The Historical Evolution of

Literary Practices in Medieval Kerala

(ca. 1200-1800 CE)

A Dissertation Submitted to the

Department of History, Mangalore University,
in Partial Fulfillment for Award of the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

Manu V. Devadevan

Mangalore University
Mangalagangothri
 Contents

Introduction: Problems and Prospects of an Epistemology 1

Texts and Contexts: The Beginnings 48

Texts and Contexts: The Transformation 100

Territoriality 150

Mimesis 208

Ethicality 263

Conclusion: The Impasse of theory 310

Bibliography 324
 Chapter 1
Introduction:
Problems and Prospects of an Epistemology

Can we theorize literature? This is an intimidating question. In the

academic climate that we inhabit today, it can well turn out to be a regressive

or even heretical question to ask. For, it is theory that informs so much of the

haute couture radicalism that we find sashaying in our midst. The production

of theory - which we are told, has “promised the relief of new problems and

new interests”1 - is the concern which animates human sciences today. We

are expected to believe that “history is happening - within the pages of

theory” and not the other way round.2 Under these circumstances, it will be

far more acceptable to ask if a theory of literature should be constrained by

being circumscribed around Baudelaire, Balzac, Mallarme, Rimbaud, Joyce

and Kafka, names which monopolize contemporary literary theory in

threateningly anachronistic ways. In other words, there should be no

1 Jameson 1991: 182.

2 Bhabha 1994: 25.

1
objection to a plea that urges us to look at Basho, at Boccaccio, at Kamban,

Sappho, Firdausi, Hesiod, Bhartrhari, Sion Cent, Chaucer and Omar

Khayyam, who lived in times when it was impossible to produce

“allegories” of capitalism, nation, modernity and Bentham. More committed

to Boccaccios and Bhartrharis as we are than to Baudelaires and Balzacs, our

primary concern nonetheless is to know whether or not a theory of literature

is possible in the first place. It may well be an unwelcome concern, and an

unfamiliar one too, as far as the study of literary practices is concerned. But

it is also a concern which we cannot evade anymore.

~ af addressing the question is by examining the history of

literary practices. It is not the only way of doing it. But by its very

exhaustive nature - which enables us to situate literary practices in space and

appreciate changes and continuities across time - it has few heuristic

parallels. Ours will therefore be a historical study. We will examine literary

practices in Kerala between CE 1200 and 1800 and see what theoretical

problems and prospects emerge from them. The choice of Kerala is based on

several considerations, not the least of which is our intimate familiarity with

the region and its letters. Firstly, Kerala was exposed to literary practices as

early as the second and third centuries CE. The Padirruppattu songs of the

Tamil Ettutogai corpus (ca. 100-300 CE) is almost exclusively set in the

region controlled by the Ceras, which included parts of Kerala as well. The

2
region has had a continuous history of literary engagements ever since.

Practices like reading, reciting, copying, commenting, performing,

patronizing, disseminating and decrying may go back to the late first

millennium CE. By the close of the ninth century, poets like Saktibhadra, /

Kulasekhara and the latter’s protege Vasudeva has inaugurated a tradition of

producing literary works within Kerala under the influence of the Sanskrit

kavya aesthetics, which differed in many ways from the Tolkappiyam

aesthetic which governed the production of Padirruppattu earlier in the

millennium. A new phase in the history of literature commenced shortly

after the year 1200, which led to rich experiments in language, genre,

meters, form, content, theme and modalities of performance and

transmission. The unbroken continuity of these practices is, to say the least,
r~---------------- ------------------ --------■ ......

compelling. This alone can make the study of literatures in Kerala

instructive. Secondly, Kerala never witnessed the rise of huge empires like

those of the Rastrakutas, Colas or Mughals. The only state which has a pan-

Kerala presence in the premodem period - no matter how tenuous - was the

one presided over by the Cera Perumals of Mahodayapuram (now Kodurrn-

allur). This state, which came into existence in the early ninth century, fell

apart towards the close of the first quarter of the twelfth century. This was

nearly a century before the commencement of the new literary era with

which the present is concerned. The case of Kerala literature urges us,

therefore, to be skeptical about the view that the making of literatures is J

3
contingent upon the making of empires. Thirdly, almost everything that was

produced in Kerala had a performative angle to it. Texts were often staged in

front of the intended audience or recited as part of the chores of everyday

life. Many of the texts produced outside Kerala were also widely performed.

We learn from inscriptions that the Sanskrit Mahabharata3 and the Tamil

Tiruppavai of Andal4 were part of temple rituals. A particular fascination for

the plays of Bhasa and Mahendravarman is something one can hardly fail to

take note of. As far as premodem Kerala is concerned, it is almost

impossible to find a literary work which was merely of scholastic interest or

meant only for closed-door consumption. What this means is that the praxis

of letters is far richer and vibrant than the modem tradition of reading Balzac

and Joyce in solitude indicates. There were many interesting ways of

handling literature in Kerala, and most of them were livelier than the musing

produced in our times in the name of literary criticism by I.A. Richards, F.R.

Leavis, T.S. Eliot, Frank Kermode, Paul de Man and the n-hundred others.

The present study is not an attempt to produce another literary

history. Our concern lies elsewhere. The purpose of this investigation is to

know whether or not a theory of literature is possible. But inasmuch as ours

is a historical study, it is pertinent that we engage with literary histories

3 Puthusseri 2007, No.29.

4 Ibid., No 67.

4
written in modem times. In doing so, we have to raise a few uneasy

questions. To begin with, does the writing of literary histories as practiced in

the modern period constitute an epistemology? Evidently not. History offers

us the most exhaustive wherewithal for producing knowledge about the

human world. It does not in itself constitute an epistemology. Clearly then,

literary history can be no different. This leads us to the next question: do

modem literary histories provide us with the wherewithal for producing

knowledge about literary practice?

It is difficult to answer this question in the affirmative. There are two

major problems with most extant histories of literature. Firstly, they are not

self-reflexive enough about the object whose history they claim to be

embodying. It is the mercy of the historian alone which decides what should

or should not be considered literary. If a historian makes up his mind, a

history of Telugu literature can commence with things like Lali Patalu (Song

of the Cradle), Ata Patalu (Song of Play), Kuli Patalu (Song of Teamster)

and Kallu Patalu (Song of Wine),5 while discussions on popular performance

forms like Sarighakkali, Tiyattu, Kalampattu, Olappavakkuttu, Eiamattukali

and so on can occupy three full chapters in the history of literature in

5 Chenchiah and Rao Bahadur 1928: 37-40.

5
Kerala.6 At least on some occasion, the benefit of doubt rests with historian.

The inclusion of treatises on cattle-medicine, horse-rearing, culinary science

and agriculture in the history of Kannada literature is not an oversight as far

as R. Narasimhacharya is concerned. After all, these treatises were produced

by men whom posterity recognized as poets.7

Such histories belong to an earlier generation when the methods

involved in literary historiography were less rigorous. Histories written in

more recent times exercise greater restraint and discretion. Nonetheless, the

choice of what to include and what not to continues to rest with the historian.

Thus, Sitamshu Yashaschandra’s account of Gujarati literature will not be

complete without a discussion of Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj,8 and D.R.Nagaraj

cannot stop himself from finding a place for the oral narratives of Male

Madesvara and Mantesvami in the history of Kannada literature.9

6 Ulloor 1990: Vol.l, 205-297.

7 Narasimhscharya 2005: 136-137, 522-525, 485, 465-469. The texts are KTrtivarman’s

Govaidya, Abhinavacandra’s Asvasdstra, Mangaraja’s Pakasastra and Arhaddasa’s

Rattamata respectively.

8 Yashaschandra 2004: 604-608.

9 Nagaraj 2004:334.

6
 The other problem with most literary histories is that they are

histories of literature in a particular language. We have histories for

literatures produced in Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Urdu, Sanskrit,

Spanish, Italian, and so on. Nevertheless, it is not clear how the mere fact of

being written in the same language qualifies a set of texts to be treated as a

distinct object of inquiry. The production of a concordance of poets and

literary works in any language is in itself by no means disagreeable. It forms

an inventory which one can frequently consult for various purposes,

including, say, to understand the expressions and possibilities to which the

said language has been historically exposed to. But to claim that such a

concordance is a piece of history - while in reality it is not anything more

than an inventory - is fraught with several cognitive difficulties. It is

heuristically indefensible, conceptually naive and easily falsifiable. The

production of such histories in modern times is open to challenge on

methodological and epistemological grounds. But in doing so, we must not

be innocent of the constitutive role played by them in making of nationalism,

modernity, print-capitalism and ‘passions of the tongue.’10 This, however, is

beyond the scope of the present study.

10 The phrase in quotes is burrowed from Ramaswamy 1997.

7
 The practice of writing language-centered histories of literature is

particularly unacceptable for South Asia. Being a polyglot region where

many vernaculars, and non-vernacular languages like Sanskrit and Persian,

constantly engaged with each other, the very idea of producing language-

based literary histories has a ridiculous air about it. Ulloor S. Parameswara

Aiyer realized this very well when he commenced work on his five-volume

account of literature in Kerala. He genuinely wondered if it was possible to

make sense of literary Kerala by examining Malayalam texts alone, ignoring

the Sanskrit works of Sankara, Vilvamangalam and Melpattur Narayana

Bhattadiri.11 Suranattu Kunjan Pillai notes that Arabic and Syrian are all that

the Mahakavi missed out.12 We may also add Persian to the list, without

forgetting that it is too tall an order. Ulloor’s choice of the territory rather

than the region has often been endorsed with admiration.13 But it has not

stimulated any rethinking on the otherwise ubiquitous tryst with langrage-

centered literary histories.

The Mahakavi was indeed operating within the contours of an

accepted paradigm of literary historiography. What he produced was an

exhaustive chronological narrative which read like the annals of a ‘given’

11 Ulloor 1990: Vol.1,5.

12 Suranattu 1978: 53.

13 Cf. George 1978: 68-69.

8
/
tradition. It involved a set of all-too-familiar exercises which many a master

had tried and perfected for over a century: locating a literary text in time,

furnishing a brief biographical account of the poet, speculations on the date

and authorship in those cases where they were not readily known, a synoptic

account of the theme and plot, an assessment of the genre, form, structure,

‘sensibility’ and other literary niceties, and a final value judgement on the

‘greatness’ or otherwise of the text. In this respect, Ulloor’s work did not

differ from the ones produced by his peers in the neighbouring states, like

M.S. Poomalingam Pillai in Tamilnadu, R. Narasimhacharya in Karnataka,

or Kandukuri Veeresalingam in Andhra. But Ulloor’s history involved a

major difference when compared to these other works, a difference of

epistemological consequences as it were. Ulloor looked at the literatures

produced in the region - Kerala - while the others were concerned with

works composed in the language ofJhe xegkm—-Tamil, Kannada and Telugu

respectively. Thus, Narasimhacharya wrote about Lakkanna Dandesa’s

Kannada work Sivatatvacintamani, but remained silent about Peddanna’s

Telugu work Manucaritram, though both were produced at the Vijayanagara

court in Hampi. Pillai waxed eloquent on the Tamil Tolkkappiyam but had

nothing to say about the Sanskrit Kavyadarsa composed in Kancipuram by

Dandin. Ulloor on the other hand made no distinction between Melpattur’s

Narayanfyam in Sanskrit and Tunjattu [Ramanujan?] Eluttaccan’s Adhyatma

Ramayanam in Malayalam. He found no justification to separate the Sanskrit

9
Kalydnasaugandhikam of Nllakantha from the Malayalam Kalyana-

saugandhikam of Kunjan Nambyar, for both were produced and performed

in Kerala. Notwithstanding the other commonalities and naivete which

Ulloor shares with his peers, his focus on the region rather than its language

forces us rethink many of our accepted shibboleths about literary practices.

More importantly, it makes us wonder if the histories of literature produced

by the likes of Veeresalingam, Narasimhacharya and Pumalingam Pillai

were really histories of literature in the respective languages, or histories of

the region in disguise.

Ulloor’s work urges us to challenge the validity of categories like

Malayalam literature, Kannada literature, Sanskrit literature, Persian

literature, Russian literature and so on, which presume that the very act of

composing a piece of literature in a specific language constitutes a distinct

human activity having no parallels elsewhere. These histories believe that all

acts of composing literature in a language can be brought together and

woven into a narrative which then supposedly makes up valid field of

knowledge. This is hardly the case though. It must be said, without of course

forgetting the decisive role played by them in the making of the modem

world, that these histories are written against unsustainable conceptual

templates. Let’s examine why.

10
 Peter Kropotkin began his Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature

with an evocative, but not so erudite rhetoric.

One of the last messages which Turgueneff addressed to Russian writers

from his death-bed was to implore them to keep in its purity “that

precious inheritance of ours - the Russian Language.” He who knew in

perfection most of the languages spoken in Western Europe had the

highest opinion of Russian as an instrument for the expression of all

possible shades of thought and feeling, and he had shown in his writings

what depth and force of expression, and what melodiousness of prose,

could be obtained in his native tongue. In his high appreciation of

Russian, Turgueneff - as will often be seen in these pages - was

perfectly right. The richness of the Russian language in words is

astounding: many a word which stands alone for the expression of a

given idea in the languages of Western Europe has in Russian three or

four equivalents for the rendering of the various shades of the same idea.

It is especially rich for rendering various shades of human feeling, -

tenderness and love, sadness and merriment - as also various degrees of

the same action. Its pliability for translation is such that in no other

language do we find an equal number of most beautiful, correct, and

truly poetical renderings of foreign authors. Poets of the most diverse

character, such as Heine and Beranger, Longfellow and Schiller, Shelley

and Goethe - to say nothing of that favourite with Russian translators,

Shakespeare - are equally well turned into Russian. The sarcasm of

Voltaire, the rollicking humour of Dickens, the good-natured laughter of

11
 Cervantes are rendered with equal ease. Moreover, owing to the musical

character of the Russian tongue, it is wonderfully adapted for rendering

poetry in the same metres as those of the original. Longfellow's

“Hiawatha” (in two different translations, both admirable), Heine's

capricious lyrics, Schindler's ballads, the melodious folk-songs of

different nationalities, and Beranger's playful chansonnettes, read in

Russian with exactly the same rhythms as in the originals. The desperate

vagueness of German metaphysics is quite as much at home in Russian

as the matter-of-fact style of the eighteenth century philosophers; and the

short, concrete and expressive, terse sentences of the best English writers

offer no difficulty for the Russian translator.14

What Kropotkin sought to evoke was the sublimity of the Russian language

and its literature, whose richness in capturing the human world is something

that is found “in no other language.” But at the source of this overt love for a

language and its literature is the love for the territorial matrix of language.

Kropotkin lived at a time when territory was not seen as the springhead of

languages and literatures, but paradoxically enough, as an entity that finds

expression through the latter. Needless to say, this was one of the

vicissitudes through which the new territory of modem times, the nation,

came to be articulated. Writing about Finland, Kropotkin observes that

14 Kropotkin 1915: 1.

12
 Finland has...the ethnographic cohesion which is the first condition for

constituting a nation. Its inhabitants possess also the historic inheritance

of common struggles, common glory, and common misfortunes, and they

have a common board of folk-lore and literature.15

It is through “ethnographic cohesion,” Kropotkin tells us, that a piece of land

can express itself as a nation, and what feeds into its cohesiveness is, inter

alia, “a common board of folk-lore and literature.” The process of

identifying such common corpuses of literature was initiated over a century

before Kropotkin wrote about Finland, when Herder began his quest for

“German” literature and folklore16 and Thomas Warton published his three-

volume history of “English” poetry between 1774 and 1781. “Usually

acknowledged as the first work of literary history in English,” Warton’s

work appeared at a time when “there was a widespread practice of literary

criticism in the eighteenth century which occurred in ‘gentleman’s’ journals

and annotated editions, as well as in eighteenth-century poetry itself.” The

gentleman’s mission included acts like elevating the works of, say, Milton to

the status of classics, which sought on the one hand to invest the English

language with the kind of “sublimity” which Homer had brought to Greek

15 Kropotkin 1885.

16 Bauman and Briggs 2003, Fox 2003. Also see Norton 1991 and Oergel 2006.

13
and Virgil to Latin, and on the other, to give the emerging English nation an

identity of its own.17

Nearer home, Shamba Joshi claimed in his first book published in

1933 that the Kavirajamargam, a ninth century treatise on poetics and the

earliest known work in Kannada, was meant to establish a homology

between land and language (nadu-nudigala samakattu).18 Significantly

enough, nadu-nudi has been a key expression in modem Kannada in both

popular and academic works, figuring, for instance, in the very title of a

major study published recently, Nadu-Nudiya Rupaka.19 Thus, when the

most popular literary history in the language concludes with the declaration

that “Kannada Literature is the perpetual-lamp of Kannada, [and] the

boundless treasure of Karnataka,”20 we see a discipline which stands on

infirm grounds, which cannot sustain its literature-language equation

(Kannada Literature) without at the same time making the presence of the

territory (Karnataka) felt, for although an attempt has been made to establish

a homology between territory and language, the latter cannot quite replace

the former. Modem histories of literature are therefore the articulations of

17 Colebrook 1997: 9-10. For Warton, see Fairer 1981.

18 Shamba 1999: Vol 1, 5-6.

19 Literally, “the metaphor of land and language,” Padikkal 2001.

20 Mugali 2007: 345. Translation mine.

14
territories - the nation, the region, and at times the whole world - and not

languages. It can’t be for any other reason that Wole Soyinka and Salman

Rushdie are not English writers in a way Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence

are. They are men who write in English, but not English writers, for they do

not inhabit the territorial space of Britain or America in a manner that can be

dubbed “ethnographic cohesion”. It therefore becomes necessary to

distinguish them with adjectives like Indo-Anglican, Postcolonial, Indian,

African and Commonwealth. Likewise, Aime Cesaire’s Cahier is recognized

as one of the greatest works ever written in French. Yet, it is not a piece of

French Literature, but an instance of Francophone writing. The same is true

of Malayalam as well. No account of modem Malayalam Literature will

acknowledge the works of authors who write in Malayalam but live outside

Kerala, unless they - like O.V. Vijayan, M. Mukundan or Anand - bring out

their works through publishers based in Kerala. Malayalam writers who live

abroad and get their works printed in the presses of America or the Gulf

countries are no Malayalam writers.

This is reason enough to question the practice of writing language- J~

based literary histories, for what is generally passed off as the history of

literature in a particular language is in fact a callow narrative of the territory

in which the class producing the narrative - elite, bourgeoisie, gentlemen,

middle class, bhadralok - has its authority invested. We know that it is this

15
class which carved out the nation space,21 and that the marginalized groups

who participated in the process ended up more often than not as victims of
'll
the nation. Be that as it may, these naiTatives would indeed have had at

least an empirical - but certainly not epistemological - validity, had it not

been for the fact that they draw upon a poorly compiled inventory that is

unhistorical, lacking in method, and easily falsifiable. To look at a very

specific example, is Kereya Padmarasa, who lived in the late twelfth century,

a Kannada poet because he wrote the Diksabodhe in Kannada? Or should we

consider him a Sanskrit poet because his influential, but now-lost

Sanandacaritram - which survives in the form of a Kannada translation

made by his son Kumara Padmarasa - was written in Sanskrit? Another

instance is that of Palkurike Somanatha, the outstanding contemporary of the

senior Padmarasa, whom modem Telugu scholarship identifies as one of the

greatest poets of the language. Somanatha wrote his masterpieces like

Panditaradhyacaritram and Basavapuranam in Telugu and a few minor

works like Sdmesvarasataka and Pahcaratna in Kannada. Speaking of

literary practices in the twelfth century Deccan, it needs to be said and said

again that Somanatha shared almost everything with his Kannada

compatriots Harihara, Raghavanka and Padmarasa, except the language in

21 Chatterjee 1993.

22 Amin 1995. We are only pointing to the larger argument made in this work, and not the

specific case of Chauri Chaura, which does not inspire much confidence.

16
which he wrote his major works, and together with the trio, he left behind a

corpus of religious poetry, which would be appropriated some three

centuries later by the emerging VTrasaivas as their religious and historical

legacy. How legitimate, then, is it to remove Somanatha from the midst of

this history and place him alongside poets like Nannayya, Nannecoda,

Srlnatha, Peddanna and Nacana Soma, with whom he shared nothing except

the Telugu language?

One can of course flood pages with instances of this kind, and the

very existence of such cases exposes serious difficulties in language-based

histories of literature. We shall take note of only a handful of cases here.

