INTRODUCTION
I
THE NAME
THE term Silappadikāram is made up of two words, śilambu and adikāram. Literally the title means 'the story that centres around a śilambu or anklet'. The hero and the heroine of the story, Kõvalan and Kaņņaki, set out for Madura to dispose of a śilambu and thereby raise the capital needed to pursue a trade. In the bazaar street of Madura Kõvalan meets the state goldsmith. The state goldsmith who has stolen the queen's anklet (similar to that in Kõvalan's hand) reports to the king that he has found the thief. The king blindly believes the goldsmith and has poor Kõvalan executed. The heroine proves to the king her husband's innocence by breaking open her other anklet and showing that the contents of her anklets are different from those of the queen. The Pāņdyan king dies of grief on realizing his blunder in having ordered the execution of Kõvalan without proper investigation. Kannaki destroys the city of Madura by fire to avenge the execution of her husband, and is finally proclaimed the goddess of chastity. As the story thus centres round the śilanıbu, it can appropriately be named the Epic of the Anklet.
One among the five perumkāppiyains (mahākāvyas of Sanskrit literature), the Silappadikāram may come under the category of toțarnilaicceyyul and in it we find iyal, išai, and nāțakam as its chief characteristics. Iyal, iśai, and nāțakam mean, respectively, Literary Tamil, Music, and the Drama. There will be no two opinions about the excellence of the literary Tamil of the epic ; and as regards the other two characteristics, išai and nāțakam, the
