, 208.
42
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 112, 113.
43
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 235.
44
For example, Patiṟṟuppattu 3. patikam: 10.
45
Akanāṉūṟu, 55; Puṟanāṉūṟu, 66.
46
The “tutelary tree” (kaṭimaram) was an important symbol of royalty at the time of Caṅkam literature, which tree had a deeper connection with the king’s life, “presumably the tree itself was believed to contain and to protect the king’s life energy.” Dubiansky, “Royal Attributes as Reflected in “Caṅkam” Poetry,” 318.
47
Hart uses the word “Valhalla” as a quasi-synonym and an attempt to define the general function of the ancient Tamil heaven-conception (Hart, The Poems of Ancient Tamil, 41), although we consider it as an odd simplification.
48
‘māṟā maintiṉ tuṟakkam eytiya toyyā nal icai mutiyar.’ Akanāṉūṟu, 233: 6–7.
49
Patiṟṟuppattu, 52: 8–9; Akanāṉūṟu, 338: 16–17.
50
“Except those, who possess fame here [on earth], there is no abode [for others] in the higher world.” (ivaṇ icai uṭaiyōrkku allatu avaṇ atu uyar nilai ulakattu uṟaiyuḷ iṉmai). Puṟanāṉūṟu, 50:14–15.
51
‘āhaveṣu mitho’nyonyaṁ jighāṁsanto mahīkṣitaḥ/yudhyamānāḥ paraṁ śaktyā svargaṁ yāntyaparāṅmukhāḥ.’ Mānavadharmaśāstra, VII. 89. Manu’s code of law: a critical edition and translation of the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra, ed. and trans. Patrick Olivelle. (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 159.
52
Cf. Patiṟṟuppattu, 63: 13–14.
53
Tolkāppiyam Poruḷatikāram Puṟattiṇaiyiyal, cū. 63: 9–10.
54
Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, 74.
55
‘pulavar pāṭum pukaḻ uṭaiyōr vicumpiṉ/valavaṉ ēvā vāṉa ūrti/eytupa eṉpa tam cey viṉai muṭittu.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 27: 7–9.
56
‘kaścidviṣatkhaḍgahṛtottamāṅgaḥ/sadyo vimānaprabhutāmupetya/vāmāṅgasaṁsaktasurāṅganaḥ svam/nṛtyatkabandham samare dadarśa …’ The Raghuvamśa of Kālidāsa with the commentary (the Sañjīvanī) of Mallinātha. Cantos I—X, ed. and trans. M. R. Kale (Bombay: Gopal Narayen & Co., 1922), VII, 51, 58.
57
‘ambarīṣo hi nābhāgaḥ svargaṃ gatvā sudurlabham/dadarśa suralokasthaṃ śakreṇa sacivaṃ saha/sarvatejomayaṃ divyaṃ vimānavaram āsthitam/upary upari gacchantaṃ svaṃ vai senāpatiṃ prabhum/sa dṛṣṭvopari gacchantaṃ senāpatim udāradhīḥ/ṛddhiṃ dṛṣṭvā sudevasya vismitaḥ prāha vāsavam.’ Mahābhārata, XII. 98. 3–5.
58
George L. Hart, “The Theory of Reincarnation among the Tamils,” in Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, ed. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty (Berkeley; Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1980), 116.
59
‘cātal añcēṉ añcuval cāviṉ/piṟappu piṟitu ākuvatu āyiṉ/maṟakkuveṉkol eṉ kātalaṉ eṉavē.’ Naṟṟiṇai. A Critical Edition and an Annotated Translation of the Naṟṟiṇai., ed. and trans. Eva Wilden, 3 vols. (Pondichéry: École française d’Extrême/Chennai: Tamiḻmaṇ Patippakam, 2008), 2: 852, 397: 7–9.
60
‘immai ceytatu maṟumaikku ām eṉum/aṟavilai vaṇikaṉ āay allaṉ/piṟarum cāṉṟōr ceṉṟa neṟiyeṉa/āṅku paṭṭaṉṟu avaṉ kaivaṇmaiyē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 34. To add to this that in the Caṅkam literature references to karma are encountered; for instance the term ‘nal-viṉai’ in Naṟṟiṇai, 107: 8 can be interpreted as karma.
61
The primary meaning of peru-ṅ-kāṭu is “great wilderness,” but here it refers to the burning-ground as a synonym of cuṭukāṭu. Tamil Lexicon, vol. 5. 2871.
62
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 364: 11–13.
63
‘eṟi puṉa kuṟavaṉ kuṟaiyal aṉṉa/kari puṟa viṟakiṉ īmam oḷ aḻal/kuṟukiṉum kuṟukuka kuṟukātu ceṉṟu/vicumpuṟa nīḷiṉum nīḷka pacuṅkatir/tiṅkaḷ aṉṉa veṇkuṭai/oḷ ñāyiṟu aṉṉōṉ pukaḻ māyalavē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 231.
64
‘iṭuka oṉṟō cuṭuka oṉṟō/paṭu vaḻi paṭuka ippukaḻ veyyōṉ talaiyē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 239: 20–21.
65
According to Tamil Lexicon, which refers to Piṅkalam: peru-malai is equivalent to Mount Meru, the centre of the created world in the Hindu cosmogony. Tamil Lexicon, vol. 5., 2881.