What authorizes us to separate the sixteenth century saints Annamayya and

Purandaradasa from the milieu, the faith, the genre, the concerns and the

history they shared, and locate the former within a narrative called “the

history of Telugu Literature” and place the songs of the latter in the league

of the voluminous works of Pampa, Ponna and Ranna, with whom he had

nothing in common, other than the Kannada language? Likewise, what

enables us to place the hagiographies of the Nayanars written by Cekkiiar

and Harihara in two different histories, wherein the latter, because it is

written in Kannada, shares a space with Candraraja’s Madanatilakam, a

treatise on erotics, while the former, on grounds of being written in Tamil,

finds its seat next to a normative text, Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkurall Such

17
questions are endless. Where is the provenance of Laksmldasa’s

Sukasandesci, a work composed around 1400 CE Kerala in the sandesa-

kavyam genre (the messenger poem, modelled after Kalidasa’s famous

Meghadutam)? Is it proper to place it alongside the seventh century Sanskrit

works of Bhavabhuti, Bana, Bharavi and Bhatti, merely because the bard

chose to write in Sanskrit? Or should it be situated within the specific

material context of post-Perumal Kerala where it was composed and

circulated along with several other sandesakavyams like Koldlasandesa,

Hamsasandesa, Unnunflisandesam and Kokasandesaml Where do we locate

the fourteenth century poet Damodara, who wrote a courtesan-eulogy, the

UnniyadTcaritam, in Manipravalam, followed by a sequel, the Sivavilasam,

in Sanskrit? And where do we place Kulasekhara Alvar? In the history of

Sanskrit Literature, because his Mukundamala, Tapatisamvarana, Subhadra-

dhananjaya and Ascaryamanjan are written in Sanskrit? Or in the history of

Tamil Literature because his Perumal Tirumoli is in Tamil?

Situations where the language itself remains ambiguous are not

unknown. Is Ramacaritam written in Tamil? Or is it an instance of archaic

Malayalam? Or is it a case of experimenting with Manipravalam wherein

Malayalam was mixed, not with Sanskrit as was customary, but with Tamil?

18
All three opinions have had their zealous advocates.23 Citing similar

examples, it has been noted that “[I]f we say that “Gujarati literature begins

in the late 12th century with the narrative poem Bharatesvara Bahubali

Ghor," or that “Maithili literature begins with Vidyapati’s collection of

lyrics in the mid-14th century,” what assures us that the former is not the last

work of Apabhramsha or that the latter is not in fact composed in Bangla

(both positions that have been defended)?”24

The problem is not merely of poets composing works in two or more

languages, or of the indeterminacy of the language being used. There are

cases where more than one language is found in the same work. Consider for

instance the following lines of Mahipatidasa, in which the Roman letters are

in Kannada, the italicized ones in Telugu and the underlined ones in Deccani

Urdu.25

dekh5 bhavi dikhata tumana najarome najarome

tannolage atisuksmavagi tilakome tilakome

sadguru vacana sodhuni paha saprema saprema

cudavayya unnadi purna ghanamahima

23 Rajasekharan 2005: 70-79.

24 Pollock 2007: 285-86.

25 Tarikere 1998: 201.

19
 pvare valakhuni sarasara nivaduni nivaduni

naiarahuiara dekho vara haiganThaiganT

janmaka bandu maduvade sadhani sadhanl

munci unnadi na kale sadguru pahSni

ella onde matina sogasu sivanata sivanata

apasame apa ladhana sabaihuta sabajhuta

cappevaya endare heluva gurunltha gurunltha

ananda ahe mahipatlsa sukha motha

It will be impossible to account for these lines within the frame of any

existing language-centered history.

These are not the only ambiguities of language-based literary

histories. Such histories generally abjure a set of fundamental questions

about historically entrenched literary practices. How do literatures make

their appearance in history? What facilitates their emergence? More

importantly, what necessitates them? Why do some milieus produce

literatures while others don’t? Through what modalities and by what

parameters do they come to be defined as literatures, and why? How and

why do these modalities and parameters change over time? What role do

these changes play on literary practices at large? And finally, what sustains

literary practices, perpetuates them, or brings them to an end? Rather than

engage with these questions, most histories tend to approach language-based

20
literature as a given. It then becomes the onus of the historian to determine

the antiquity of literature in the said language. No stone is left unturned in

pushing back the beginnings by as many centuries as possible. This is not

surprising, for modem territories like the nation are notorious for their desire

to “celebrate their hoariness, not their astonishing youth.”26 Writing about

the Telugu poet Nannayya, Chenchiah and Rao Bahadur observed that “[I]t

is against all principles of literary evolution that a ‘classic,’ so sublime in its

conception, and so faultless in composition, should have emerged without

antecedent stages of development.”27 This statement encapsulates the spirit

of these narratives: “sublime” works of literature cannot be produced unless

centuries of literary evolution has prepared the language for it. Taking off

from a similar position, Kannada scholarship has made extensive

speculations on the nature of Kannada works in the sixth, seventh and eighth

centuries. What characterizes these accounts is a naive and by now cliched

claim repeated as if by rote: a large corpus of literary works was produced

before the ninth century, but they have simply not come down to us; they are

irretrievably lost or survive is some hoary garret awaiting discovery! The

most astute among the Kannada scholars, D.R. Nagaraj, makes a rather

instrumentalist argument. He holds that the pre-ninth century works were

26 Benedict Anderson, as quoted in Bhabha 1994: 141.

27 Chenchiah and Rao Bahadur 1928: 37.

28 Kalburgi 1973, Chidananda Murthy 1978.

21
systematically eliminated in the process of building canons of literature and

power. Writes Nagaraj:

Was it moths, fire, water, dust, or simple negligence or indifference that

physically destroyed the manuscripts and drove them out of circulation,

erasing their presence? Natural causes certainly have to be taken into

account, but something more historical and cultural was also at work.

The disappearance was no doubt due in part to the orthopraxis of others.

They have a pattern. In the context of ancient Indian thought, let us

recall, the texts of Badari - who argued that the Shudras are also entitled

to institute the Vedic fires and to share in all the privileges that follow -

are simply not available. The texts of the materialist philosophers known

as the Lokayatas have also disappeared, almost without trace. We are

fortunate that their philosophical rivals chose to present us with the gist

of the vanished texts in an intelligible if truncated form.

The absent and the invisible have to be taken as parties

in the construction of the literary cultures in South Asia. Many a time

they are present outside the system, like lower castes, waiting their

turn.... The early theorists of literature, including Srivijaya, tried to

exorcise certain forms, but the ghosts of these forms have returned to

haunt the living.29

29 Nagaraj 2004: 332.

22
 The argument is passionate and moving, but not in the least

persuasive. What, after all, did the pre-ninth century literary works contain,

which the “others” found so wild and subversive as to effectively deploy

their “orthopraxis” and wipe them out in their entirety, leaving hardly a trace

behind? Of course, such complaints about the lost world are not unique to

Kannada. That large volumes of early literatures have become extinct is a

trope used time after time in language-centered histories of literatures

written in the last two centuries. As Sheldon Pollock has recently observed:

One such assumption, endlessly repeated and never examined, is that

vast amounts of literature everywhere must have preexisted the earliest

surviving texts but have unaccountably vanished without a trace: five

hundred years of Marathi literature, seven hundred years of Newari

literature - a thousand years of Khmer literature, which George Coedes

held was destroyed in “the one long series of disastrous wars” that is the

history of Cambodia.30

A similar dilemma encountered by Chenchiah and Rao Bahadur in the case

of Telugu is resolved differently. They propose that the destruction of earlier

literatures is not borne out by evidence of any kind and that there was no

Telugu Literature before the time of Nannayya, “the legislator of Telugu

30 Pollock 2007: 296.

23
language.” They insist, however, that the region did in fact produce poets,

who - heaven knows why - chose to go to Karnataka and write in

Kannada.31 But this resolution is not resolution enough. Chenchiah and Rao

Bahadur proceed to invoke the marga-desi hypothesis, arguing that marga

represents Aryan or Sanskrit and Sanskrit-inspired Telugu which is global,

and the desi, the Dravidian or pre-Sanskrit Telugu, a local as it were. This

classic formulation offers Telugu a desi, endowing the language with an

essence of its own. Nannayya, the great marga legislator, is then presented

as the mediator between the local and the global.32

Notwithstanding the “data” which most studies tend to marshal in

making claims about the antiquity of Kannada Literature, the plain fact

remains that the Deccan region did not produce any literary works worth the

31 This idea was perhaps inspired by the fact that the family of Pampa, the Nannayya of

Kannada, hailed from the Vengi country in Andhra.

32 Chenchiah and Rao Bahadur 1928: 37-40. They identify desi as consisting of the

following twelve categories: Songs of the Cradle (Lali-Patalu), Songs of the Dawn (Melu

Kolupulu), Songs of Festivity (Mangala Haratulu), Songs of Love (Zavalilu), Songs of

Devotion (Kirtanas), Songs of the Harvest (Udupu Patalu), Songs of the Teamster (Kuli

Patalu), Songs of Wine (Kallu Patalu), Songs of Play (Ata Patalu), Proverbs (Samitelu),

Stories (Kathalu) and Sagas of Local Chiefs (Ballads). (The diacritical marks in this

footnote follow Chenchiah and Rao Bahadur 1928.)

24
name before the ninth century and that the first known work from the region

is the Sanskrit Parsvabhyudaya and Pitrvcipurcma of Jinasena II. Intriguingly

enough, the region turns up a near blank sheet before Jinasena’s time as far

as kdvya is concerned. We have very few exceptions on hand. One is the

Badami Calukya queen Vijaya or Vijjikea (ca. 650 CE), whose works have

not come down to us. She was apparently a major poet if Rajasekhara’s

testimony, comparing her with Kalidasa, is any indication. The other is

Satavahana Hala, to whom the Gdhd SattasaT (ca. 50 CE) is attributed. This

work precedes Jinasena’s work by nearly eight centuries. The practice of

textual production was known in the Deccan region at least since the early

centuries of the Christian era. We know of the treatises of Nagaijuna and

Kundakunda. We know from inscriptions that the Ganga king Durvinlta

authored a text called Sabdavatara, besides translating the Vaddakatha into

Sanskrit and writing a commentary on the fifteenth chapter of Bharavi’s

Kirdtdrjuniya. We are told that Bharavi was a friend of Durvinlta, which,

however, is not reason enough to hold that the former belonged to the

Deccan region. Inscriptions tell us that a commentary on a text called

33 “sarasvatTva karnatt vijayahka jayatyasau / yd vidarbhagiram vasah kdlidasadanan-

taram", quoted in Jalhana’s Suktimuktdvali 4.93 and Sarngadharapaddhati 184. A verse

attributed to Vijaya is quoted in Suktimuktdvali 4.96 and Sarngadharapaddhati 108: “nild-

tpala dalasyamam / bijjikdm tamajanata / vrthaiva dandind’pyuktam sarvasukla saras-

vatT.”

25
Dattakasutra was penned by DurvinTta’s predecessor Madhavavarman III,

while one of his illustrious successors, SrTpurusa, wrote Gajasdstra, a thesis

/ /

on the science of elephant-rearing. SrTpurusa’s successor Sivamara II is said

to have written a similar text called Gajastaka, apart from a work called

Setubandha whose relationship, if any, with its namesake produced some

three centuries earlier by the Vakataka king and poet Pravarasena II, is not

clear. Jaina authors like Samantabhadra, Kaviparamesti, Pujyapada,

Srlvardha, Syamakunda and Jayabandhu - alluded to by over a dozen later-

day writers from Jinasena in the ninth century to Devacandra in the

nineteenth - perhaps belonged to this region, and their treatises played a

significant role in enunciating the Jaina worldview in the Deccan. What is

striking about these pre-Jinasena texts, though, is that they fall within the

ambit of what was designated sastra (science) or darsana (religious vision),

and not what has been identified since the times of the Rdmdyana - and

theorized since the days of Bhamaha and Dandin - as kavya. Understandably

enough, Jinasena, SrTvijaya and other early writers from Deccan were forced

to name these sastra and darsana poets as their forebears, for the region had

not produced a kavya poet worthy of being included in their literary

pedigree. By Jinasena’s time, the earliest versions of the puranas had also

come to be extensively circulated. These were widely disseminated within

the Deccan and it is not unlikely that at least some of them were in fact

compiled, if not originally composed, in this region. And even before the

26
Christian era, parts of the Deccan played a significant role in the production

of the kalpasutra works, as also the dharmasastra texts from the second

century CE onwards. But, what of the kdvyasl Given its almost millennium-

long history in the subcontinent before Jinasena, it cannot be argued that it

was a category unknown in the Deccan region, for the region was indeed

familiar with the Ramdyana, and we learn from Raviklrti’s Aihole

inscription of the seventh century that the works of Kalidasa and Bharavi

were indeed circulated here.34 We also know that kdvya had already begun to

play a major role in the political economy of the Tamil region south of the

Deccan. But the non-availability of kavyas composed from within the region

points to the fact that the region did not engage in the praxis of literary

production, and if it indeed produced anything, it was not substantial or

consequential enough to be bequeathed on to posterity, both in terms of

content and quantity. These are historical realities which extant histories of

literature are ill-equipped to encounter, for such realities present them with a

quandary, which can potentially inhibit their desire to invest an emerging

modern-day territory with legacies which have braved the test of time, which

are supposedly unique in themselves, and which are entrenched enough to be

seen as constituting what Kropotkin calls ethnographic cohesion. Without

such cohesion and the reifications which they bring into being, the regulation

34 Hungund 60 in Kannada University Epigraphical Series Vol IX.

27
of production- and property-relations will be tenuous in an age when access

to and control over resources are governed by the political economy of

capitalism at whose service all legacies - including languages and literatures

- lie prostrate.35

The quest for antiquity and peerlessness has held back historians of

literature from addressing questions which have conceptual bearing on the

study of literary practices. It is those working in theory, philosophy and

criticism who have consistently tried to grapple with them. But these writers

are notorious for their hyper-synchronic approach and a near-total absence of

a sense of history. Besides, most of them know of no literature other than the

ones produced by Kafka, Joyce, Balzac and a handful of others from the

post-Enlightenment West. Even those who urge us to “Always historicize”

remain rooted in Balzac, Gissing, Conrad and Bentham, without ever

directing similar energies towards Aeschylus, Ovid, Dante and Chaucer.

Attempts by theorists to engage in a serious historical study of literature is

35 Marx 1909-10 remains the finest critique of the political economy of capitalism, widely

admired, often disavowed, criticized and challenged, but yet to be replaced. Also see the

last chapter in Chatteijee 1993, where a persuasive case is made for the need to explore the

nexus between “capital and community” unlike extant studies, which are concerned with

the relationship between “civil society and community.”

36 Jameson 1981:9

28
not altogether unknown. We have, for instance, an excellent study on

English poetry by Christopher Caudwell. It is doubtless an engaging study.

But the idealist judgements made by him at the end of a study so

passionately committed to materialism is deeply disappointing. Such

penetrating analyses as we see in his work was indeed not necessary if it was

only meant to conclude that communist poetry will be a complete poetry or

that art is a condition through which man realizes himself.37 Other major

works include George Lukacs’ attempt to theorize the novel,38 Raymond

Williams’ works on the English novel39 and George Thomson’s study of

Aeschylus.40 These are among the very few works which engage in sustained

historical investigations. Most other writings tend to be empty “philo­

sophical” ruminations which serve no other purpose than gratify the author

and the publisher, apart from leaving the planet’s green-cover molested. The

work of Caudwell, Lukacs, Williams, Thomson and a few others, important

as they are, have nevertheless not succeeded in bringing about a paradigm

shift in our understanding of literary practices.

37 Caudwell 1950: 298.

38 Lukacs 1971.

39 Williams 1983, 1984.

40 Thomson 1973.

29
 At least till the 1960s, the fact that the praxis of literature constitutes

a problematic was hardly recognized. Studies invariably focused on literary

texts per se, and not on their production, patronage, circulation, audience and

the process of canonization. Hardly ever was an attempt made to ask why

some forms of language-use claimed the status of or were canonized as

poetry, kavya, sayiri. Also striking, as we have already noted, was the

tendency to confine literature to a handful novels and verse-poems produced

in the age of print-capitalism, as if the works of Sa'di, Bharavi, Chowang

Drakpa and Petrarch deserved a damn. Neither did theorists, philosophers

and critics take cognizance of the literary claims and canonizations thereof in

the oral world. Literature was essentialized and transformed into a finished

product in tune with the commodity-logic of capitalism. According to this

logic, a literary work was no literary work unless it presented itself in the

visible form of a commodity, viz., the printed book. Most speculations -

passed off as theories - were consciously or unconsciously governed by this

commodity-logic. The quest for the essence of literature was one of the

greatest literary preoccupations of the modem period, and continues to be so.

And this was to be united with what Adomo identified as “that in man which

is immortal.”41 This quest was in perfect harmony with the commodity-logic

of the capitalist economy. For how could a commodity sold in the market be

41 Adorno 1997: 271.

30
formless and devoid of essential attributes? We cannot help saying that the

quest for the literary essence represents reification in the age of capitalism at

its best.42

The Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky held that literature was a

device meant to “defamiliarize” our perception of the world. In other words,

it was the forte of literature to transform the world - which is otherwise

believed to be familiar one - into a strange presence as it were.43 Jean-Paul

Sartre had something else to say. He believed that literature was an

existential constituent of the author, and that it was the author’s burden to

have it abstracted, generalized and orchestrated in the form of a text.44 High

idealism, shall we say? The “modem” view of literature, as Roland Barthes

understands it, is that of “a language having body and hidden depths existing

both as dream and a menace.”45 Barthes himself shares some of the

shibboleths of this “modem” view, as can be seen, for instance, in his

declaration that “for Literature to come into existence one must write".46

42 On reification, see Lukacs 1971: 83-222.

43 See Shklovsky 1965 for the best exposition of this thesis. Also see Bennett 2003: 15-35

for a critical reassessment.

44 Sartre 1965: 31-32.

45 Barthes 2001:4.

46 Ibid., 71, emphasis added.

31
Barthes’ is of course not a systematic study of literary practice. It is merely a
/?
set of rumination, inventing maladies and proposing fictitious remedies for
A
them. The remedies do not deserve serious consideration either. Their desire

for a “dreamed-of language” and for “Utopia” is much more menacing, for it

is nothing but “a kind of ideal anticipation” which places praxis at the mercy

of libido.47

The first systematic attempt to problematize literature commenced in

the early 1960s. It was begun by Louis Althusser and Pierre Macherey, and

continued in the 1970s and 1980s by Terry Eagleton. It was a significant

attempt. But it was not free from its own share of problems. It was a writing-

centered, book-centered, commodity-centered approach, incapable of

resisting Balzac and his successors.

Macherey argued that literature was not a given in the sense in

which rocks and the stream flowing from them are. “What is literature?” was

therefore an obsolete question.48 The need, rather, was to recognize the fact

“that in particular historical periods, literature exists in different forms” and

that “there was the ‘literary’, literature or literary phenomena” which is what

47 Ibid., 88.

48 Bennett 2003: 127.

32
warrants attention.49 The Althusserian position on literature is best expressed

in Macherey’s piece on Lenin’s critique of Tolstoy.50 This position was a

major departure from existing views about literature. It acknowledged the

non-essentialist visages of the muse for the first time. The Althusserians

were of course not free from the shadows of essentialism. Literature,

Macherey believed, was something which “naturally scorns the credulous

view of the world.”51 There was something natural, essential, and ontological

about the enterprise of literature. Althusser shared this view. In his

discussion of Macherey’s work, he was cautious enough to emphasize that

what he referred to was “authentic art, not works of an average or mediocre

level.”52 He was interested only in what he believed was “real art.”53 In

effect, this weakness for the natural, authentic and real defeated the very

purpose of the Althusserian initiatives. It somehow became possible to

identify ‘genuine’ literature. Macherey arrived at the genuine through a

process of abstraction, so to speak. It involved an examination of what was

presented as literature in different historical periods, and locating the

49 ibid.

50 Macherey 1978: 105-35.

51 Macherey 1978: 133.

52 Althusser 1971: 222, emphases added.

53 Ibid., 221, emphases original.

33
common variables between them.54 If one were to trivialize it with a

mathematical expression, this is what it would look like: period x claims that

‘abc’ represents literature; period y vouches for ‘cde’; now, ‘c’ is common to

both periods; hence ‘c’ constitutes the literary!

According to Macherey, literature reflects the ideological

contradictions of the world in a visible form. Ideology, inasmuch as it

embodies “the false consciousness of self, of history, and of time,” is

necessarily invisible and operates at the level of the “unconscious.”

Literature succeeds in giving in a determinate shape. It marks a break with

ideology - which is invisible - by making it visible in a textualized form.

Literature is therefore external to ideology.55 Althusser concurs with this

position. “The fact that the content of the work...is ‘detached’ from the

political ideology and in some way makes us ‘see’ it from outside, makes us

‘perceive’ it by a distantation inside the ideology, presupposes the ideology

itself.”56

Terry Eagleton makes a similar point. “Literature,” he says, “in the

sense of works of assured and unalterable value, distinguished by certain

54 Bennett 2003: 127.

55 Macherey 1978: 131-33.

56 Althusser 1971:225, emphases original.

34
shared inherent properties, does not exist.”57 He argues instead “that

‘literature’ is a highly valued kind of writing.” This definition, Eagleton y

feels, is “an illuminating one.”58 The choice of what one values highly is

arbitrary, which in turn makes literature endlessly flexible as it were.

