Translation:Tolkappiyam/Love affairs (Agam composition)

by Tolkappiyar

use me to read Tamil

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

1. 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
2. This chapter deals the life of the literature that followed by Tamils.

Discernment

1. Personal life is classified into seven strands, according to scholars. They are from [kaikkil’ai] to [perunthin’ai]. 1
2. 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
3. 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
4. Aspects of land and time are [muthar’porul’], the linguistic discerns. 4

Four divisions of landscape

1. 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

1. Rainy season and evening time are beneficial to the behavior of meadow landscape. 6
2. Cool season and midnight time are beneficial to the behavior of hilly landscape. 7
3. Early-dewy season is also beneficial to the above. 8
4. Early-morning and morning times beneficial to the behavior of cultivate land. 9
5. Time of evening-day is beneficial to the behavior of littoral land. 10
6. Noon time and spring season are beneficial to the mid-land (the seasonal arid tract). 11
7. Late-dewy season is also beneficial to the tract above. 12

Moods of separations

1. 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

Deviation

1. The time (and season) will come in other lands but the land and behavior. 14

Behavior of tract (tract behavior)

1. 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
2. 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
3. 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
4. Happiness of the heroine when she happened to meet her beloved is another action of behavior interlude in hilly-tract-behavior. 18

First part of land-strand

1. Land and time are the two parts of the first land-strand. 19

Second part of land-strand

1. The distinctive physical features of the tract land are God, food, animal, tree, bird, drum, occupation, lute-music, etc. come in second part. 20
2. A flower of a tree or plant that does not come to its tract, the tract in which it comes is accepted. 21
3. The common name of people live in each tract is inferred on (two base) 1 region and 2 occupations. 22
4. [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
5. The common names based on land of tract are derived in such a way to the people of other tracts of land. 24
6. The names of workers and artists are also derived in this way of pattern. 25
7. Obeying people are also eligible to participate in the poems of love affairs. 26

Matters of separation in love process

• Pursuit of learning, call of war against foemen and missions ambassadorial are the causes on which the hero parts heroine. 27

Parting of social classes

• Among the three, parting for learning and mission are the habits of upper classes. 28
• King parts alone or along with warriors. 29
• Others parts on some more causes; worship and festival, restoration of righteousness, extending territory and earning wealth to become rich. 30
• Parting on worship and festive, is common for four classes. 31
• Restoration of righteousness and extending territory fall on lower classes to ruling class. 32
• Learning is vested on upper class. 33
• Performance of ruling is also vested on the lower classes of the king’s family. 34
• Earning wealth is also rest on the two lower classes. 35
• Parting on earning by the upper class shall be performed along with their assigned duties. 36

Woman role

• Sailing to earn will never be accompanied by woman. 37
• The behavior of riding Palmira-stem-horse never enjoin to woman in any strand (of five). 38

The contexts of utterance by heroine’s mother

• 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 utterance of the hero

• 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 contexts of utterance of others

• Other persons connected with personal-life are also take part speaking in this style. 45
• What happened in the past is also mended and spoken. 46
• Speaking of avoiding separation is also the matter of separation. 47

Blending of land-time features

• Separating behavior of arid strand will come with mixing the materials of meadow (forest) strand. 48

Strand assessing

• The strand will also be assessed on the basis of comparison which explicit is in two forms; 1 suggestive simile and 2 explicit similes. 49
• Suggestive simile will have its vehicle on all features of physical world in the given tract saving the deities, says the learned. 50
• The suggestive simile is the one where the tenor comes revealing the augment meaning. 51
• The tenor of the other explicit simile is obvious. 52

Features of unrequited love

• 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

Aspects of abnormal sexual passion

• 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

Materials of personal love

• 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

Non naming procedure

• No personal name of the partners will appear in the literary composition of personal love affairs. 57
• If the personal name of a partner in love affairs appears the subject material is to be considered as public affairs. 58