66
‘iru nilam tikiriyā perumalai/maṇṇā vaṉaital ollumō niṉakkē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 228: 14–15. On urn-burial, see Rajan, South Indian memorial stones, 9–23.
67
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 221, 231, 245, 246, 247, 250, 363.
68
Rajan, “Life after Death: From Mortal Remains to Monuments,” 223.
69
Rajan, “Life after Death: From Mortal Remains to Monuments,” 225.
70
Rajan, “Life after Death: From Mortal Remains to Monuments,” 226.
71
The stones were found at Pulimāṉkompai in Āṇṭipaṭṭi taluk, Tēṉi district of Tamil Nadu. The most complete inscribed stone has three lines: kal pēṭu tīyaṉ antavaṉ kūṭal ūr ākōḷ, which means according to K. Rajan’s interpretation: “this hero stone [is raised to] a man called tīyaṉ antavaṉ of pēṭu [village who died in] cattle raid of kūṭal ūr.” Rajan, “Life after Death: From Mortal Remains to Monuments,” 228.
72
Rajan, “Life after Death: From Mortal Remains to Monuments,” 221–222.
73
The term maṟavar can either mean the inhabitants and hunters of hilly tracts or warriors. Tamil Lexicon, vol. 5, 3119.
74
‘nal amar kaṭanta nāṇuṭai maṟavar/peyarum pīṭum eḻuti atartoṟum/pīli cūṭṭiya piṟaṅku nilai naṭukal/vēl ūṉṟu palakai vēṟṟu muṉai kaṭukkum.’ Akanāṉūṟu, 67: 8–11. Cf. Akanāṉūṟu, 131: 10–13.
75
Akanāṉūṟu, 179: 7–8.
76
Akanāṉūṟu, 211: 15.
77
Akanāṉūṟu, 297: 7–8.
78
‘naṭṭa pōlum naṭāa neṭuṅkal/akal iṭam kuyiṉṟa pal peyar ….’ Akanāṉūṟu, 269: 7–8.
79
‘puṉtalai citaitta vaṉtalai naṭukal/kaṇṇi vāṭiya maṇṇā maruṅkul/kūr uḷi kuyiṉṟa kōṭumāy eḻuttu ….’ Akanāṉūṟu, 343: 5–7.
80
‘… aruñcamam tataiya nūṟi/nal icai niṟutta nāṇ uṭai maṟavar.’ Akanāṉūṟu, 387: 13–14.
81
Akanāṉūṟu, 365: 4–5.
82
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 232: 3–4.
83
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 260: 25–28.
84
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 263: 3; 5.
85
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 264: 1–4.
86
‘… kaṉṟoṭu/kaṟavai tantu pakaivar ōṭṭiya.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 264: 4–5.
87
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 206: 3–4.
88
Malaipaṭukaṭām, 387–395.
89
‘oṉṉā tevvar muṉṉiṉṟu vilaṅki/oḷiṟu ēntu maruppiṉ kaḷiṟu eṟintu vīḻnteṉa/kallē paraviṉ allatu/nel ukuttu paravum kaṭavuḷum ilavē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 335: 9–12.
90
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 314: 3.
91
‘kiṭuku niraittu eḥku ūṉṟi/naṭukalliṉ araṇ pōla.’ Paṭṭiṉappālai, 78–79.
92
According to the translation of L. Gloria Sundramathy and Indra Manuel, the line “cīrttaku marapiṉ perumpaṭai” means “making the stone worthy of great offering by building a temple,” but also “engraving the merits of the hero on the stone or deifying the stone,” explanations which are based on Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar’s medieval commentaries; Tolkāppiyam Poruḷatikāram Puṟattiṇaiyiyal, 66–70.
93
Tolkāppiyam Poruḷatikāram Puṟattiṇaiyiyal, cū. 63: 19–20.
94
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 221: 1–13.
95
Akanāṉūṟu, 44. cf. Puṟanāṉūṟu, 66.
96
Cf. Puṟanāṉūṟu, 219.
97
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 261.
98
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 265: 5.
99
Kailasapathy, Tamil Heroic Poetry, 237.
100
‘pal cāṉṟīrē pal cāṉṟīrē/celkeṉa collātu oḻikeṉa vilakkum/pollā cūḻcci pal cāṉṟīrē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 246: 1–3.
101
‘peruṅkāṭṭu paṇṇiya karuṅkōṭṭu īmam/numakku aritu ākuka tilla emakku em/peruntōḷ kaṇavaṉ māynteṉa … /(…)/ … poykaiyum tīyum ōraṟṟē.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 246: 11–15.
102
We cannot be sure that the text is talking about one wife, several wives, or other female attendants of the king, since the honorific plural was regularly used for singular and plural subject as well.
103
Puṟanāṉūṟu, 240: 4–6.
104
‘puli cērntu pōkiya kal aḷai pōla īṉṟa vayiṟō.’ Puṟanāṉūṟu, 86: 4–5.
105
Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations 26 (1989): 18–19.
106
The term “panegyric ritual” was suggested by Alexander Dubyanskiy during our conversations.
107
Puṟanāṉūṟu 282: 10–11.