Arbitrary does not mean whimsical though, as Eagleton hastens to point out.

The choices “have their roots in deeper structures of belief’ and are J
governed by ideology.59

The manner in which the Althusserians forge a relationship between

literature and ideology - understood as false-consciousness - makes a break

from essentialism impossible. Literature is that which makes us conscious

about the otherwise concealed presence of ideology. The outcome is that

literature ceases to be a problematic. Figuring out what the said ideology is

all about is all that remains to be done. This can be accomplished by hiring

the services of criticism.60 The Althusserian theory of literary production is

as essentialist as any produced by the capitalist world of commodities. One

cannot but conclude that the radicalism of the Althusserian school - which

57 Eagleton 1986: 11.

58 Ibid., 10.

59 Ibid., 16.

60 Macherey 1978: 133.

35
proclaimed that “what is literature?” is not a question at all - is only skin-

deep. The skin does not appear to be very thick either.

It is nearly five decades since the Althusserians made their first

interventions. But the essentialist approach to literature which they called

into question - notwithstanding the deep essentialism in their own position -

continues to rule the roost. The production of fictitious maladies and

fictitious remedies also continues uninhibited. Giorgio Agamben, for

instance, believes that “only a language in which the pure prose of

philosophy would intervene at a certain point to break apart the verse of the

poetic word, and in which the verse of poetry would intervene to bend the

prose of philosophy into a ring, would be the true human language.”61 All

sound. No fury. Signifying nothing, nonetheless.

Even as Agamben and his philosopher peers were busy

manufacturing the “ring” which promises deliverance, a new and historically

rooted approach to literature - about which the ringmasters and their

admirers are apparently oblivious - began to make its presence felt. It was an

ambitious project and is associated with the name of Sheldon Pollock, a

passionate scholar of world literature, whose admiration for the post-

61 Agamben 1991: 78.

36
Enlightenment European novelist refuses to compromise with Virgil,

Kalidasa, Paippa and others who lived before the coming of print-capitalism.

Over the last two decades, Pollock has produced a number of papers on

literary practices in South Asia, culminating in two monumental pieces of

scholarship - one, a collaborative work by seventeen scholars on rethinking

literary practices in South Asia, and the other, Pollock’s magnum opus on

the encounter between the cosmopolitan world of Sanskrit and vernacular

languages, and their relationship with the praxes of literature.62 It can hardly

be said, though, that this intervention has put an end to the essentialist

approach to literature. The ring-master’s creed continues to flourish.

Pollock’s work is compelling on many counts. It is theoretically

refined, empirically rich, biased in favour of comparative analyses, and

resistant to the crass broodings produced in the name of philosophy. More

importantly, it insists on the study of non-European worlds in order to

engage with “their astonishing capacity for suggesting other possibilities of

life”,64 but is at the same time cautious enough not to exoticize these

possibilities. There is also a keen eye to generalize, to compare and contrast,

62 Pollock 2004,2007.

63 See, for instance, the reference to “the more unlocated vantage point of Philosophy” in

the discussion on Ricoeur in Pollock 2007: 518.

64 Pollock 2004: 32.

37
without being enticed by the prospects of universalizing. What makes his

work command admiration is the passionate engagement with hundreds of

texts produced over a period of more than two thousand years, offering us a

stupendous gaze of human history, its grandeur and its pleasures and pains, a

gaze of the human fortitude which led to the making of languages, literatures

and landscapes of knowledge and beauty.

Pollock’s work merits an extensive discussion. It is of great

consequence not only for the study of language and literatures, but also for

the newer vistas it opens up for understanding the course of human history in

general and South Asian history in particular. Here, we are concerned only

with his theoretical interventions.

Pollock is not concerned with a given object which can be identified

as literature by some of its “inherent” traits. Instead, his focus is on “what

literature has been decided to be” by the respective historical milieus which

produced them, “and how local decisions may have changed over time.”65 It

seeks “to understand how South Asians themselves conceived of the pasts of

their literatures, according to modes of temporality that may have been

peculiar to them; how they established their canons, and what norms,

65 Pollock 2004: 15.

38
aesthetics, and readerly expectations these embody.”66 This anti-essentialist

position makes the modern quest for the essence of literature a “quixotic”

enterprise as it were. Pollock however does not deploy this theoretically

advantageous stance to question the practice of writing language-centred

histories of literature. On the contrary, he endorses this paradigm and keeps

his own analytic with its purview.68 We have already expressed our

reservations on this position; “creative consciousness is not a language-

consciousness,” as Bakhtin warned us early in his career.69

Pollock makes an informed critique of paradigms like naturalism,

evolutionism, primordialism, linguism, ethnicity, legitimacy, indigenism and

liberalism, many of which he finds to be functionalist and governed by

instrumentalist reason.70 He notes that these “unwarranted generalizations”71

fail to embody larger historical processes like the making and unmaking of

66 ibid.

67 Ibid., p. 9.

68 Cf., “Like a formal or genre feature (the tripadi meter, the mixed prose-verse campu,

blank verse, the novel), and a radition as such (“Kannada” literature, “French” literature)

also begins.” Pollock 2007:287.

69 Bakhtin 1990: 194.

70 Ibid., 497-580.

71 Ibid., 505.

39
cosmopolitanism and its encounters with the vernacular, besides being

incompetent to explore the rich theoretical possibilities which languages and

literature can offer. South Asian literatures present us with a constitutive

relationship between literature (kavya) and power (rajya). This mutual

constitutiveness is so striking that “the practice of polity”, Pollock urges,

“was to some degree also an aesthetic practice.”72 Literature was not a

contrivance. It was not an instrumentalist pawn moved by political players to

legitimize their positions. Rather, it was a conscious aesthetic act engaged in

as part of - and not as a supplement or veneer of - the process of becoming

and perpetuating as polities.

There are two difficulties with this formation. Firstly, Pollock’s

understanding of the political does not make a distinction between authority

and power. Put metaphorically, it does not distinguish between what a

famous Sufi proverb calls the archer and the arrow, or what the Manusmrti

identifies as raja and danda respectively.73 This pragmatic distinction has in

fact been stunningly overlooked by contemporary political theory and

historical scholarship, to the extent that the more pragmatically disposed

among us are forced to wonder if it is the archer or the arrow that is being

12 Ibid., 18.

73 Manusmrti 7.14-32.

40
referred to when a work - say, Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish -

commences its discourse on power. If no such distinction is necessary, there

must be hard and real - and not rhetorical, metaphysical or cant-induced -

reason behind it. Political theory offers no such reason. Nor does Pollock

take time to reflect upon it. The outcome is that the modality (i.e., power in

its forms as arrow, danda etc.) becomes indistinguishable from the authority

(archer, raja etc.) whose making it enables and whose sustenance and

perpetuation it facilitates. This ambiguous stance does not share a

comfortable space with Pollock’s refined position on literature.

The distinction between power and authority that we are suggesting

is as analytically important as it is functionally real. It is not a functionalist

distinction, though. One is not at the service of the other. The arrow does not

antedate the archer. Neither can the archer be an archer without the arrow.

The archer produces the arrow, and in the process becomes the archer. Our

analogy is not meant to be extended further.

A distinction between authority and power is crucial, particularly for

an intervention as consequential as Pollock’s. For in the absence of this

distinction, his argument that kdvya and rajya are constitutive of each other

cannot be generalized without invoking the ambiguous category of “culture”

41
and equating it with kavya.74 After all, culture, as understood today, is a

category which can encapsulate anything and everything in the world - from

the staging of Oresteia in ancient Athens to the manufacture of illicit alcohol

in modem Andhra. There are political cultures, literary cultures, mercantile

cultures, culinary cultures, brewing cultures, temple cultures, legal cultures,

housing cultures, farming cultures and sartorial cultures. §xefi sweeping a

category is hardly a category, no matter how seductive or overarching its

appeal. Its all-encompassing nature makes it vague and its validity suspect.

The hollowness of culture as a category may well be acting as a fertile

ground for reification in the world of commodity fetishism that we inhabit.

We do not really know if such a possibility really exists. Not a single study

has so far been directed towards this question. Far richer will our

understanding be, if we keep “culture” in abeyance and instead appreciate

literature as a form of power through which authority finds expression and to

which it is constitutively related. This will also have the effect of rendering

power finite and more meaningfully intertwined with authority, unlike the

74 Cf. Pollock 2007: 2, where language and literatures are seen as “subsets” of culture.

Note that the word ‘culture’ figures in the very title of Pollock 2004 and in the sub-title of

Pollock 2007.

42
infinite, indiscriminate - and therefore impossible - range of possibilities

which the omnipresent category of culture entices us to acknowledge.75

The second difficulty in Pollock’s formulation is the restriction of

the political to the realpolitik alone. This leaves many aspects of literature in

South Asia unexplained. That it was the realpolitik which produced and

sustained literatures for many centuries in premodem South Asia is easily

falsifiable a hypothesis. An inventory of poets who do not fit into this strait-

jacket can more-or-less include the who’s who of literature: Kumaravyasa,

Aggala, Raghavanka, Brahmasiva, Laksmlsa, Kamban, Arungiri, Palkurike

Somanatha, Nannecoda, Potana, Errapragada, Tunjattu Eluttaccan, Niranattu

Raman, Ayyippilja Asan, Pundanam Nambudiri, Saktibhadra, Bhatta

Sukumara and Laksmldasa, to name only a dozen and a half from among the

better-known ones in South India. Pollock’s paradigm is also at a loss in

accounting for a wide range of devotional works which modem scholars

bring “under the umbrella category of bhakti, a term often used...in a quite

unhistorical and undifferentiated way.”76 These works are found consisting

75 This critique is not directed at Pollock per se, but at the entire cacophony generated in

the name of culture since Mathew Arnold, or perhaps since Hegel’s definition of it as “the

simple soul of the substance by means of which, what is implicit in the substance, acquires

an acknowledged, real existence.” (Hegel 1998, No. 490.)

76 The words in quotes are from Nagaraj 2004: 356.

43
of many tendencies - at times in harmony with the realpolitik, at times

sharing a love-hate relationship, and at times staging resistance which can

often be ruthless. The kavya-rajya constitutiveness thesis acknowledges that

bhakti literatures involve a very different set of dynamics and wonders why

they failed to produce institutionalized political formations,77 which reveals

its constrains quite prudently.

The present study proposes an alternative position. It is our

contention that the authority which literature as a form of power is

constitutive of is not political per se in the sense of institutionalized politics.

Rather, it is ethical. Literature articulates - avowedly or unconsciously - an

ethic which the self chooses to, or is forced to, or is unknowingly prone to

nurture. We are of course not attributing anything essential or ontological to

the question of ethics, as philosophers are often seen doing. In our

understanding, an ethic, which is historically produced, is primarily meant to

determine what is right and what is wrong.78 Inasmuch as the realpolitik is so

much determined by its own varying standards of right and wrong, political

authority is also ethical. But not all forms of ethical authority are authorities

77 Pollock 2005: 88.

78 It may be noted in the interest of conceptual clarity that our identification of ethics as

being concerned with right and wrong distinguishes it from morality, which according to

us engages with the question of good and bad.

44
of the realpolitik, just as every rose being a flower does not mean that every

flower is a rose. It is this ethical authority - the authority which legislates

over the question of rights and wrongs - with which literature as a form of

power shares its constitutive relationship. Only through this formulation can

we make sense of the ethics of devotionalism and the ethics of resistance

which literatures are often found embodying.

Unlike extant literary histories, the present study examines literary

practices and not literature as such, which means that we are concerned not

with literature as texts but with literature as praxis. Texts are of course

important for us, but our analytic will also extend to questions related to

several other issues. The second and third chapters, which give a chrono­

logical account of Kerala literatures, will also discuss, inter alia, the logic of

genre affiliation, the politics of patronage, patterns of circulation, forms of

selfhoods which determined the choice of form and content, changes in

sensitivity and patterns of literary production, the modalities through which

the literary was defined, the life-worlds represented in the literary texts and

the material conditions which facilitated the making of literatures. The fourth

chapter will examine the nature of territorial consciousness which figure

prominently in the texts and which determines - consciously or unconscious­

ly - the praxis of literature. The fifth and the sixth chapters will take up for

scrutiny the question of mimesis and ethicality respectively. The totality of

these interrelated elements is what we designate as literary practices. In other

words, our focus is not on an object as it were, but on a set of complex

historical processes identified - not by us, but by the milieu under exami­

nation - as literary. The period taken up for discussion - ca. 1200-1800 - is

certainly arbitrary, as is so often the case in historical inquiries. The six odd

centuries bracketed here witnessed a number of changes, which can be

classified - somewhat crudely - into three overlapping phases. The first

phase, which commenced around the year 1200, was marked by the advent

of literatures in Manipravalam and Malayalam. This new beginning did not

put an end to the production and/or circulation of Sanskrit and Tamil works,

though. Nor did Manipravalam die away in the mid-fifteenth century when

the second phase, characterized by a devotional turn, began. The third phase,

which transformed the devotional turn rather than superseded it, started in

the seventeenth century with what may be called a performative turn. The

rise of new performance genres and texts unique to them was the hallmarks

of this phase. And then came the fourth phase, with its never-before kind of

multiplicity - Valiyakoyil Tamburan, the Venmani duo, Mrs. Collins of

Ghatakavadham fame, Narayana Guru and so on - each of them represent­

ing distinct forms of life which refused to engage with or speak to one

another. This marked the birth of the commodified self, with its finished-

product logic of ontological self-constitution, a logic which at this early

stage was informed more by the printed book than by any other product

46
subjected to the capitalist law of generalized commodity production. But this

phase, compelling as it is, does not fall within the purview of our study.

It is perhaps not out of place to close this discussion with a story told

of the origin of literature in South Asia, a story which places ethics at the

very birth of literary practices in the subcontinent. Two cranes were once

sporting on the branch of a tree in a forest when a hunter shot down the male

bird with an arrow. A highwayman-turned-sage happened to pass through

the forest at that time. His name was Valmlkl. Upon seeing the cruel act of

the hunter, he was overwhelmed with grief and rage. He cursed the hunter at

once: “May you never find fulfillment in all your living years, Nisada, for

killing one of these cranes in the act of making love.”79 The hunter had

wronged. He had committed an unethical act. It filled the great sage with

grief, and “from grief flowed poetry.”80 In other words, it was by taking an

ethical position that “ValmlkT created poetry in the beginning.”81

79 “mo nisada pratistanta magamat sasvatih samah / yat kraunca mithunadekamavatih

kamamohitam.” Ramayana 1.2.15. The English translation is from Pollock 2007: 593.

80 “krauncadvandva viyogottha /sokah slokatvamagata.” Dhvanyaloka 1.5.

81 “valmlkirddau ca sasarja padyatn." Buddhacarita 1.43.

47
 Chapter 2
Texts and Contexts:
The Beginnings

When Devan Cirikuman composed his Manipravajam work

Unniyaccicaritam sometime around the year 1200, the world of letters

were already being significantly refashioned across much of South

India. Literary practices began to travel beyond their deep-seated

affiliations with the royal court and its networks. In the newer domains

of patronage and reception that were being explored, literatures were to

diversify into so many traditions, each with its own intricate set of

conventionalities, aesthetic preference and realms of production and

circulation. The multifarious nature of these developments was

occasioned by the rise of new religious, economic and political groups

commanding multiple forms of authority, multiple regimes of resource

appropriation and multiple frontiers of political aspirations. These

often overlapped with one another, but not all of them were governed

by the drive towards state-formation. In other words, the new

48
dispensation which arose in the later half of twelfth century was

characterized by alternate forms of sovereignty. Only some among

them bore the impress of statehood. The period beginning with the

twelfth century was thus marked by the pluralization of political space

and the pluralization of the political subject. With this, literary

practices also underwent a sea change. The grand campu poetry

introduced by Trivikramabhatta, Gunavarma and Pampa in Karnataka

in the tenth century and nurtured by such giants as Ponna, Ranna and

Nagavarma came under increasing strain after Harihara shook the very

foundations of the genre in the last quarter of the twelfth century.

Following a brief romance with campu, which resulted in the not-very-

heartening Girijakalyanam, Harihara adopted the swift and forceful

ragale metres to compose hagiographies of the Nayanars of Tamilnadu

and the Saranas of Karnataka. Drawing upon a narrative trope

introduced by Cekkilar in the Periyapuranam, Harihara upset the

political equations of the day by investing the Nayanar and Sarana

saints with divinity. This was until then an attribute reserved only for

the gods and the king who practiced divine kingship. The saint was

hitherto sacred, holy, pure and flawless, but with Harihara, s/he

assumed divinity.1 This was the first decisive move away from court

1 Harihara continued to experiment with the pattern of mixing prose with verse in

49
poetry in Karnataka, and as if to underline this shift, a tradition

recorded in a seventeenth century text holds that Harihara abandoned a

rewarding career in the Hoysala court before travelling to Hampi,

where he settled down to produce his great ragales. As a genre, ragale

was most suited for composing short eulogies, and was earlier

deployed on a handful of occasions in inscriptions, but its sustained use

in full-length kavyas was risky, for it was more prone to bring forth

sterile assonances unless it came from no less a master of high-mimetic

poetry than Harihara. It was not ragale therefore which captured the

imagination of poets writing in Kannada, but the satpadi metre

introduced for the first time to compose full-length kavyas by

Harihara’s nephew Raghavanka in his works like the

Siddharamacaritra and the Somanathacdritra. The vdrdhaka satpadi

chosen by Raghavanka was a complex one, though. It was soon

replaced with the bhamini satpadi, which then ruled the roost for over

six centuries. In Andhra Pradesh, the lull experienced after the

composition of the Mahabharatam by Nannayya in the early eleventh

century came to an end in the early thirteenth century when Palkurike

Somanatha gave expression to the emergent temple-centered religious

some of the ragales like Basavarajadevara Ragale and Nambiyannana Ragale, but

neither he nor his successor claimed that these were cainpu texts.

50
worldview through his works like the Basavapuranam and the

Pauditoradhyacaritam, while poets like Tikkanna, Nannecoda and

Errapragada established the traditions of court poetry. Somanatha

shared most of Harihara’s concerns, prejudices and aesthetic choices.

He deployed the raghata genre to compose works of hagiography in

which saints came to be identified as embodying divinity. On the other

hand, the new court poets of Andhra were keen on inventing a tradition

for themselves. Tikkanna and Errapragada took upon themselves the

mission of completing the Mahabharatam left unfinished by

Nannayya. The former was patronized by Manumasiddhi, the chief of

Nellore. At about the same time, literary practices witnessed major

changes in Tamilnadu also. As early as the tenth century, the

production of bhakti poetry centered on the temple-court complex had

fizzled out. By the mid-twelfth century, the Alvar and Nayanar canons

and hagiographies were standardized under the aegis of the royal court.

And court-sponsored genres like the ula and the parani had already

lived out their respective destinies. The thirteenth and the fourteenth

centuries saw intense theological engagements by the proponents of

Saiva Siddhanta on the one hand, and the Tengalai school of

Vaisnavism on the other. Saiva Siddhanta was influenced by the Trika

Saivism of Kashmir, while the Vaisnava schools issued from

Ramanuja’s Visistadvaita. Under the tutelage of Meykkandadevan,

51
Maraijnanasambandhar, Arunandi, and Umapati, the Saiva Siddhanta

poets carved out an entrenched sphere of literary patronage beyond the

royal court, as did the Tengalai and the Sanskrit-using Vaisnavas under

the supervision of Vedanta Desikan, Varadacarya Nayinaracaryar,

Vilanjolappillai, Manavalamamuni and others. Aside these theological

ventures, there were other sporadic attempts to carve out domains of

literary production and reception beyond the royal court, the most

famous exemplar of which is Kamban’s Ramavataram.

The shifts in literary practices were not unique to South India.

The practice of composing literary works in vernacular languages

began across much of North India after the thirteenth century.

Literatures emerged in languages like Marathi, Gujarati, Braj, Avadhi,

Maithili, Bangla and Oriya. Entrenched traditions of literature took

shape in Sri Lanka during this period as it did in the Arab and the

Persian worlds, and to a lesser extant, in Southeast Asia. In China, a

strong tradition of drama and fiction developed from the later half of

the thirteenth century, as opposed to the greater emphasis given to

poetry in earlier times. Poetry continued to be important in theatre, but

patterns of versification underwent a shift when the Yuan theatre

introduced the ch’U metres, which were more fluid and melodic than

the tz’u and the shih metres deployed in the Tang and the Han periods

52
respectively. In Japan, the Heian period came to an end in the late

twelfth century. The Kamakura-Muromachi period that followed bore

the strong impress of Zen Buddhism, and was marked by an aesthetic

rupture which gave rise to new genres like the Noh theatre and the

renga verse. Persian literature took a new turn in the twelfth century,

when the court-sponsored Khorasani style of panegyric poetry -

characterized by the high-mimetic sabk-e fakher mode of diction, and

nurtured by the likes of Rudaki, Farukki, Asjadi, Ayyuqi and Firdausi

- lost its appeal, making way for the rise and spread of lyrically-crafted

forms like Sufi poetry and the flowering of ghazal as a genre in the

hands of poets like Sana’i, Khaqani, Nizami, Attar, Rumi, Hafiz, Omar

Khayyam, Eradi, Sa'di and Amir Khusrau. Vernacular literary

practices appeared in Italy in the twelfth century with the immigrant

trovatori (troubadour) poets patronized by aristocratic houses in

Lombardy like Este, Savoy, Malaspina and da Romano. Russia entered

the world of the muse towards the close of the twelfth century with the

composition of the Slovo O Polku Igoreve, based on a real-life event

which occurred in 1185. Twelfth century was also the period when

literature began to make its presence felt in France with the rendering

of the Lives of Saints from Latin to French and the composition of

Contes Pieux, also drawn from Latin sources, by Gautier de Coinci

(1177-1236). France influenced the traditions of court poetry which

53
began in Germany in the late twelfth century, although the first known

German poem, the Nibelungenlied, composed in the later half of the

same century, was inspired by the Elder Edda written in Iceland two

centuries earlier. Literary practices began in England in the mid twelfth

century with the composition of romances upholding the chivalrous

ideal, generally in French, but at times rendered into English by way of

translation or imitation. From the Pacific shores of Japan and China to

the Atlantic shores of Europe, large parts of the Indian Ocean,

Mediterranean and east Atlantic worlds either witnessed the birth of

literatures or experienced profound mutations in existing practices

during this period. Cirikuman’s enterprise cannot therefore be seen as ^

an event unique in itself, but only as a specific local expression of what

was occurring across many regions within and beyond South Asia.

These shifts were attuned to massive changes that swept across

the material formation over much of the Indian Ocean and the

Mediterranean worlds from around the mid tenth century, leading to

the genesis of a new milieu by the late twelfth century with an

emergent political economy underwritten by newer forms of power and

new economic frontiers. No persuasive account of this far-reaching '

54
transformation is available as yet. In the context of South Asia, an

earlier historiographic paradigm attributed the shift to the inauguration

of Muslim rule in India, which, we were told, brought an end to the

ancient period and ushered in the medieval. But even after the rejection

of this paradigm, the shift has remained so overarching in its visibility

that the new consensual reperiodization of premodem India - which

divides the ancient period into the early-historical and the early-

medieval - continues to locate the beginnings of the medieval period in

the early thirteenth century itself. To call this shift an epochal

transformation will certainly not be out of place. An epochal

transformation was seen at about the same time in Europe as well.

Historians divide the European Middle Ages into two phases, the first

one extending from the seventh to the twelfth century, and the second

from thirteenth to the fifteenth.23 'pHV) s%r\C*'

q 54-^3
pi ■ol’bt-'J
In the context of Kerala, M.R. Raghavavarier offers a brief but

engaging overview of this transformation.4 According to him, the

maturing of agrarian relations and the advent of a complex economy

on the one hand, and Kerala’s growing dependence on neighbouring

2 But see Devadevan 2009a: 65-97 for an overview in the context of Karnataka.

3 Spufford 1988: 378-80.

4 Raghavavarier 2006: 90-101.

55
states for its wet-rice requirements on the other, gave rise to greater

trans-regional contacts and engagements, culminating in the advent of

an economy which increasingly gravitated towards trade and markets.

The forms of life precipitated by the market involved numerous

symbiotic interfaces in which different domains like temples, courts,

marketplaces, ports, agrarian tracts, villages and households

reciprocated with one another. These, Raghavavarier says, were the

harbingers of a new material formation.5 Further, he argues that these

interfaces led to the making of a territorial identity in Kerala overlaid

by a sense of belongingness and linguistic cohesion.

This formulation is more dynamic than is evident from

Raghavavarier’s overview. There is indeed a contentious claim in this

hypothesis. While the arrival of territorial consciousness in Kerala

antedates the period under discussion by over five centuries, making a

case for linguistic cohesion and territorial belongingness in the

fourteenth century only begs the question. But this does not abrade the

picture of the making of a commercialized milieu. For what he alludes

to is indeed the acme of a series of complex processes that were under

way at least since the fifth century, which were in no ways restricted to

5 Raghavavarier uses the word “civilization” (nagarikata).

56
Kerala or South Asia, but intertwined with similar - and at times even

identical - processes unfurling across much of the Indian Ocean,

Mediterranean and east Atlantic worlds.

The beginnings of agrarian expansion towards the close of the

first millennium BCE and a more decisive shift towards agriculture

after the fifth century CE had by the ninth century produced a complex

political economy with a hierarchical political order presided over by a

monarchy which swore by the praxis of divine kingship. On top of the

hierarchy was the king, who was more of a sovereign overlord than an

administrator. Below his immediate establishment was the mandala,

followed by the nadus6 7some of which had managed to bring many

neighbouring nadus under their fold and operate more-or-less as

mandalas even while being subservient to them. Some of the more

6 Also called visaya or rastra, and at times even rdjya (state).

7 The mandala figures in the inscriptions as a synonym for the visaya or nadu till

the ninth century. It was perhaps the initiatives of the Rastrakuta king

Amoghavarsha I (r. 814-878) which made mandala a separate unit between the state

and the nadu or visaya. At least in some cases, the mandala was an artificial

division carved out for administrative convenience. But in most instances, it

represented an entrenched supra-local polity with a resource-base of its own,

57
influential or resource-rich nadus were privileged with the status of

samanta. The huge surplus which agrarian expansion brought forth

was answered to by greater conflicts over its appropriation among

players at various levels in the political hierarchy, so much so that by

the tenth century, lords in charge of mandalas had also begun to make

claims to divinity, altering the very semantics of divine kingship and

disturbing the centrality which it enjoyed in the political order. We

learn from Pampa’s Vikramarjunavijayam (941-42) that Arikesari, the

Calukyan lord of Vemulavada had assumed divinity even as he served

under his Rastrakuta overlord, while Ranna’s SahasabhTmavijayam

(ca. 980) bestows all divine paraphernalia on Satyasraya, when the

would be successor of Taila II to the Cajukya throne was still the lord

of a mandala. Sankaraganda, the ruler of the Banavasi mandala, was

another lord who made claims to divinity and to whom the now-lost

Bhuvanaikardmabhyudayam of Ponna was apparently addressed.*8 *

mediating between the locality (nadu/visaya) and the region (state). For an excellent

discussion in the context of Tamilnadu, see Subbarayalu 1973.

8 Such entrenched hierarchies and bitter rivalries over the control of surplus were

being played out at many places in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean region,

including Japan, China, Java, Central Asia, the Levant, and many parts of Europe

extending up to France and at times spilling over to the British Isles, and in all

58
Agrarian expansion in the fifth century and the prospects of trade it

precipitated resulted in a phase of urbanization by the late sixth

century. This gave a major fillip to the Indian Ocean trade, which had

remained unimpressive in the fourth and the fifth centuries. Yet

another wave of urbanization swept over South Asia three centuries

later. This wave was far more consequential than the preceding one. It

was coeval with the changes in the political hierarchy engineered by

the coming of the mandalas. Phenomenal increase in rice-production is

reported during the ninth and the tenth century from countries as

distant from each other as China, Java, Burma, India’s east coast and

Anatolia, while wheat production shot up in the Arab world and

Europe. It was in this period that the subcontinent witnessed the rise of

large trading groups, which were not merely engaged in the pursuit of

commerce, but also had great stakes in the political economy.*9 *Some of

them like the Nanadesi Dis'ai Ayiratti Ainnurruvar were new

cases, they were the direct fallouts of a series of far-reaching changes in the political

economy that took shape in the wake of agrarian expansion after the fifth century.

9 The Tarisappalli copperplates are the best example from Kerala, where a land

grant made to a Syrian cleric Maruvan Saplr Iso by the Venad chief Ayyanadigaj

Tiruvadiga! at Kollam, and the rights given him to build a church was endorsed by

many groups, including the trading denominations of Anjuvannam and

Manigramarn. See No. 2 in Puthusseri 2007.

59
organizations, some like the Anjuvannam or the Hanjamana were

perhaps of west Asian origin,10 some like the Ayyavoje 500 were

originally urban assemblies in the sixth and the seventh century which

took to trade in the new dispensation after the ninth century, and some

like the Manigramam were transforms of local trading groups dating

back to the fifth century.*11

The opening up of the Indian Ocean in hitherto unfamiliar

ways led to profound changes, with trading groups establishing parallel

empires of their own. The presence of Manigramam was felt in Java

after the tenth century, where it was called Banigrama.12 South Indian

and Arab traders had direct access to Chinese markets in the ninth and

the tenth centuries, as suggested by a shipwreck discovered recently in

10 Narayanan 1996: 155.

11 The Manigramam apparently derived its name from the Sanskrit vanig grama,

and was perhaps a generic term for a trading group in this early stage. A Prakrit

inscription from Maharashtra belonging to the Satavahana period spoke of vaniya

gama (Kosambi 1959: 282). The Manigramam was active as early as the late fourth

and early fifth century in south India. Two Ganga inscriptions from Karnataka, the

Melekote plates of Madhavavarman II and the Hassan plates of Madhavavarman III,

refer to the Manigramam (No. 11 and xx in Ramesh 1984). See Abraham 1988 for a

study of the Ayyavole 500 and the Manigramam.

12 Christie 1998: 361.

60
 1
the Malaccan waters. As early as the ninth century, ships sailed from

Siraf to China via Muscat and Kollarp.14 A Song dynasty record of the

year 1077 tells us that clove was brought to China by Cola traders,

which points to the control which the Cola traders exercised over the

maritime trade across Java.15 But this trade ceased after the eleventh

century, when Javanese merchants took it over from the South Asians.

With the introduction of pepper in Java, South Indian supply of pepper

to China also ceased.16 But China began to participate in the Indian

Ocean trade in unprecedented ways after this period, when a strong

market developed in South Asia and the Arab world for ceramics and

silk. The Arab world also imported paper from China. It has been

suggested that pepper was taken by Indian merchants to Yemen from

where it was taken to Egypt by “Karimi” merchants.17 With an

increasing preference for luxury food among the elites in the Arab

world after the tenth century,18 the demand for pepper must have been

particularly high. There seems to have developed a special flair for

13 Flecker 2001.

14 Ricks 1970: 345.

15 Ptak 1993: 7.

16 Christie 1998: 353.

17 Fischel 1958: 161.

18 Waines 2003.

61
quality, if the repeated use of zakfya in the context of edible food in

trading documents is any indication.19 A direct sea route passing

through Maldives was established between India’s west coast and East

Africa in the thirteenth century, as opposed to the earlier route which

passed through Yemen and Egypt.20 It has indeed been suggested that

this route had come into being as early as the eleventh century.21

Maldives had great stakes in the Indian Ocean trade, as it supplied

cowries used as currency across much of the region. These cowries

were exported to as far as the Yunnan province in China through

Burma. The word kavdi is used in the sense of money in North India

even to this day. The expansion in Indian Ocean trade between the mid

tenth to the mid thirteenth century was exceptional, leading one

authority to identify it as the “Asian sea trade boom.”23 The boom

19 Guo 2001: 90. The documents examined by Guo refer to a wide range of edible

goods, but pepper rarely figures in them (92), suggesting that it was monopolized by

the “KarimF’ merchants (Fischel 1958: 161).

20 Pouwels 2002: 400.

21 Tampoe 1989: 109.

22 Vogel 1993.

23 Christie 1998. The Indian Ocean trade boom is at times attributed to the

establishment of Song dynasty in China (Abu-Lughod 1989), or the Abbasid state in

Baghdad (Pouwels 2002: 393). It was also in this period that powerful states arose

in other parts of the Indian Ocean region, like the Cola state in South India, and the

62
paved way for the establishment of great mercantile empires across

many countries in the Indian Ocean world. It was in the wake of these

historic developments that the markets referred to by Raghavavarier

rose as a historically decisive force.

Changes were also felt in religious life. The Trika Saivism of

KasmTr influenced Saivism in south India. Kajamukha Saivism became

a force to reckon with after the tenth century. By the twelfth century,

the works of the Alvar and Nayanar saints of Tamilnadu (ca. 600-900)

had already been redacted. Fables and legends centering on the lives of

saints were already under wide circulation. Vaisnavism rose to

prominence. Ramanuja, the forebear of SrTvaisnavism, had presented

Khmer and the Srfvijaya states in Southeast Asia. But the fact remains that the

presence of powerful trading denominations had begun to be felt much before the

establishment of these states. In the case of South India, the Cola state was certainly

not a force to reckon with before CE 985 when Rajaraja rose to power. But trading

denominations like the Anjuvannam and the Manigramam were active in the region

as early as the mid ninth century. The trade boom of the CE 950-1250 period and

the establishment of powerful states cannot therefore be positioned against each

other in a cause-and-effect relationship, for both issued from the same source; both

were causally related to the decisive turn taken by agrarian expansion after the fifth

century, the affluence which it generated among some sections of the populace in

the region, and the elite classes which these developments brought forth.

63
the doctrine of Visistadvaita, which eventually split into the northern

(vculagalai) and southern (terigalcii) schools. Srlrahgam, Tonnur and

Melukote emerged as powerful Vaisnava centres under the patronage

of the Hoysala state. Towns like Sravanabelagola and Koppala became

✓ /
leading Jaina centres. Srlsailam was the arch-centre of Saivism in

south India. The Cola state patronized Saivism. No less a figure that

Isanasiva was the royal preceptor (rajaguru) of Rajendra Cola I (r.

1012-1044).24 Basava, Allama, Akkamahadevi, Siddharama,

Cannabasava and Madivala Macayya inaugurated new religious

practices in Karnataka in the twelfth century, which was to eventually

congeal into VTrasaivism. These religious orders were generally

organized into monasteries or mathas, which wielded considerable

political authority. Many of the new saints were keen on producing

spiritual pedigrees and eulogies (prasasti) which at times rivalled the

ones produced by the kings.25 The saints presided over religious

empires of their own, with religious institutions “functioning as a state

itself in a surrogate way.”26

24 Nandimath 2001: 95.

25 Devadevan 2009a: 78-80.

26 Veluthat 2009: 62.

64
 With the establishment of these parallel domains of

sovereignty, divine kingship as a political form withered away. The

Perumal state of Mahodayapurarn came to an end in the third decade of

the twelfth century. By the end of the twelfth century, the Calukya

state of Kalyana and the Kalacuri house which tried to overthrow it

were both gone. The Hoysalas of Halebldu, the Colas of Tanjavur and

the Pandyas of Madurai lost their divine countenance. The Sevunas of

Devagiri did not claim divine status, while the Kakatlyas found it more

apposite to present themselves as sudras. It was in this context that

Harihara narrated the stories of the Nayanars of Tamilnadu and the

Saranas of Karnataka, Raghavanka sang about saints like Adayya and

Siddharama, and Somanatha composed hagiographies of Saivite saints

like Basava and Panditaradhya. Cirikuman’s work on Unniyacci was

also a product of this age.

Cirikuman’s Unniyaccicaritam is composed in a distinct

language-form involving the blend of two languages. This form, in

which Sanskrit is mixed with Prakrit or any vernacular language, is

known as Manipravalam. In the case of Unniyaccicaritam and other

Manipravalams from Kerala, Malayalam was the obvious choice. The

word Malayalam itself was not commonly used to denote the language,

65
although the people belonging to Kerala were at times called

Malayans. As a matter of fact, Malayali was a territorial as well as a

linguistic expression. It was possible, at least on rare occasions, to

juxtapose the Malayali with those belonging to another region

(paradesi) and distinguish them in terms of their respective

languages.27 Cirikuman’s is a campu text, or at least that is what the

poet would like us to believe.28 The campu (Skt. campu) was

developed in the Deccan region in the ninth century. It is a genre in

which verse and prose are mixedly deployed. Trivikramabhatta’s

Sanskrit Nalacampu (ca. 920) is the earliest work in this genre known

to us. The campu became a major genre of poetry in Kannada after

27 Cf., “nijabhasakafil nanavidhamay / paradesikalum malayalikalwn,”

Unniyadtcaritam prose 9.

28 “devan cirikuman conna campu,7’ UnniyaccTcaritam verse 27.

29 The ccunpu was referred to as gadyakatha in SrTvijaya’s Kavirajamdrgam (1.27),

a treatise on poetics in Kannada and the first known text in the language (ca. 850).

The prose-verse pattern was employed in Uddyotanasuri’s Kuvalayamala and

Aryasura’s Jatakamald, and Ratnasrijnana, the Sri Lankan scholar at the Rastrakuta

court of Krsna III (950), referred to the latter as ccunpu, which, as Pollock 2007: 361

n67 points out, “seems more a matter of sectarian pride than genre affiliation.” The

works of Uddyotanasuri and Aryasura were perhaps part of what Dandin, in his

Kavyadarsa, called misra (mixed form). Dandin identified three forms of kavya,

viz. padya (verse), gadya (prose) and misra (1.11). But they only referred to forms

66
the tenth century, when a number of poets from Pampa (941-42) to

Janna (ca. 1225) took recourse to it to produce high-mimetic poetry.

Nannayya’s Mahabharatam (ca. 1030) popularized it in Telugu. But

Cirikuman’s work was different in many ways. Firstly, it was not a

blend of prose and verse. Instead, Sanskrit and Dravidian meters were

interspersed with each other, the former acting as verse and the latter

as prose. Secondly, it was shorter in length than the Deccani campus. It

was a khandakavya, unlike the works of Trivikramabhatta, Pampa and

Nannayya, which were mahakavyas. Thirdly, the UnniyaccTcaritam

was high-mimetic, but the effect was produced by placing emphasis on

love (srngara), unlike most Sanskrit, Kannada and Telugu campus,

which laid stress on valour (vfra).

The Unniyaccicaritam inspired a handful of other

Manipravalam campus. Two of them survive: the anonymous

UnniccirudevTcaritam (ca. 1350) and Damodara’s Unniyadicaritam

(ca. 1375). Damodara’s work was indeed a campu in the sense in

which it was known in the Deccan region. It made frequent use of

of language use and not to distinct poetic genres. Reference to the campu is of

course found in the Kavyadarsa (1.31), but the conspicuous absence of campus

before Srlvijayas identified it as gadyakatha seems to suggests that this may in fact

be a tenth century interpolation.

67
prose.30 Prose also appeared on a few occasions in the

UmnccirudevTcaritam. These works are now referred to as

accicaritams. To the same class belong’s Damodara’s Sanskrit work

Sivavilasam, which is a sequel to the Unniyadicaritam. This, in fact, is

the only Sanskrit accicaritam known to us. Manipravalam and Sanskrit

were both put to use in the sandesakavyams or messenger-poems,

which was a popular genre in many parts of South Asia, particularly in

Kerala, Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka. Of the eleven messenger-poems

known to us from Kerala from the 1300-1600 period, eight are in

Sanskrit. All eight are available today.31 The other three works are in

Manipravalam. One of them, Kokasandesam, was apparently meant to

be a satire. This works is not extant today.32 The two remaining works,

UnnunUTsandesam and Kokasandesam (more appropriately called

Cakravakasandesam) have come down to us. The Kokasandesam is

not fully extant, though. We do not know if the remaining part is lost

30 Unniyadicaritam prose 1,4, etc.

31 The works are LaksmTdasa’s Sukasandesa (ca. 1425), Uddanda Sastri’s

Kokilasandesa (ca. 1475), Udaya’s Mayurasandesa or Mayuraduta (ca. 1475), the

anonymous Grdhrasandesa (ca. 1480), Matrdattta’s Kamasandesa (ca. 1530),

Narayana’s Subhagasandesa (ca. 1530), Rahgacari’s Pikasandesa (ca. 1550) and

Purnnasarasvati’s Hamsasandesa (ca. 1550).

32 A verse from this work is quoted in Uldtilakam 2.18.28.

68
or whether the poet left it incomplete. Among other major

Manipravajam works is the Candrotsavam (ca. 1500), composed in the

grand kctvya style and often regarded by modem scholarship as the

greatest Manipravalam poetry on the accis. The anonymous

Vaisikatantram (ca. 1300-1400) was a treatise on erotics written in the

form of lessons imparted by a mother to her daughter. This seems to

have been a popular text and many of its verses were part of the oral

repository of quotations. One of Kunjan Nambyar’s tullal

compositions (ca. 1750) refers to the Vaisikatantram,33 But the text

itself has not come down to us. What we have is a modem-day

reconstruction based on verses under circulation. A large number of

short poems, like Kaunottara, Uttaracandrika, Ilayacci, Ceriyacci and

Mallmilavu add to this early Manipravajam corpus. An attempt was

made around the year 1500 or so to produce a treatise on

Manipravajam poetics. This work, the LUdtilakam, and a Sanskrit work

of about the same period, the Kavydlldsa, both anonymous, are the

only known independent works on poetics from premodem Kerala.34

33 “gadya-grantham padya-grantham ganitam vaidyam vaisikatantram.” Syamanta-

kam Tullal 166-67.

34 Other Kerala works on poetics, like Samudrabandha’s Alahkdrasarvasvavyakhya,

Udaya’s Kaumudi and Arunagiri’s Godavarma Yasobhusanam are commentaries,

not independent works.

69
The Lilatilakam, written in Sanskrit, was keen on transforming the

Manipravalam into a distinct genre of poetry. But Manipravalam was

not a literary genre. It was only a blend of two languages, or more

appropriately, a distinct non-vemacular language. Surely, one cannot

treat Telugu poetry or Chinese novel as distinct literary genres. So also

with the Manipravalam, a literary language-form within which genres

like campu and forms like accicaritam and sandesakavyam can be

recognized.

Manipravalam works produced before 1500 centered almost

invariably on a class of women called accis, who had a set of well

defined roles to play, providing sexual services being the most

important of them. We have very few exceptions on hand. One is the

Anantapuravarnnanam, a praise of the city of Tiruvanantapuram. The

other is the Alattur Manipravalam, a treatise on medicine. The extant

corpus on the accis is only a fraction of what was actually produced.

Most works are almost irretrievably lost, for they were meant to be

performed in the accis’ mansions in front of their patrons and clients,

and therefore not always committed to writing. The Lilatilakam cites

over 250 fragments from various works by way of providing

illustrations for its theories, and in doing so, offers a glimpse of this

lost corpus.

70
 Modem scholarship identifies the accis as devadasis, women

attached to temples for providing sexual services and entertainment

like dance and music to the royal and priestly elites.35 Ulloor argued

that they were Nayar women who practiced sambandham relationship

with Nambudiri brahmanas.36 This argument is also repeated by Rich

Freeman with a fair measure of theoretical sophistry. According to

Freeman, “we can reasonably posit that the sambandham relations

known to ethnography are domesticated transforms of the devadasi

system.”37 But this argument does not seem to be capturing the life-

world of these women satisfactorily. It ends up affiliating them with a

set of traditions centering on or issuing from the temple, no matter how

great the distance is between their present station and their original

location within the temple networks. Given their proficiency in dance

and music, it is likely that some of the nannas or nahhaiyars attached to

temples might have found the profession of acci more lucrative than

being a devadasi. But not many instances of this kind are known. The

Lilatilakam refers to two such nannas, Unninanna and Kolikkal

35 See Elamkulam 2002 for the most temperate exposition of this argument.

36 Sambandham was a formalized concubine relationship between Nayar women

and Nambudiri men practiced till recently. See Jeffery 1974.

37 Freeman 2004: 455.

71
Nanna, while the Unniyacclcaritam speaks of a nanhaiyar said to be

the daughter of a certain Rayirampilla.39 Such stray instances apart,

there is no evidence to show that the accis were in any way related to

the devadasis. Identifying them as “courtesans” is fraught with similar

problems. It tends to essentialize a set of disparate and historically

entrenched propensities, merely because sexual services figure in all of

them as a common denominator. The deployment of categories like

devadasis and courtesans needs greater discretion; situations involving

the offer of sexual services to a clientele are too diverse to be painted

with such monochrome categories. An alternate argument is presented

by Elamkulam P.N. Kunjanpillai who holds that the accis were

widowed brahmana women who chose to overcome their widowhood

by becoming devadasis. Elamkulam fails to provide any evidence to

this effect from the texts, but substantiates his argument by citing the

observations made in the nineteenth century travel accounts of Francis

Buchanan.40 The presence of the accis with their “licentious” ways has

in fact been a cause of considerable discomfort among many modem

scholars. “Waywardness” (almnattam, literally “striptease”) is a word

which figures prominently in most studies while discussing the accis.

38 Lttatilakam 1.2 com and 4.70 com respectively.

39 Unniyaccicaritam prose 24.

40 Elamkulam 2002: 15.

72
Although the texts are invariably praised for their rich “literary merits”

and for the minefield of historical information they make available, an

air of resignation - if not disavowal - is generally seen in many

accounts. Some scholars have even attempted to sanitize the accis and

present them as icons of chastity. Suranattu Kunjanpillai is the loudest

of them.41 Also worthy of note is the ambiguous position taken by P.

Raman, who argues that the accis of the three acclcaritams embodied

chastity, “unlike the erotic skills and smiling majesty of the heroines of

some later poems.”42 Raman is obviously pointing to the erotic

excesses of the Candrotsavam. It has in fact been argued that

Candrdtsavam, the last of the acci-centered Manipravalam works and

the most explicitly erotic, was meant to be a farce, an attempt to lay

bare the moral degeneracy of the milieu, and that it was a successful

attempt, for it effected a closure on erotic poetry and paved way for

bhakti literature.43 Freeman’s has been the only attempt to take note of

the discomfort among modem scholars in dealing with these works. He

points to “the problems it raises for modem Indian sexual sensibilities”

and observes that the “embarrassment that the life-world of

Manipravalam texts occasions today has been one of the major

41 Suranattu 1996.

42 Raman 2006: 107.

43 Erumeli 2007: 107-109.

73
stumbling blocks” in reconstructing Kerala’s past.44 It has almost

become a popular lore in the vernacular academia to attribute these

works to brahmana degeneracy, but a collaborative mercantile hand is

also alluded to at times.

In a major intervention made recently, Raghavavarier shifts the

focus of inquiry from the accis of these Manipravalam works to the

material formation presented there. Through an intertextual - and

structuralist - reading, he locates a set of recurrent motifs figuring

conspicuously in these texts: the accis, their beauty and their opulent

lifestyles, territoriality, towns and villages, temples, agrarian life, trade

routes, the marketplace with its vivid inventory of goods, traders from

both within and beyond Kerala including overseas traders like Arabs,

Chinese and Berbers, snippets of conversations in the marketplace in

Malayalam and many other languages - which, in the form in which

they occur in the texts, are unintelligible - and the cross-section of

elites frequenting the accis. Elamkulam and other early scholars

sidelined these motifs as mindless tropes. They held that these tropes

were hardly of any consequence in throwing light on the accis. But

Raghavavarier invests them with a new centrality. According to him

44 Freeman 2004: 454.

74
they prefigure a metanarrative. Each text is a narrative denomination

drawn from this larger metanarrative pool, and functions as nodular

forms underwriting it. This metanarrative is constitutive of the making

of an entrenched material formation with its own sense of territoriality

and belongingness. We have already discussed Raghavavarier’s

position on the making of this material milieu. The new agrarian

dispensation drawn increasingly towards cash crops and by and large

dependent on the east coast for its food-grain requirements led to

increasing trans-regional contacts and communications, intertwining

the region with the larger circuits of trade and exchange, both inland

and overseas. This culminated in the making of an increasingly

commercialized milieu in which market economy played a crucial role

in articulating the class configurations and production relations of the

day. The accis, their elite clientele, and the affluence alluded to in

these texts represent this new material formation. While this

formulation removes the centrality of the accis, it does not tell us who

these women were or what specific roles they performed in the new

material formation. It presumes, like the earlier scholarship, that they

were indeed devadasis, although this presumption is sensitive and free

from moral discomforts.

75
 The accis of Manipravalam poetry generally lived in bustling

urban enclaves, which oftentimes were also major political centres.

Unniyacci, Unniccirudevi and Unniyadi, the heroines of the three

accTcaritams, lived in Tirumarudur (or the northern Kollam?),

*
Sukapuram and Kandiyur respectively. Tirumarudur was the

headquarters of the Purakilar chiefs in the thirteenth century.45 Kollam

(perhaps Pazhayangadi) was the capital of Kolattunadu and Kandiyur

_ /

the headquarters of Odanadu. Sukapuram was among the most

influential of the thirty two brahmana settlements, and its protracted

tussle with the neighbouring Panniyur over a cause not known to us

witnessed many political alignments and realignments in Kerala for

several centuries.46 Unnunlli, the heroine of Unnunllisandesam,

belonged to SindhudvTpa (Kadutturutti) from where the northern

branch (Vadakkunkur) of the Vembalanadu chiefs ruled. The

anonymous heroine of Cerukara family in Kdkasandesam lived in the

southern Kollam (Quilon), which was the capital of the newly formed

Desinnanadu (ca. 1400). MedinT Vennilavu, the heroine of

Candrotsavam, lived near Trssivaperur (Trssur). We also learn of other

accis and their families from these texts. The Unniyaccwaritam speaks

45 “madamamudayamaderumappurakila” Unniyaccicaritam Prose 7.

46 See Veluthat 1978 for a discussion of the brahmana settlements.

76
of two such families in Tirumarudur (or northern Kollam?) Paraikkattu

and Kajamballi.47 Many accis are alluded to in the UnnunilTsandesam:

Unniyadi in Syananduram (Thiruvananthapuram), Vellur Nani in

southern Kollam, Kuttatti and Unniyadi of the Cerukara house,

IJayacci of the Mutturru house and Unnunfli, Unniccakki and Cirudevi

of Kuruhhattu house, all from Kandiyur, and an unnamed acci at

Kandamkulam. The texts also provide a vivid picture of the accis'

client profile. A verse in the UnnunilTsandesam speaks of the

arrangements made for the day for each inmate: Ceriyatu will treat the

Ariyappattar, Koppatti will go to the Tiruvadi, Mappatti will take the

man from the Tu]u country and Ilayacci will entertain the

Menokkiyar.48 Itinerants figure most prominently in the client list.

These were usually merchants, brahmanas, astrologers and physicians,

but references to the Tiruvadi and the Menokkiyar suggests that local

elites were also part of the clientele.

The conversation of the clients in the UnniyaccTcaritam,

though presented in a pejorative vein, throws light on the class

frequenting the accis. One of the merchants speaks of the thousand

47 UnniyaccTcaritam Verse 23.

48 UnnunilTsandesam 2.46.

77
accus he earned from a Hoysaja traders. He also says that an Arab

horse will fetch two thousand anayaccus in the Cola country, and an

elephant eight thousand. He speaks of the great demand for camphor in

Kollam and Kollapuram (Koyilandi). Vallabha’s country brings a

hundred thousand as interest on loans. The merchant also alludes to the

elephant he sold to a certain Pinjajan, as also to his connections with

the king and the ships sailing from Va]ayapattana (Valapattanam).49

Another client, a physician, says that he is a great exponent of

ayurveda, that he went to a foreign country and learnt Caraka (the

Carakasamhita), and that he is well versed in Vahata, Sausruta and

Bhela - Vagbhata’s Astangahrdaya, the Susrutasamhita and the

Bhelasamhitd respectively. He claims to have cured the acci of a fatal

disease and earned 50 accus in remuneration.50 A third client, an

astrologer, claims that he met the chief of Purakiiamadu, told him of

his past, and earned 60 accus. He is now on his way to meet the chief

of Kolattunadu. And he predicts that Unniyacci, who is expecting, will

give birth to a baby girl, and if not, then certainly to a baby boy!51

49 UnniyaccTcaritam prose 18.

50 Ibid., prose 19.

51 Ibid., prose 22.

78
 The presence of itinerant groups was very much a reality in an

economy that was increasingly driven towards commercialization. The

Unniyadfcaritam says that the marketplace was crowded with traders,

both “Malayalis” and “paradesis,” and the latter included Aryas,

Kannadas, Malavas, Kunjaras, Varigas, Tulihgas (Telugus), Kalingas,

Barbaras (Berbers), Colas, Pandyas, Konkanas, Conakas (West

Asians), Chinas (Chinese) and Tulikkas (Muslims).52 This is an

impressive list, but certainly not an exaggerated one. Corroborative

evidences occur in various other sources to the presence of these

paradesi traders in Kerala, so much so that Vasco da Gama is said to

have found two Berbers from Tunis, who spoke Castilian and Genoese,

in Koiikkod and availed of his assistance, when he arrived there in

1498.53 The presence of accis in the bustling urban centres becomes

meaningful in this context of the presence of itinerants, and the local

elites engaged in transactions with them. We learn from the

accicaritams and the sandesakavyams that the accis' mansions

functioned as the most important locus of hospitality in the urban

centres, which formed an informal space for engaging in a wide range

of economic transactions, extra-economic exchanges and interpersonal

52 UnniyadTcaritant verse 19.

53 Subrahmanyam 1997: 129.

79
relationships, in addition to offering at least six specific services:

food,54 taiiibfdam,55 lodging,56 gambling,57 dance-and-music58 and

sexual services.59 What we see here is not moral degeneration or a

celebration of waywardness, nor the articulation of linguistic identities

and belongingness of any kind, but rather a very pragmatic - if

somewhat less colourful - urban reality prevailing in an increasingly

commercialized milieu.

The Manipravalam works present us with an erotic self,

functioning in consonance with an enterprising self and a skylarking

self. Together, they paint a dynamic picture of beauty in all its libidinal

possibilities. A nocturnal ambience is generated by frequently invoking

the moon and its light. The moon is an active character in

54 Unniyaccicaritam prose 18 and 24.

55 Unniyaccicaritam verse 21; Unniyadlcaritam verse 174.

56 Unniyaccicaritam prose 23; Unnunlllsandesam 2.37.

57 Unniyaccicaritam prose 17 and 24; Unnunlllsandesam 2.47.

58 Unniyaccicaritam verse 14 and 17 refer to Unniyacci’s mansion as ndtakacdla

and narttanasa[la] respectively, both signifying a dance-house. Also,

Unniyadlcaritam verse 178-180 and 201-202.

59 Unnunlllsandesam 2.46; Unniyaccicaritam prose 23 and 24; Unniyadlcaritam

verse 167 and 168.

80
Cantrotsavam and Unniyadlcaritam. Candrotsavam is a carnival of

moon, as the very title suggests. The accis are often compared to the

moon, and many of them are known for their titles in which

“moonlight” (candrika, nilavu, vwnnilavu) occurs conspicuously.

MallTnilavu and Uttaracandrika are examples. The heroine of

Candrotsavam was MedinI Vennilavu. Unnunlli, the heroine of

Unnunilisandesam, was also known as KamalinT Vennilavu.60 And

Unniyacci, the heroin of the Unniyacdcaritam, was the moonrise of

the ocean that the solar line [of the Puiakilar chiefs] was.61 Eighteen of

the twenty-seven verses in Ceriyacci refer to the moon or moonlight.62

Two other verses speak of the twilight63 while two more point indirect­

ly to it.64 The nocturnal is missing only in five verses.65 The short

Mallinilavu, with just nine verses, has only one verse which does not

talk about moon, moonlight or the twilight.66 Looking at it sarcastically

60 Unnunilisandesam 2.49.

61 “hariscandra vamsabdhi candrodaya,” Unniyacdcaritam Prose .30.

62 Ceriyacci 1, 2, 3,5,6, 9,10,12, 13, 14,17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24,25 and 27.

63 Ibid., 4 and 26.

64 Ibid., 11 and 23.

65 Ibid., 1, 8, 15, 16 and 19.

66 MallTnilavu 6. This is of course apart from the use of the heroine’s name

MallTnilavu - with the nilavu suffix - at the end of all nine verses.

81
in retrospect, it can be said that apart from the normative aesthetic

association between the nocturnal and the libidinal, the erotic, enter­

prising, skylarking accis excelled in offering moonshine.

It is striking that the entire corpus of early Manipravalam

works - save the Anantapuravarnnanam and the non-literary Alattur

Manipravalam - was produced by the urban hospitality industry. This

industry was closely associated with the local chiefdoms. All urban

centres where accis operated were also the headquarters of local chiefs.

The only exception was Sukapuram, where Unniccirudevi lived. But

then, Sukapuram was as major a political player in premodem Kerala

as any chiefdom in central Kerala and Malabar. At times, some of the

accis - like Unniyadi in Tiruvanantapuram, Vellur Nani in Kollam and

Kuttatti. Unniyacci of Tirumarudur and Unniyadi in Kandiyur -

enjoyed the clientele of the local rulers. Unniyadi of Kandiyur is in fact

known to have been the daugh-ter of Iravikeralavarma, the chief of

Odanadu. She was eventually married to Ramavarma, the king of

Mahodayapuram. This must have give the accis several economic

incentives and political privileges. In spite of this camaraderie, very

82
few chiefs played patron to the Manipravajam works.67 The produc­

tion, circulation and performance of these works centered on the accis,

her clients and the performing artists. Contrary to this, none of the

surviving Sanskrit messenger-poems can be definitely attributed tojhe.

hospitality industry. Rangavalli, the addressee to whom the message is

sent in LaksmTdasa’s Sukasandesa, and the unnamed woman of

Marakkara house in Cennamangalam to whom the message is sent in

Uddanda’s Kokilasandesa were of course counterparts of Unnunfli,

Unniyacci, Unniccirudevi and Unniyadi, but there is no evidence to

suggest that the hospitality industry commissioned these texts. The

Kdkilasandesa was composed in the court of King Manavikrama (r.

1467-75) of Kolikkod. Obviously then, it had a very different audience

in mind. Purnnasarasvati’s Hamsa-sandesa was a Sanskrit messenger-

poem in which the acci was conspicuously missing. This work differed

from the other messenger-poems in two ways. One, it was the heroine

who sent the messenger to her beloved. Two, her love was divine

(prema) and not carnal (kama), and was addressed to Krsna.68 Clearly

67 These include the chiefs of Ambalappula and Vadakkuiikur, who patrionized the

Ilayacci and the Kaunottara respectively.

68 Rajat Kanta Ray has shown that the distinction between carnal love (kama) and

divine love (prema) did not exist in South Asia before the fifteenth century. In other

words, love and love-making were not two different things altogether. The

83
then, Sanskrit, Malayalam and Manipravalam had their own distinct

domains of production, patronage and circulation.

The first section of the Lilatilakam ends with a definition of

what it chose to identify as pattu.69 This was an attempt to distinguish

Manipravajam from its other. Two features were recognized as charac­

teristic of this genre. One, it was composed in Dravidian phonology

which perhaps also meant Dravidian language. Two, it involved the

use of the eduka and morn rhymes. The following verse was cited as

an instance of pattu.

taratalandanalanda pilandd ponnart

tanakacendar varundamal banantanne

karamarinda porundanavanmarucle

karalarinda purane murari kina

oruvarandd parandamame nikanind-

urakacayipinippauvva nindavannain

ciratarcun tat pinandenayyd tangenne-

distinction between the carnal and the divine appeared for the first time in the

devotional (bhakti) traditions of the fifteenth and the sixteenth century. Ray argues

that this rupture represents a historical repression of sexuality. See Ray 2003: 139-

56.

69 Lilatilakam 1.11.

84
 ttiruvanandapuram tangumanandane70

This is a Dravidian verse, both in terms of language and phonology.

Each line has “ra” as its second syllable, which produces the eduka

rhyme, better known as paddnuprasa or dvitTyaksaraprasa. And each

half of a line begins with the same letter or a rhyming equivalent, “ra”

and “ra” in the first line, “kd’, and “&a” in the second, “d” and “5” in

the third and “i” and in the fourth. This is mdna.

The distinction made in the Lilatilakam between Manipra-

vajam and pdttu is generally explained by modem scholarship “in caste

or even ethnic terms.”71 It is generally held that literary practices in

Kerala followed two distinct paths or “movements” (prasthanam) in its

early phase, represented respectively by Manipravalam and pdttu.

Manipravalam is Aryan, Brahmanical, Sanskritic, artificial and elitist,

while pdttu is Dravidian, non-Brahmanical, popular, natural and rooted

in folklore - so goes the argument.72 Manipravalam has in fact been

characterized as invasionist and representative of the “Aryan conquest”

of Kerala. The pdttu is said to have offered “resistance” to the Aryan

70 Ibid., 1.11.24.

71 Freeman 2004: 448.

72 Erumeli 2007: 51.

85
onslaught and arrived at a “conciliation” at a later date.73 This story

does not warrant any serious critique. For it hardly warrants serious

consideration in the first place. Manipravalam and pattu are of course

two very different things, but the argument for a dialectical encounter

between the two is simply the outcome of what Freeman calls “a

projected dichotomy.”74

Texts which answer to Lilatilakams description of pattu are not

unknown. Three such works have come down to us: Govinda’s Tiru-

nilalmala assigned to the twelfth century, the anonymous Payyannur

Pattu composed in the fifteenth century or so, and Clraman’s

Ramacaritam, which has been variously placed between the twelfth

and the fifteenth century.75 Unlike Manipravalam works where the acci

73 Rajasekharan 2005 gives the most recent and book-length exposition of this

thesis.

74 Freeman 2004: 448.

75 Ulloor assigns the Ramacaritam to the late twelfth century. K.M. George,

Elamkulam and P.V. Krishnan Nair place it in the twelfth-thirteen century. Attur

Krishna Pisharadi traces it to the thirteenth century, while A.R. Rajarajavarma is of

the view that it is an early fourteenth century work. R. Narayana Panikkar brings it

down to the late fifteenth century. For a discussion of these dates and a brief

overview, see Rajasekharan 2005: 60-89. For the Tirunilalmala, see ibid., 90-111

and Ajith Kumar 2002, and for the Payyannur Pattu, see the introduction of Scaria

86
figures as a common feature, the three extant pattus share almost

nothing in common, except eduka, mono and a language whose diction

tends to gravitate excessively towards Tamil. It has in fact been

suggested that the pdttu involves a mixed use of Malayalam and Tamil,

just as Manipravajam is a blend of Malayalam and Sanskrit.76 The

Rdmacaritam is a lengthy account of Rama’s triumph over Ravana. It

is largely the product of a heroic self. The heroic ideal is deployed here

to produce an action-packed narrative with high dramas where

emotions run high. The scene of the fire-ordeal (agnipariksa) is a fine

example. You brought disgrace on me and my family, Rama tells Sita;

who on earth is unaware of your fascination for Ravana; now, go,

marry Vibhlsana; or go with Sugrlva, or Laksmana, or Bharata or

Satrughna if that is what you desire.77 Now it is SIta’s turn. O Brahma,

✓
Visnu, Siva, she calls out to the gods, the great sages, brahmanas, those

who dwell in the skies, Indra, tell me, from whom can I hide anything?

From the days? From the nights? From the earth, the sky, the wind, the

directions, from the twilight, the dawn or the sun? Let the fire turn me

Zacharia and the notes by Gundert, Ulloor, Guptan Nair, Leelavathi and Antony in

Antony 2000.

76 Erumeli 2007: 51.

77 Ramacaritam 112.1229-113.1241.

87
into ashes if I have ever desired a man other than Rama.78 It is with this

valorous outburst of shock and grief that STta jumps into the fire and

comes out unscathed.

CIraman, it is argued, was indebted to the Tamil Ramavataram

of Kamban. No such influences are seen in the other two works.

Tirunilalmala is an account of the Aranmuja temple and rituals like

nilal, tuvaluli, nakuru and ball performed there by members of the

Malayan caste. The Payyannur Pattu seems to be a text performed vj-T

\)
during the nilal ritual. It claims to be a piece of nilal poetry.79 The

extant text is anonymous and incomplete. It recounts the story of

Nilakesi, a woman bom in a merchant family at Sivaperur (Trssur ?).

She marries several men, but remains childless until she moves

northwards to Kaccilpattanam near EHmala, where she takes a trader

and gives birth to a son. She leaves home after the trader kills some

sea-faring merchants without realizing that they were Nilakesi’s

brothers. The text ends abruptly soon after. P. Antony suggests that

Nilakesi becomes an ascetic, returns to the city after many years and

kills her son in a Medea-like act to take revenge on her husband. This

78 Ibid., 114.1247-56.

79 Payyannur Pattu 4.

88
part of the story, Antony says, is preserved in a folk song called

NTlakesippaiiu.80 This may or may not the true. The Pciyyannur Pattu

is the creation of a rustic self, while the Tirunilalmala presents a

devout self interlaced with a great measure of rusticity.

There is nothing in the three extant pattus or in the Lilatilakam

to suggest that there was a well articulated or deeply entrenched

literary genre called pattu in Kerala. We can only infer that certain

common meters and forms of alliteration were used for a long time for

composing songs and texts meant for rituals or other purposes, and that

by the thirteenth century, some of them had begun to aspire to a

different status by invoking expressions like kavi (poetry) and names <

like Valmlki and Kamban with whom they sought to affiliate

themselves.

By the fifteenth century, eduka and mona were being used in

works which did not adhere strictly to the Dravidian phonology. The ’

so-called Niranam or Kannassan works belong to this group. These

include the Bharatamala by Veljahnallur Sahkaran, the Bhagavadgita

by MalayinkTl Madhavan, and the Ramdyanam, the Bharatam, the

80 Antony 2000: 51-53.

89
Bhagavatam and the Sivaratnmahatmyam by Niranattu Raman.

Raman, who was the grandson of Karunesan (Kannassan), is generally

called Ramappanikkar in modem works, though no such suggestion is

found in his works. He is the first known Niranam poet. Ulloor argues
✓
that the three poets, Raman, Madhavan and Sankaran, were related to

one another and that Sankaran and Madhavan were the maternal uncles

of Raman, but the available evidence does not warrant this

conclusion.81 These poets used a form of brisk, rhythmic verse found

in all the four major Dravidian languages. This verse pattern is known

as raghata in Telugu and Kannada.82 The ‘raghata’ meter used in the

Niranam corpus was tarahgini, but the poets extended it to double the

length. While the tarangini had four lines with eight long (guru)

syllables83 or sixteen short (laghu) syllables84 or combinations

81 See Rajasekharan 2005: 112-137 for a discussion.

82 Harihara’s ragales in Kannada and Palkurike Somanatha’s Basavapuranam in

Telugu are among the best known raghata works. The raghata is a specific pattern

of verisfication and not a distinct meter as such. Within the raghata, several meters

can be identified.

83 For e.g.: “ke-ka-la-pam-ka-ra-ka-ram” (Punam, Ramayanam Campu 5. Prose 1):

“sat-tra-jit-te-ke-tta-lum-nl(Kunjan Nambyar, Symantakain Tulfal 280).

90
thereof85 in each line,86 the Niranam meter, as it is now called, had

sixteen long or thirty-two short syllables, or combinations thereof in

each of its four lines.

anadukalamanakulamanasa-

nayalayali kadanna kaplndran

tanamaravati pololivodu sa-

da rajanicarar pdlitamdye

vanavaralaliya vadivaya vi-

mdna samanamircivana gehant

nunamidennarivurradinittara-

nutana gopurameydi ninandan87

The consistent use of this meter brought into effect a major

shift in literary production.88 The tarangini was a simple meter and one

84 For e.g.: “ha-ra-ha-ra-si-va-si-va-mi-thi-la-yi-li-ya-li-na’' (Punam, ibid.) “a-ma-

la-sa-li-la-na-va-ka-ma-la-vi-ma-la-ta-ra.” (Kunjan Nambyar, Karttaviryarjuna-

vijayam Tullal 280).

85 For e.g.: “ma-tta-si-kha-va-la-ba-ddha-vi-nd-dam,” (Punam, ibid.) “gu-ru-na-

than-ma-ma-va-ra-ma-ru-le-nam.” (Kunjan Nambyar, Pradosamahatmyam Tullal

18).

86 “dvimateam gariamettennm yatimadhyam tarangani," Rajarajavarma 2006: 71.

87 Kannassardmdyanain 5.25.

91
of the best suited for works meant to be memorized. Its briskness also

made it a good choice for high-mimetic poetry. It was possible through

this meter to bring religious works of the Sanskrit itihasa-purana and

kavya-nataka traditions into high-mimetic Malayalam while at the

same time keeping the text simple, rhythmic and easily reproducible

through memory. Such an advantage is missing in Ciraman’s Rama-

caritam. The Niranam meter remained in use for quite some time.

Works like the Pasupatastralabham Pattu and Nalacaritam Pattu were

composed in it, as was the ‘Cidambaracaritam’ of the Purakkalippattu.

The works of Raman, Madhavan and Sankaran are not known

to have enjoyed wide popularity. In all likelihood, the production and

circulation of these works were limited to a section of the powerful

agrarian landed elites. The Niranam corpus does not indicate any

patron-client relationship either. Works were produced by the literate

elites for their own gratification and for the consumption of select

audience from within this class. The self that we come across in this

corpus is predominantly enterprising in nature. Suffused with conceit,

confidence and candour, there was hardly a thing about which it

88 Deviations are not unknown, though. Raman’s Ramayanam 5.1-24, for instance,

is not in the Niranam meter.

92
entertained any misgivings. As we shall see in the discussion on

ethicality,89 anything was permissible in the scheme of this enterprising

self, anything from adultery to incest to cannibalism.

The modalities through which these works assumed their

literary demeanour were nor very complex. All it involved was the

forging of an affiliation with classical Sanskrit literature and poetics,

and circulation of the works among a class or group which endorsed or

anticipated or was willing to concede this affiliation. This was never

tenuous, as far as Kerala is concerned. Hardly ever do we come across

“contestations” and “negotiations” - to use jargons fashionable today -

in claiming or conferring literary status. No controversy is known from

Kerala about the relative greatness or meanness of styles like vaidar-

bhT, gaudfya, pancall, latfya, mdgadhf and avantikd,90 Nor do we see

89 Chapter 6 below.

90 The style is known in Sanskrit poetics as rfti. Dandin’s Kavyadarsa identifies

vaidarbhT and gaudfya as the two prominent literary styles. Vamana’s Kavyalan-

karasutra adds pahcdlf as a third style. Rudrata’s Kavyalafikara adds latfya, while

Bhoja’s Sarasvatfkanthabharana introduces mdgadhf and dvantika, taking the

number of styles to six. The styles are named after different regions of the

subcontinent - Vidarbha, Gauda, Pancala, Lata, Magadha and Avanti - but Vamana

93
any quarrel over the question of which literary paradigm to adopt.

Dandin’s preference for gum (virtue), Vamana’s prejudice for ntT

(style), Kuntaka choice of vakrokti (unconventional speech) and

Anandavardhana’s exposition of dhvanT (indirect suggestion) were

only of scholastic interest in Kerala. They were widely read and also

commented upon. Samudrabandha wrote a commentary on Alankara-

sarvasva, which was itself a commentary by Mahkhuka on his teacher

Ruyyaka’s Alankarasutra. Udaya, the author of Mayurasandesa, wrote

KaumudT, which was a commentary on the Locatia, Abhinavagupta’s

celebrated commentary on Anandavardhana’s Dhvanyaloka. But these

commentaries or the interest in Sanskrit literary aesthetics did not lead

to a native poetics in Kerala. Neither did Sanskrit poetics inform

literary practices in any noteworthy way. There is no evidence to show

that even among the scholiasts, there was ever a debate on the merits or

demerits of any particular school, although commentaries interpreting

texts through theoretical prejudices might have been produced.

Whether or not a work was literary was determined by its affiliation

with Sanskrit literature and poetics. One way of establishing this

affiliation was by crafting a text in the manner of a prominent genre in

holds that the names are conventional and do not represent styles prevailing in these

regions.

94
Sanskrit, or at least presenting a claim to this effect. The UnniyadT-

caritam is written in the form of a cantpu. The UnniyaccTcaritam on

the other hand claims that it is a piece of campu which it is clearly not.

Another way of making a text literary was by modelling it after a

celebrated work in Sanskrit. Messenger-poems are modelled after

Kalidasa’s famous Meghaduta (ca. 500). The UnnunUisandesam

commences by declaring that it is a messenger-poem.91 A third way for

a text to gain acceptance as literary was by drawing its material from /

the itihasa-purana and kavya-nataka traditions of Sanskrit. The

Ramacaritam and the Niranam corpus belong to this class, as do a

large number of works produced in the subsequent centuries. They

borrow their narratives from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the

Bhagavata and other related texts. It was also possible to secure

literary status by invoking some of the big names in the Sanskrit y

literary world, like Valmlkl, Vyasa and Kalidasa. This was the fourth

way of becoming literary. Interestingly enough, the early

Manipravalam works never adopted this strategy. Only the pdttus

mention the Sanskrit poets. CIraman speaks of Vanmlki (Valmlkl) and

Viyadan (Vyasa).92 He also refers to Agattiyan (Agastya) as the

91 “sandesa karnnamrtam,” UnnunUisandesam Prologue 2.

92 Ramacaritam 1.9.

95
progenitor of poetry in Tamil.93 G5vindan, the author of the

Tirimilalmala, was familiar with VanmTki, Paracarataneyan (Vyasa)

and Kalitantatar (Kalidasa). He also pays tribute to two Tamil poets,

Agattiyan, said to be the first one to write in Tamil, and Karnbanaden

(Kamban). Govindan also identifies Kurumur PalH Tanhal, an

otherwise unknown figure, as the herald of poetry in Kerala.94 The

Payyannur Pattu does not affiliate itself with any poet, narrative,

model or genre from Sanskrit. Its literariness is underwritten by the

claim that it is a piece of poetry (kavi).95 This was the fifth and the

simplest way of assuming literary status.

The affiliation which Kerala literatures forged with the itihasa-

purana and kavya-nataka traditions involved a relationship between

what Pollock calls the vernacular and the cosmopolitan. The vernacular

need not indicate a language as it does in Pollock’s analytic. It refers

equally to the practices which are well-entrenched within the region or

locality, no matter in what language they are articulated. There is in

principle no need for any profound long-term engagements with the

93 Ibid.

94 Tirunilalmala 1.5.

95 Payyannur Pattu 4. The word kavi signifies poet in most Indian languages. But in

premodem Tamil and Malayalam, it means both poet and poetry.

96
cosmopolitan for the region to establish a relationship with it. In the

context of Kerala though, we know that the itihasa-purana and kavya-

ndtaka traditions not only found themselves hospitable, but were also

nurtured in various forms for several centuries. As early as the seventh

century, Dandin referred to Bhavarata and his son Matrdatta from

Kerala as great exponents of vedas and ve dangas 96 Vaidic practices

were familiarized in the region at least three centuries before Dandin.

The Cola chief Perunarkilli is said to have performed the rajasuya

(irajasuyam vetta) while the Pandya chief Mudugudumi Peruvaludi

bore the title palydgasalai (of many yagasalas). Even if these are later-

day interpolations made while producing the colophons of the

Ettutogai corpus, we have reference in the Tirumurugarruppadai (ca.

300-500) to the brahmanas as wearing the sacred thread (purinun) and

as being the twice-born (iruppirappdlar, the Tamil equivalent of

dvija). The Ramdyana was already known to the region by the third

century or so. We find Rama and SIta mentioned in the Purananuru.98

Saktibhadra was therefore well acquainted with the itihasa-purana and

the kavya-ndtaka traditions when he wrote the Sanskrit Ascarya-

cuddmani in the early ninth century. It was a play which narrated the

96 Narayanan 1996:215.

97 Tirumurugarruppadai lines 182-83.

98 Purananuru 378.

97
Ramayana in seven acts. It appears that South India did not have a rich

tradition of composing drama before Saktibhadra’s time. The

Ascaryacuddmani begins by declaring that the south cannot produce

drama because it is as impossible as the blooming of the sky-flower or

the extraction of oil from sand." There is a measure of truth in this

statement. The only known plays from South India before the Ascarya-

cudamani are Saktibhadra’s Unmadavasavadatta and the Pallava

king Mahendravarman’s Mattavilasa Prahasana and Bhagavadajjuka.

Not long after Saktibhadra extracted oil from sand, the Cera king

Sthanuravi Kulasekhara (r. 844 - ca. 883) wrote two plays in Sanskrit,

the Subhadradhananjaya and the TapatTsamvarana. He also wrote the

Ascaryamanjari, which is extant only in parts. Later in life,

Kulasekhara relinquished throne to become a Vaisnava saint, and

composed the devotional Mukundamala in Sanskrit and the Perumal

Tirumoli in Tamil. A thirteenth century Tamil record commissioned in

Pagan, Myanmar, by Irayiran Siriyan of Mahodayapuram begins with a

verse from the Mukundamala.101 One of Sthanuravi’s predecessors -

perhaps his immediate predecessor - Rama Rajasekhara is also known

99 Ascaryacudamani 1.2-3.

100 This work is not available to us. It is mentioned in Ascaryacudamani 1.3-4.

101 Narayanan 1996: 214.

98
to have abdicated to become a Saiva saint, Ceraman Perumal Nayanar.

He composed three devotional poems in Tamil, Ponvannattandadi,

Tiruvdrur Mummanikkovai and Tirukkaildcajndna Uld (Adi Ula). Not

much is known about the literary patronage extended by the Perumals.

Rama Rajasekhara and Sthanuravi Kulasekhara supported Vasudeva-

bhatta, who composed three yamaka kavyas (narrative poems),

Saurikatha, Yudhisthiravijayam and Tripuradahanam. It is likely that

Bhaskararavi Manukuladitya (r. 962 - 1021) patronized Narayana, the

author of another yamaka called Sltaharanam. The anonymous Nald-

dayam also seems to be a work of the Peruma| period.

All works from the Peruma] period, save the Perumal Tirumoli

and the three works of Rama Rajasekhara, are in Sanskrit. All of them

also draw their material from the itihasa-purana and kavya-nataka

traditions. Thus, Kerala had a long history of engagement with

cosmopolitan literary practices of the subcontinent, when CTraman,

Govindan, Niranattu Raman, Devan Cirikuman, Vellahhallur

Sankaran, MalayinkTl Madhavan, Uddanda Sastri and Laksmldasa

began affiliating themselves to it.

99
 Chapter 3
Texts and Contexts:
The Transformations

Even as the hospitality industry was fondling with the erotic

Manipravalam poetry and the authors of the Niranam corpus were

experimenting with new metrical forms and new spaces of production and

circulation, a handful of poets began to explore the literary possibilities of

bhakti, particularly Krsna-bhakti. Increased circulation of the Sanskrit

Bhagavata and the influence of Jayadeva’s GTtagovinda seem to have

facilitated its popularization. Two Sanskrit works, both perhaps from the

early fifteenth century, appeared as torch-bearers of Krsna devotionalism in

Kerala, Vilvamarigalam’s Srikrsnakarmamrtam and Sukumaran’s Srikrsm-

100
vilasam} Vilvamangalam’s name is associated in popular memory with the

Krsna temples of Guruvayur, the Padmanabha temple of Tiruvanantapurani

and the Siva temples of Errumanur, Kadutturutti and Vaikkam. He seems to

have hailed from Bengal, if the name Iilasukha Bilvamangala Thakkura

/>

found at the end of the Srikrsnakarmamrtam is any indication.

Vilvamangalam’s work, although considered a piece of bhakti poetry, is in

fact expressly erotic in its content. It certainly reminds us of the accicaritams

and the messenger-poems, though it is in no way related to them. Excessive

use of mimetic devices is one of its chief characteristics. Frequent change of

meters is another. As many as twenty-six meters are used in this short poem

of 112 verses.12 This makes it tempting to compare it with the accicaritams in

its approach to beauty. Like the accicaritam poets who tried to make their

campus as sugary as possible, Vilvamangalam also laid great stress on

sweetness or madhurya. The word madhurya and its variants like madhura

1 Ulloor 1990: Vol. 1. 165-66 feels that Srikrmavilasam is not a Kerala work and that

Sukumaran is the same as Bhatta Sukumara, the twelfth century author of

Raghuvlracaritarp, who lived in Srirangam in Tamilnadu.

2 The meters used are vasantatilaka, sardulavikridita, kokilaka, manjubhasim,

aupacchandasika, druta vilambita, ceccari, upajati, malini, anustup, sankaracaritam,

prthvi, upendravajra, indravajra, vaitaliya, sikharim, vamsasthavila, praharsini, harim,

arya, sasikala, Salim, totakd, puspitagra, rathoddhata and rucira.

101
 *5

and madhurima occur as many as forty-two times in it. In contrast, the word

bhakti appears only on one occasion.34 SrTkrsnakarimamrtam was doubtless a

devotional text. However, its devotion was inspired not by the fact that

Krsna was a great deity or the ultimate savior of the world - which he indeed

was - but by his erotic and playful ways which filled the devotee’s heart

with waves of pleasure. Krsna as the fountainhead of pleasure and beauty is

what preoccupied the poet. What we see here is a devout self, led by the

playful ways of an erotic self and a romantic self. In all likelihood,

Vilvamangalam belonged to an eastern Indian sect professing madhurya

bhakti. But his work does not seem to have borne such a semantic in the

history of its circulation in Kerala. It is difficult in the context of Kerala to

distinguish devotionalism in terms of madhurya bhakti, viraha bhakti or the

counter-tradition of vatsalya bhakti which Vallabha inaugurated.

Vilvamangalam seems to have believed that the praise of Krsna’s

erotic ways can release him from sin. This is not explicitly stated in the

Srikrsnakarnndmrtam, But it appears as an apology at the end of the

anonymous Gopikonmadam, which is another Sanskrit work on the erotic

3 Srikrsnakarnnamrtam 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 14, 18, 19, 23, 29, 42 (2 times), 46, 47, 51, 52, 53, 57,

58, 61, 64, 65 (2 times), 66, 67, 68 (2 times), 75, 85, 92 (9 times), 101 (2 times), 105 and

109.

4 Ibid., 107.

102
Krsna.5 In the coming centuries, the life of Krsna became a favourite theme

in Kerala. Sankara wrote the Srikrsnavijayam in the late fifteenth century or

shortly thereafter. The anonymous Krsnabhyudayam was also produced at

✓
about the same time. Krsnan of Panniyur composed the SrXkrsnapuranam in

about the sixteenth century. Yadunathacaritam, a summary of the

Bhagavata, was written by an anonymous poet during the same period.

Vasudevan, who was patronized by the Vettam chief Ravivarma, composed

the Govindacaritam, apart from two other works, the Sankseparamayanam

and the Sanksepabhdratam. Srlkanthavariyar, the author of the Sanskrit

yamaka Raghudayam, wrote a Prakrit yamaka called Sauricaritam on the life

on Krsna. Interestingly enough, none of these Sanskrit and Prakrit works,

apart from the Srikrsnakarnnamrtam and the Srfkrsnavilasam, are known to

have circulated outside Kerala. This changed only with Melpattur’s

Ndrdyamyam.

Within Kerala, the Malayalam Krsnagatha produced in the mid

fifteenth century was more influential that the Sanskrit and Prakrit works.

Tradition attributes it to Cerusseri Nambudiri. Patronized by the Kolattiri

chief Udayavarma of north Malabar,6 it was composed in a new meter which

5 “papacchettrijagati pathatam srnvatam karnnabhusa.”

6 Krsnagatha 1.1.23-24.

103
followed the undippattu (lullaby) rhythm, and was therefore subdued,

mellow and ill-suited for high-mimetic poetry. The meter was called

manjari. It is a variant of the slathakdkali, which has twenty-four syllables

with four segments (ganm) of three syllables in each line. Reducing the last

segment of the second line of slathakdkali to a single syllable - which

n
reduces the number of syllables in the second line to ten - makes it manjari.

Each of the three-syllable segments must theoretically contain two long

syllables and one short, but in practice, any combinations are permitted as

long as the rule is maintained while reciting through proper stresses and

elongations of the respective syllables.

undundu-undundu-undundu-undundu

undundu- undundu-ale undu

It was possible, therefore, to sing the Krsnagatha in the form of a lullaby.

indira-tannude-punciri-yayoru

candrika-meyyil pa-rakkayale

pdlali-vellattil-muhhinin-nidunna

nilabha-mayoru-sailain pole

7 “slathakdkali vrttattil random padattilantyamam / raridaksaram kuraccidiladu manjari-

ydyidum”, Rajarajavarma 2006: 75.

104
 mevinin-nidunna-daivatam-tannenan

kaivanan-mdunnen-kdttukolvdris

It is not unlikely that the Krsnagatha was actually used as a lullaby. In any

case, it was an immensely popular work, particularly in north Malabar, and

was regularly sung at least till the 1970s by women during agricultural

activities like sowing, harvesting and winnowing, and also while engaged in

everyday domestic chores like churning of curd and pounding of grain.*

9 The

quotidian self which we see in the text, and the warmth it receives from a

romantic self, might have facilitated its popularity.

The Krsnagatha is a work which can call into question the so-called

dichotomy or opposition between court literature and popular poetry. It was

commissioned by the chief of Kolattunadu. We do not know if regular

recitation or performance of the Krsnagatha was ever practiced in any of the

umpteen petty courts in Kerala. What we know for sure is its popularity

among the peasantry and pastoral groups in north Malabar. There is nothing

stately about the text. It is low-mimetic to its very core, and draws inspira­

tion almost exclusively from the agrarian and pastoral life-worlds of the

sIbid., 1.1.1-3.
91 owe this information to K.P. Pradip Kumar, Kesavan Veluthat and Abhilash Malayil.

105
countryside, with its rural romance and quotidian simplicity.10 The

Krsnagatha opened up the possibility of taking literatures to the kitchen and

courtyard, to the paddy-field, to the winnowing-floor, and perhaps to the

cradle, which is what makes it far more revolutionary than the loud, high-

mimetic and majestic Nirartam corpus.

Devotional literature and texts drawing upon the itihasa-purana

corpus had a therapeutic element in them. Beginning with the fifteenth

century, it became a common practice to state that reading or listening to a

story of itihasa-purana origins, or chanting the god’s name, or observing

vows would release a person from all sins and bondages. This therapeutic

self was not a new phenomenon, though. As early as the ninth century,

Kulasekhara declared in his Mukundamala that chanting the name of

Narayana alone was enough to remove suffering and attain happiness.*11 But,

such instances were rare in Kerala till the fifteenth century. The therapeutic

element often took the form of a phalasrti at the end of the text, where the

avowed benefits were clearly spelt out. An early example is Niranattu

Raman’s Sivaratnmdhatmyam, which concludes by declaring that whose

who observe the vow of staying awake on the caturddasi day of the month

10 See the discussion in Raghavavarier 2006: 109-118.

11 “sanklrttya narayana sabda matratn / vimukta duhkhd sukhind bhavanti,” Mukundamala

27.

106
 / 19
of kumbha will attain the feet of Siva for all times to come. The therapeutic

self was also a prophetic self, for it could make prophesies about the

outcome of listening to legends about gods, chanting the names of gods and

observing vows.

By the late fifteenth century, Manipravajam came to be deployed for

producing works based on the itihasa-purana and kavya-nataka traditions.

This was perhaps inspired by the growing influence of these traditions, and

the possibilities of expressions to which they were exposed to in works like

the Ramacaritam, Krsnagatha, Srikrsnavilasam and the Niranam corpus. An

early work was the anonymous Rdmayanam campu, attributed by tradition to

Punam Nambudiri.13 Another work, said to be Punam’s, is the Bharatam

campu. It is believed that Punam lived in the court of Manavikrama along

with eighteen Sanskrit poets, and that he was ridiculed as a half-poet because

he was not competent enough to compose poems in Sanskrit. The court-

poets were together known as eighteen-and-half poets {padinettara kavikal).

Some modem scholars have tried to interpret “ara kavi” as royal (ara) poet,

and transform “padinettara kavikal” into eighteen royal poets. This is plainly

12 SivaratrTmahatmyam 150.

13 The Ramayanam campu is a Manipravajam text, but modem scholars generally refer to

it as a Malayalam (bhasa) work. The reason for this misrepresentation is not clear.

107
an attempt to raise Punam’s status in contemporary scholarly estimation. But

in doing so, scholars fail to account for the list of nineteen - and not eighteen

- poets which tradition remembers.14 There is a legend that Punam ones

presented the following Manipravajam verse to Manavikrama in presence of

the other poets.

taril tanvT kataksancala madhupakularama ramajananam

nTrilttar bana vairakaramkaratamomandalTcandhabhand

nerettaroru niyam todukuii kalayaygennumesa kulikku-

nnerattinnippuratn vikramanrvara dhara hanta kalpantatoye

Tradition interprets this legend in two ways. One, this was a great piece of

poetry which overwhelmed even the redoubtable fellow poet Uddanda. Two,

it was a bad piece in which the word hanta in the last line alone was worthy

of poetry. Uddanda therefore felicitated Punam with a silk shawl (pattu) for

making the verse tolerable by using hanta. He said, “This silk for that

hanta.”15 This story and the legend of the eighteen-and-half poets may or

14 The poets are nine members from the family of Payyur Bhattadiri, five from the family

of Tiruvegappula Nambudiri, Cennas Nambudiri, Mullappalli Bhattadiri, Uddandasastri,

Kakkasseri Bhattadiri and Punam.

15 “anda ‘hanta'ykkindapattu.” Erumeli 2007: 109-10.

108
may not be true.16 Punam, nonetheless, was a half-poet in the sense that not

all verses figuring in the Ramayanam campu were his. He seems to have

borrowed as many as 588 verses from various sources.17 Ulloor argues that it

was not the poet who lifted these verses from other sources, but the

performers who smuggled them into it in the course of staging it over a long

period of time.18 The Candrdtsavam praises Punam as a great poet.19 He is

also admired in a piece generally attributed to Uddanda, “pulakddgama-

karivacah prasaram punameva punah punardstumahe”20 Punam’s works

represent an epic self, or more appropriately, an aspiration to emulate an epic

self which can produce the monumental human destinies embodied in the

Sanskrit Ramcryana and Mahabharata.

Manipravalam campus continued to make waves in the subsequent

centuries. Between 1500 and 1800, Kerala produced over two-hundred

catnpus. Syamantakam, Rasakrida, Krsnavataram, Tripuradahanam, Sauri-

16 Ulloor 1990: Vol. 2, 25 feels that the legend is open to question.

17 The numbers of verses borrowed in each of the twenty sections are respectively 27, 46,

31, 19, 54, 31, 45, 22, 29, 27, 9, 35, 30, 77, 11, 23, 20, 28, 13 and 11. See Vettinad 1997:

23-24.

18 Ulloor 1990: Vol. 2, 209.

19 Candrotsavain 1.13.

20 Vettinad 1997: 6.

109
caritam, Daksayagam, Kucelavrttam, Ramdrjjuntyam, Kaliyamarddanam,

Kalyanasaugandhikam and Kamsavadham were among the lesser known of

these works. Nilakanthan wrote three important campus, Cellumathodayam,

Tengailanathddayam and Ndrayamyam Campu. These works narrated the

origin-myths surrounding the Rajarajesvaran temple of Peruncellur, the

Vadakkunnatha temple of Trssur and the Purnnatraylsan temple of Trppunit-

tura respectively. Nilakanthan was originally a resident of Peruncellur. It

appears that he was forced to move southwards after a dispute over the

management of the Rajarajesvaran temple turned into violence between two

brahmana groups.21 He then took service under VTrakeralavarma, the chief of

Kocci. The works of Nilakanthan belong to a rich tradition of deploying

literary works to narrate sthalapuranam or sthalamdhatmyam, which were

stories recounting the origin-myths, miracles and other legends associated

with pilgrim centres and temple-towns. The Anantapuravarnnanam and

Tirunilalmdla can be considered as early examples of sthalapuranams.

Among the subsequent works were Melpattur’s Gosrmagaravarnanam on

the city of Kocci, Nedumbayil Koccukrsnanasan’s Aranmulavilasam

Hamsappattu, and the anonymous Vilvddrimdhatmyam Kilippattu, Ananta-

puramdhdtmyam Kummi and so on.

21 Ramachandran Pillai 1987: 4-9. This is by no means certain, though.

110
 The most famous of the campus was Malamangalam’s Naisadham

Campu (ca. 1550), acknowledged as the finest work in the genre from

Kerala. Malamangalam also wrote three other Manipravalam campus,

Rajaratnavaltyam, Kodiyaviraham and Banayuddham. His other works

include five temple-songs in the brahmanippattu genre, Rasakrida, Visnu-

mdyacaritam, Tirunrttam, Darukavadham and Parvatistuti. Malamangalam

also wrote five works in Sanskrit, Rdsakridakavyam, Uttararamayanam

Campu, Mahisamangalam Bhanam, Vyavahdramala and Smarttapraya-

scittavimarsini. One characteristic feature of Malamangalam’s works was

that they were closer in spirit to the erotic Manipravalam texts on the accis.

It was a passionately erotic self which appeared in these works. Malaman-

galam was explicitly concerned with love (srhgara) in both its forms as

union (sambhdga) and separation (vipralambha). Naisadham Campu is

based on the legendary story of Nala and Damayanti. It is interesting that the

poet lays greater stress on the exiled Naja’s desire for Damayanti than his

determination to regain his lost kingdom, though the latter is not expressly

downplayed. Rajaratnavaltyam is the story of Ramavarma, the king of

Kocci, and his erotic exploits with Mandaramala. Ramavarma is presented as

the incarnation of Candrasena, a celestial being (vidyadhara) who was

forced to be bom on earth following a curse by Siva. Kodiyaviraham

narrates the story of Srngaraketu’s love for his beloved Smgaracandrika, and

111
Banayuddham is about Usa and her lover Aniruddhan. In Malamangalam’s

works, the hero bears a demeanour which is more feminine than masculine

by seventeenth century standards of manhood. It can well be said that man,

masculinity and kingship have been feminized by the erotic excesses of the

poet.22 This does not represent the absence of masculinity. The period under

discussion is known for its prejudice for martialization,23 which, it has been

persuasively argued, made its political presence felt even in literary works in

an unconscious form.24 The feminine bearings must therefore be seen as an

attribute of hyper-masculinity and its weakness for conspicuous

consumption, which informs the ideal of bhoga. It is not difficult, then, to

see where the impetus for the production of Malamangalam’s works comes

from. Naisadham Campu, Rajaratnavalryam, RasakrTdakavyam and other

works were meant for the consumption of an elite class which swore by the

ideal of consumption.

22 See Narayana Rao, Shulman and Subrahmanyam 1992: 188, where a similar argument is

made in the context of the Telugu works produced in the Nayaka courts of Tamilnadu.

23 Ganesh 1996: 265-74.

24 Ibid., 264-65. The argument on the political unconscious in this work is informed by

Jameson 1981.

25 Narayana Rao, Shulman and Subrahmanyam 1992: 82, passim.

112
 Masculinity itself appeared in a more robust form in Ayyippijja

Asan’s Ramakathappcittu, composed at about the same time when Ma]a-

marigalam was fondling with feminine masculinity. Ayyippijla Asan used a

large number of Dravidian and folk meters in his work to orchestrate a

spectacle which was as narratively extensive as Cerusseri’s Krsnagatha and

at the same time as numerically riotous as the accfcaritams. But unlike the

accwaritams or the Krsnagatha, it was a heroic self, sworn to the cause of

valour, which governed the narrative. According to Ulloor, the

Ramakathappattu was performed as part of rituals in Visnu temples, and that

it was accompanied by an instrument called candravalayam.26 Ayyippijla

Asan’s work is marked by a high degree of stage-adaptability, and is

particularly suited to evoke valour iyira) and fury (raudra). Mimetic devices

like repetition and alliteration during select moments in the narrative invests

the text with a rustic tempo which is at once high-mimetic and spontaneous,

without necessitating any laboured - or tendentious - crafting of language.

Less impressive was the Bharatam Pattu by Ayyippijja Asan’s brother

Ayyanappijja Asan. This work was perhaps meant to be sung rather than

26 Ulloor 1990: Vol. 1,293.

113
physically enacted.27 Interestingly enough, Ayyinappilla Asan says that his

work was a short commentary on the Mahabhdrata for the ignorant ones.

In spite of Ayyanappilla Asan’s claims to the contrary,

commentaries in Kerala were never meant for the ignorant ones. We do not

know of any commentary being performed or sung either. Commentaries,

almost as a rule, were only of scholastic interest. Besides, they were

restricted to Sanskrit works alone. Never once did premodem Kerala witness

a commentary on a Malayalam or a Manipravalam work. Laksmldasa’s

Sukasandesa inspired at least three commentaries, Varavarnnini, Cinta-

tilakam and Vyakrti.29 These works are not clearly datable. Sivaraman wrote

Vivaranam and Vicaratilakam, commentaries respectively on Tapatisamva-

rana and Subhadradhananjaya. The yamakas of Vasudevabhatta produced

several commentaries. Raghavavariyar30 wrote on the Yudhisthira-vijayam.

Tripuradahanam was the subject of vivisection in Mukkolaykkal NTlakan-

27 “ganatmakamidam kavyam.” Bharatam Pattu 1.1.2.

28 “racanam ruciram tasya / visadikarttumajnasa / karisye nativistaram / vyakhyam

bharata-dipikam." Ibid.

29 Manavedan wrote the Vilasini in the early nineteenth century. This is the fourth known

commentary on the Sukasandesa, but this work does not fall within the time-span of the

present study.

30 Not to be confused with the Structuralist-Marxist historian.

114
than Nambudiri’s Arthaprakdsika and Anayattu Pankajaksa Pisaradi’s

Hrdayagrahim. Sanskrit works from outside Kerala were also widely

commented upon. The best known among them is Vidyullata, Purnnasara-

svati’s commentary on Kalidasa’s Meghaduta. Rajasekhara’s Karpuraman-

jarT and Viddhasalabhanjikd were taken up for discussion in Simharajan’s

Vivaranam (in Prakrit) and Mukkolaykkal Vasudevan Nambudiri’s

Mdrgadarsini respectively. The Bhagavata was commented upon at least

two times, in Raghavananda’s fourteenth century Krsnpadi and in the

Vettam chief Ravivarma’s sixteenth century Bhdgavatatikasamuccayam.

a

Sivaraman, the author of Vivaranam and Vicaratilakam, also wrote Vimar-

sini, which examined the Nagananda of Harsa. Narayanan, a disciple of

Melpattur, was attracted towards Mahendravarman’s Bhagavad-ajjuka. His

commentary is called the Dinmatradarsini. Anonymous works also exist on

Mayura’s Siiryasataka and the ‘Sanatsujatlya’ of the Mahabharata. We have

already noted Samudrabandha’s commentary on Mankhuka’s Alankarasar-

vasva, and Udaya’s work on Abhinavagupta’s Locana.

Most commentaries produced in Kerala served no other purpose than

pedagogy. The commentary on the Suryasataka is a fine example. It picks up

each word or phrase, gives its lexical meanings, and suggests ways of

understanding it if and when some complications or semantic niceties are

115
involved. Most commentaries follow this pattern. This pedagogic

preoccupation perhaps explains why only Sanskrit works were commented

upon. Malayalam and Manipravalam works were vernacular and therefore

self-explanatory as far as their lexical meanings were concerned. Further, the

existence of these commentaries tells us that the study of literature and

poetics in Sanskrit was not leisurely or arbitrary, but systematic and well-

designed. It was an entrenched discipline in itself, and necessitated sustained

and long-term engagements with literary works and treatises on poetics.

What we see here is a cognoscent self exploring the limits and possibilities

of knowledge. In all likelihood, commentaries were composed to be taught

in schools (gurukulas). Another likelihood is that the extant manuscripts

were written by students as part of their academic assignments. Such

assignment-manuscripts are known for treatises on tantricism and medicine.

There is no reason to believe that literary commentaries were not the result

of a similar scholastic exercise. This does not mean that purposes other than

pedagogy never informed the production of commentaries. In his

Dinmatradarsini, Narayanan revelled in transforming the characters of

Bhagavadajjuka into metaphors of yogic practices. The monk was

A

paramatman, the disciple Sandhilya was jivdtman, the courtesan was the

susumnd nerve, her two maids were the two other nerves, Ida and pihgala,

the courtesan’s mother was ignorance or avidya and so on!

116
 Many of the commentaries are not datable. And the datable ones

belong to the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. This

was a period of major changes in literary practices not only in Kerala, but

many other parts of the subcontinent. The period was also characterized by

a great ferment in intellectual life, which is known to have had its parallels in

Europe.32 Far-reaching changes were also being witnessed in the political

economy.33 North India witnessed the rise of the Mughal state while the Adil

Sahis extended control over large parts of the south with the fall of the

Vijayanagara state.

Two important developments can be seen in literary practices in

Kerala after the sixteenth century. One was the use of several folk verses like

kilippattu, vanjippattu, hamsappattu and pana as distinct genres of literature.

31 Chenchiah and Rao Bahadur 1928: 33 take cognizance of a similar literary shift in the

context of Andhra.

32 See the brilliant account - with a somewhat disappointing conclusion - in Pollock 2005.

33 That the period was marked by major changes is acknowledged by such diverse

positions as the ones maintained by Sanjay Subrahmanyam (1990) and Noboru Karashima

(1992). Subrahmanyam calls it the early-modern and identifies revenue-farming,

“portfolio-capitalism” and the coalescing of political and mercantile life as its significant

features, while Karashima refers to it as feudalism-proper, in which commodity production

was not generalized - but restricted only to the surplus - and where extra economic

coercion was exercised through ideology (Karashima 2002: 30-31).

117
The other was the crystallization of existing theatre-forms into specific

performance genres like kudiyattam, kathakali and tuUal,

The kiUppdttu is a flexible genre. It consists of as many as seven

different meters, not all of which may be found in a single work. The most

popular among them is keka. This meter has fourteen syllables in each Une,

divided into six segments in which the first and the fourth segments have

three syllables each and the remaining ones two. Each segment must have at

least one long syllable. All fourteen syllables can also be long. Thus, the

shortest line will have six long and eight short syllables (equivalent to

twenty short syllables), while the longest line consists of fourteen long

syllables (equivalent to twenty-eight short syllables).34 Here is an example.

medinT-devi-yeyu-masvasip-picca-sesam

vedhdvum-deva-kalo-darulic-ceyda-nevamK

It is not mandatory that the long syllable in a segment must indeed be long.

A short one can be used instead, and rendered long by laying stress on it

while reciting. Thus

34 “guruvonnertgilum venam mdraddro ganattilwn / nadukku yati padadipporuttamidu

kekayam,” Rajarajavarma 2006: 69.

35 Adhydtma Ramayanam 1.1.493-94.

118
 amita-guna-gana-vanam-nrpati-dma-rathan36

has no long syllable in the first, second, fourth and fifth segments. The long-

syllable effect is produced by elongating ta, gu and na, ti, and, da and sa in

each of these segments in the course of reciting it. Far less popular than keka

is the annanada. Used very rarely, it contains twelve syllables in each line,

divided into six segments of two syllables each. In each segment, the first

syllable is short and the second one long.37

siva-siva-sada-siva-girT-svara

smaran-taka-puran-takd-mahe-svara

Annanada is more rigid than keka. However, the rule of short and long

syllable is strictly applied only to the first and the fourth segments. They are

flexible in the other four segments. The third kilippattu meter, more popular

than annanada, is the kdkali. This has twelve syllables in each line, divided

into four segments of three syllables each. The three syllables should be

36 Ibid., 11..417.

37 “laghupurvvam guru paramlmattil dvyaksaram ganam / arennam maddhyayatiyalarddh-

itam muri randilwn / arambhe niyamam nityamitannanadayenna stt,” Rajarajavarma 2006:

70.

119
equivalent to five short syllables, which means that two of them are long and

one short.38

munnam ja-ratkaru-namd ma-hamuni

dhanyan gr-hasthasra-masayi-llaykayal39

As with keka, the kakali also remains flexible in that a short syllable can take

the place of a long one in the text, but become long by being stressed while

reciting. Thus, in the last segment of the first line, hamuni, we have only one

long syllable, ha, instead of two, which is made good by transforming ni into

n\ while reciting. The kakali meter becomes unakakali, when the number of

syllables in the last segment of the second line is reduced from three to two,

where the first syllable is short and the second one long. Alternately, the

long one can be replaced by two short ones as well.40 The remaining three

kilippattu meters, kalakahci, manikahci and misrakakali, are variants of the

kakali. In the kalakahci, the first two or three segments of the first line will

38 “mdtrayahjaksaram munnil varunnoru ganahhale / ettu certtulllradikku colldm kakafi-

yenna per,” ibid., 65.

39 Mahabharatam Kilippattu 2.17-18.

40 “random padavasanattil varunnoru ganattinu / varnnamonnu kuraccTdiliinakakaliyam-

adu,” Rajarajavarma 2006: 67.

120
have five short syllables instead of the two long and one short ones. The

second line will retain the kakali features.41

sakalasuka-kulavimala-tilakita ka-lebare

sarasya-pTyusa-sara sar-vasvame

kathaya mama-kathaya mama-kathakal ati-sadaram

kakutstha-lUakal-kettdl ma-tivara12

All four segemtns in the first line can also be short as in

nodiyidayiladalporudu sathararika tava tanayar

nurum mariykkum bhavaniriykkutn vrthcf3

or

viravinodu poruvadinu karudiyirupuravumati

vTryam nadiccu rajakkaj nilkkum vichau44

41 “kakalikkadyapadadau rando munno gananhale / aiyanju laghuvakkldilulavam

kalakancikel,” ibid., 66.

42 Adhyatma Ramayanam 5.1-4.

43 Mahabharatam Kilippattu 8.37-8.

44 Ibid., 8.119-20.

121
In manikanci, the first segment in the first and second lines will have five

short syllables and the remaining ones will follow kakali,45 while in misra-

kdkali, five short syllables are used randomly in any of the first three

segments in the first and second line.46 It can be seen that kakali and its

variants are more rhythmic and less elastic than keka. Most kilippattu poets

preferred keka because of its flexibility, which of course preclude the

deployment of kakali, kalakanci or manikanci.

The kilippattu or parrot-song is configured in the form of a story

narrated by a parrot. A tacit truth-claim inheres in its use as a genre. The

parrot is known to repeat whatever it has heard, without being able to

consciously manipulate or distort the narrative. What we hear from the

parrot is a story truthfully reproduced. It must be for this reason that the

kilippattu became much more preferable than other similar genres like, say,

the hatnsappattu or swan-song, which inspired very few works like

Kottayattu Kerajavarma’s BhTsmopadesam Hamsappattu and Nedumbayil’s

Aranmulavilasam Hamsappattu mentioned above. The kilippattu was the

preferred genre in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, and gave rise

45 “kakatilla padannal randiluin pinneyadiydm / ganain matrcan laghumayamayalo

manikanciyamRajarajavarma 2006: 67.

46 “icchapole ciledattu laghuprayaganannale / certtum kakali caykldamatin per misra-

kakali," ibid. See ibid., 67 for examples for manikanci and misrakakali.

122
a large number of works like Vilvadnmahatmyam, Skandapuranam, Parvati-

parinayam, Naganandam, Ekadasimahatmyam, Devundhatmyam, Srlrama-

svarggarohanam, Nasiketupuranam, Ramasvamedham, STtaduhkham and

Vaisakhamahatmyam. Tunjattu [Ramanujan?] Eluttaccan (ca. 1600) is

generally regarded as the high-priest of kilippattu. The Adhydtma

Rdmayanam and the Mahabharatam, attributed to him, are composed in this

genre. The Bhagavatam Kilippattu is also said to be a work of Eluttaccan’s.

Kunjan Nambyar (ca. 1750) adopted this genre for his Pancatantram as did

Kottayattu Kera]avarma for his works like BhasavalmikTramayamm,

Patalaramayanarn, Banayuddham, Moksaddyakaprakaranam and Moksa-

siddhiprakaranam. The popularity of these works was apparently restricted

to the nayar caste. They were recited mostly by women. Eluttaccan, it is

argued, came from the oil-presser caste of cakkala ndyars.47 P.K. Bala-

krishnan argues that he was not really popular before the eighteenth century

[sic?] and that he was known only in Trkkandiyur and the neighbouring

areas in southern Malabar where he lived, and that he rose to prominence

only after the advent of print technology.48 That the present-day popularity

of Eluttaccan is largely the outcome of print-capitalism cannot be doubted.

47 Balakrishnan 2008:122-23.

48 Ibid., 125.

123
But to say that the poet was relatively unknown in earlier times is certainly

not a temperate argument.

Most kilippattu works, beginning with those of Eluttaccan, centered

on the ideal of devotionalism or bhakti. They were meant to be recited from

a written text, which meant that literacy was one of the prerequisites for their

circulation and transmission. Texts were often very long, and the use of

elastic meters like keka oftentimes rendered them highly prosaic, making it

difficult to memorize them fully. The focus was never on the narrative, its

interpretive possibilities or the prospects of memorization. Rather, the

narrative was only a template against which the contents of devotionalism

and the discontents of its absence were configured. There is at least one

kilippattu work which deals exclusively with bhakti as formulated by a now-

defunct school of advaitic asceticism. This is the canonical Cintaratnam.

Among the kilippattus, those attributed to Eluttaccan are indeed the

best-known ones. And with the possible exception of the DevTmahatmyam

with its celebration of a wrathful self, no other works in the genre were more

popular than the Adhyatma Ramayanam, although its circulation was largely

- but not exclusively - limited to the nayar households. A tacit sense of

paternal control animates the Adhyatma Ramayanam, as it does the

Mahabharatam and Bhagavatam kilippattus. There is a heightened

124
fascination for kingship ties not so much informed by matrimony or conjugal

life as by clan (kulam) and lineage (vamsam or anvayam) affiliations.

Frequent use of expressions like kulam,49 vamsam50 and anvayam51 may not

really draw the reader’s attention unless he or she sits down to count them.

But the paternal ideal which informs this fascination is hard to miss even if it

is never expressly articulated. The words putran and putri (“son” and

“daughter”) and their equivalents like tanayan, nandanan, sutan, kumaran,

udbhavan, atmajan, makal, nandana, suta, atmaja and so on occur as many

as 131 times in just the 1700 lines which make up the first canto of the
/
Adhyatma Rcimayanam.52 The use of what may be called extended paternal-

compounds is seen on a number of occasions. Thus, the Adhyatma Rdmaya-

49 Adhyatma Ramayanam 1.1.99,482, 643, 799, 818, 953,973, 1498,1501, 1517 etc.

50 Ibid., 1.1.27, 221,248 etc.

51 Ibid., 1.1.482, 838,1401 etc.

52 Ibid., 1.1.29 (5 times), 41, 44, 65, 100, 102, 163, 173, (2 times),174, 182, 240, 246, 266,

268, 271, 297, 323, 373 (2 times), 385, 393, 408, 446, 451, 469, 472, 478, 482, 505, 528,

529, 533, 559, 578, 583, 588, 643, 655 (2 times), 667, 685, 687, 689, 692, 693, 703, 705,

707, 710, 711, 753, 761 (2 times), 764, 807, 827 (2 times), 833, 836, 845, 847, 850, 852,

857, 859, 868, 872, 879, 882, 923, 962, 968, 989, 993, 1011 (3times), 1062 (2 times),

1065, 1069, 1092, 1105, 1212, 1215, 1225 (2 times), 1252, 1259, 1279, 1282, 1325, 1345,

1364, 1375, 1385, 1388, 1393, 1396, 1408, 1414, 1432, 1453, 1458, 1459, 1487, 1500 (2

times), 1517, 1523, 1530, 1531, 1544, 1571, 1572, 1596, 1604, 1657, 1658, 1668, 1672,

1674, 1675,1684, 1691, 1693.

125
nam refers to Vyasa as the son of the son of the son of the son of the son of

Visnu.53 The Mahabharatam speaks of the son of the son of the son of the

son of Vasista54 and the Bhagavatam of the son of the son of the son of

Indra;55 these refer to Suka and Parlksit respectively. At work here is a

paternal self, or more appropriately, a paternal-ascetic self functioning

alongside a therapeutic self which insists that listening to the story of Rama

will rid us free of all worries (prarabdham) and obstacles (vighnam).56

The kilippattm in general and those attributed to Eluttaccan in

particular are also representative of a cognoscent-ascetic self which

constantly meditates over the true nature of the world, of human beings, of

the supreme reality and of the relationship between them. Thus, the

Adhyatma Ramayanam makes frequent detours to tell us that the living soul

(jfvatmd) and the supreme soul (paramatmd) are mere synonyms

(paryayasabdahhal) with no ontological difference (bhedam) whatsoever,57

that the soul (atma) is different from the body {deha), breath (prana),

53 “visnujddbhavasutanandanaputran”, Adhyatma Ramayanam 1.1.29.

54 “vasisthatmajasutaputranandanan ", Mahabharatam Kilippattu 3.29.

55 “indratmajanandanatmajan", Bhagavatam Kilippattu 1.71.

56 Adhyatma Ramayanam 1.1.17-18.

57 Ibid., 1.3.645-47.

126
intellect (buddhi), ego (ahamkara) and mind (manas),58 that the soul is

devoid of attributes (nirggunam)59 and that what the human beings see, hear

and remember are as unreal as a dream.60 The ‘Santiparvam’ of the

Mahabharatam is almost exclusively set aside for a discourse on the real.61

Less popular than the kilippattu were the hamsappattu, vanjippattu

and pana. But some of the works produced in these genres happen to be

among the most popular works from premodem Kerala. They include

Pundanam Nambudiri’s Jhanappana (ca. 1600) and Ramapurattu Variyar’s

Kucelavrttam Vanjippattu (ca. 1750). Both works upheld inaction and

complacent devotionalism. Variyar, a protege of Marttandavarma of

Tiruvidankur (r. 1729-56) also translated the GTtagovinda of Jayadeva into

Malayalam. The vanjippattu uses a meter called natonnata, which has

sixteen syllables in the first line and thirteen in the second. The first line is

divided into eight segments of two letters each, and the second line, into six-

and-half similar segments. All twenty-nine (sixteen plus thirteen) syllables

are long, but as with keka and kakali, short syllables are often used and made

58 Ibid., 1.3.673-77.

59 Ibid., 1.4.810.

60 Ibid., 1.3.629-32.

61 Mahabharatam Kilippattu 15. The word “discourse” is used here only in a lexical sense

and not in the ‘technical’ sense in which it has been circulating since Foucault 1972.

127
long while singing.62 Variyar’s Kucelavrttam Vahjippattu tells the famous

story from the Bhagavata of how a poor brahmana called Kucela, who was

once a class-mate of Krsna in the school of SandTpani, went to Dvaraka at

the instance of his wife with a handful of beaten-rice and met Krsna with the

intention of requesting him to help him overcome his poverty, but came back

shyly without asking for it, only to find that his hut had been transformed

miraculously into a palace full of riches. This work was meant to be sung

while roving the boat, particularly during boat-races. A few other boat-

songs, like Vyasolppatti Vahjippattu were produced late in the eighteenth

century. But they did not enjoy any popularity whatsoever.

Pundanam is said to have been a contemporary of Eluttaccan and

Melppattur. His Jhanappana is one of the widely cherished poems written in

the Malayalam language. His other works were the Santanagopalam and the

Bhdsakarnnamrtam. The Jhanappana was composed in the pana genre, and

in the drutakakali meter, which is the same as kakali sans the last syllable in

both lines. This work marks the high-noon of complacent devotionalism in

Kerala, so much so that the ideal of inaction it prescribes even extended to

62 “ganain dvyaksaramettennamonnam padattil marradil / ganamarara nilkkenam randum-

ttavadaksare / gurutanneyeluttellamissUin per natonnata,” Rajarajavarma 2006: 81.

63 “randu padattilum pinneyantyamaya ganattilum / varnnamonnu kurahnennal drutakaka­

li kirttane," ibid., 68.

128
the worship of the deity. Like the Mukundamala composed by Kulasekhara

some seven centuries earlier,64 the Jnanappana restricted the practice of

bhakti to a mere chanting of the god’s name. But Pundanam also went a step

further. The chanting, he held, need not be conscious. Uttering the god’s

name by accident is exertion enough to ensure liberation!65 Understandably

enough, the Jnanappana was hostile to everything that involved a measure

of action and enterprise and even beauty. According to a well-known story,

Melpattur once ridiculed Pundanam for having produced so dry a work as

the Jnanappana. The incident took place in the Guruvayur temple. Krsna is

said to have come to Pundanam’s rescue immediately. His voice (asariri)

from the sanctum said, “Pundanam’s devotion (bhakti) is dearer to me than

Melpattur’s scholasticism (vibhakti). Given the contempt which the

Jnanappana nurtures for enterprise - there is hardly a thing that it does not

censure - this anecdote cannot be seen as an allegory of an inferiority-

complex which Pundanam suffered from. It is simply a critique of enterprise,

a critique of human volition and fortitude made by a vainglorious self which

nurtured the desire to present itself as a renunciate-ascetic self. And volition

64 “sankfrtya narayana sabdamatrani / vimukta duhkha sukhind bhavanti.” (Suffering can

be overcome and happiness achieved with the mere chanting of the word “Narayana”.)

Mukundamala 27.

65 Jnanappana Lines 341-58.

129
and fortitude are what the devotionalism of Melpattur is known to have

embodied.

Melpattur wrote in Sanskrit, and in meters sanctioned by the kdvya-

nataka and itihasa-purana traditions. He was one of the greatest exponents

of vedantic devotion, besides being a master of several intellectual traditions

of premodem South Asia. His Manameyddaya was a treatise on the Bhatta

school of Purvamlmamsa.66 He also wrote two treatises on grammar, the

Prakriydsarvasva on the Paniniyan system and the ApdninTyapramdna on

non-Paniniyan grammar, besides the Dhdtukdvya, which demonstrates the

verbal roots in Sanskrit by narrating the story of Krsna and furnishing

illustrations from it. By far, his most famous work is the Narayamyam,
f\7
which is an abridged retelling of the Bhagavata in one hundred decades.

There is a fascinating story behind the composition of this work. Melpattur’s

gum, Acyuta Pisaradi, was once afflicted with paralysis. All attempts to treat

him failed. Finally, Melpattur relieved his guru of suffering by taking the

decease upon himself. Thus commenced Melpattur life as a paralytic. When

the pain became unbearable, he decided to consult Eiuttaccan, who had just

attained renown as the author of Adhyatma Ramayanam. Eiuttaccan

66 The Bhatta school is associated with Kumarila Bhatta.

67 Some of the decades have more than ten stanzas.

130
prescribed a strange medicine, “mfn tottu kuttuka.” Literally “commence

with fish”, this expression is used colloquially to refer to a meal of fish.

Now, Melpattur was a brahmana for whom a meal of fish was forbidden. But

he realized that Eiuttaccan was referring to the literal and not the colloquial

meaning. (How could he not? He was after all a master of vibhakti and the

author of three works on grammar.) He decided to “commence with fish”.

The result was Narayamyam, which recounted the story of the ten

incarnations of Visnu, beginning with the fish. The Narayamyam represents

a persevering-ascetic self at the height of its powers to endure and create.

Melpattur’s was not the only Sanskrit work from Kerala to uphold

devotionalism. We have already taken note of Purnnasarasvati’s Hamsa-

sandesa and the large number of works centering on Krsna devotionalism,

many of which were composed in or after the sixteenth century. But Kerala

produced very few bhakti works in Sanskrit on Rama, Siva, Skanda,

Bhagavati or any of the other deities. With rare exceptions, these were more-

or-less the exclusive preserve of Malayalam and Manipravalam works in

general and the kilippdttu in particular.

Coeval with the coming of the kilippdttu, vanjippattu, hamsappattu

and pdna in the sixteenth century was the advent of new theatrical practices

in Kerala. It is difficult to say anything about Kerala theatre before the

131
sixteenth century. All we know is that the kuttu (dance) and the natakam

(drama) were well known, if not performed at regular intervals. The two

were perhaps not mutually exclusive. The kuttu is mentioned in

inscriptions like the Tiruvalla copperplates (ca. 800-1200)69 and the Kollam

Ramesvaram inscription of Rama Kulasekhara (1102).70 Performance was

generally the forte of cakyars, nambyan and nahhas. Artists also specialized

in a form of recitation called pathaka. The nanhas, who were women

performers, are mentioned in several inscriptions like Godaravi’s Cokkur71

and Nedumbuiam Ta}i72 inscriptions, and the Tiruvalla copperplates.73 The

staging of drama seems to have followed the prescriptions made in a manual

called the Vyahgyavyakhya, which is believed to have been composed by a

contemporary of Kulasekhara. The plays were usually performed in temples

over a period which is unlikely to have extended beyond a week. In the

twelfth century, Mahendravarman’s Bhagavadajjuka was a three-day play.

We have at least two references to the performance of Kulasekhara’s

68 The Unnunilisandesain (2.95) refers to the performance of TapatTsamvarana, a nataka,

as kuttu.

69 Puthusseri 2007, No. 120, Line 267.

10 Ibid., No. 67.

71 Ibid., No. 9.

72 Ibid., No. 10.

73 Ibid., No. 120, Line 123.

132
Tapatisamvarana, one from the Cembra inscription of the twelfth year of

Indugoda (955)74 and the other from the Unnunilisandesam.15 The Tiruvalla

copperplates refer to the performance of Kaliyarigakkuttu. The major plays

performed in Kerala in more recent times include Mahendravarman’s

Mattavilcisa and Bhagavadajjuka, Kulasekhara’s Tapatisamvarana and

Subhadradhananjaya, Saktibhadra’s Ascaryacudamani, Harsa’s Nagananda,

Kalidasa’s Abhijndnasakuntalam and a handful of other plays like Kalyana-

saugandhikam and Krsnacaritam, apart from all the thirteen plays attributed

to Bhasa.77 These were perhaps popular even in earlier times. We also know

that the performance of the Mahabharata and Andal’s Tiruppavai were

part of temple rituals.

74 Ibid., No. 20.

75 Note 68 above.

76 Puthusseri 2007, No. 120, Line 270-71.

77 Paulose 2001: 173-74. It is doubtful if Abhijnanasakuntalain was really performed in

premodem Kerala.

78 Puthusseri 2007, No. 64; Unnunillsandesam 1.89 (This is according to Elamkulam

Kunjan Pillai’s edition of the text. In Suranattu Kunjan Pillai’s edition, it is 1.90.)

79 Puthusseri 2007, No. 67.

133
 Things changed in the sixteenth century. The staging of Sanskrit

drama graduated into a distinct genre of performance called kudiyattam.80 A

stage-manual called Natcmkusam was produced to articulated the formal

niceties of the genre. Besides, elaborate stage-manuals like attaprakaraim

and kramadipikas were produced to regulate stage performance. The nature

of these manuals varied from troupe to troupe or from teacher to teacher.

The period of performance also increased considerably. The

Bhagavadajjuka, which was a three-day performance in the twelfth century,

became a lengthy thirty-five-day affair. It is from the kramadipika of the

Bhagavadajjuka, composed apparently in the sixteenth or seventeenth

century, that we get the first known reference to the expression kudiyattam.81

Another major development of this period was the practice of performing a

single act from a play rather than the entire play. Thus, acts from

Saktibhadra’s Ascaryacudamani, like ‘Asokavanikangam’ and ‘AngulTyah-

gam’ became individual plays in their own right. We learn from the

attaprakaram of the Asokavanikangam that it was performed over a period

of thirteen days. Similarly, the attaprakaram of the first act of the

80 There is no evidence to substantiate the popular belief that kudiyattam is a two-thousand

years old performance form. Nor does it go back to the eleventh century, as some scholarly

accounts (Paulose 2001) tend to believe. The farthest that we can trace it is the sixteenth

century.

81 Bhagavadajjukam Kramadipika Day 32.

134
Subhadradhananjaya prescribes performance for a period of eleven days. In

most of these performances the actual play was staged only on the last three

or four days. The remaining days were often used for various purposes, not

all of which are now intelligible to us, obviously because our understanding

of theatre is overdetermined by Bharata, Dhananjaya, Aristotle, Shakespeare,

Ibsen, Stanislavski, Brecht and Barba. A very different aesthetics informed

the protracted prologues which accompanied the kudiyattam plays. Satire

was one of their main-stays. Most of the performance-time was spent in

exploring the satirical possibilities of various unconnected episodes from the

itihasa-purana traditions. Some of the plays, like the first act of Subhadra-

dhananjaya, involved the staging of the four purusartthas or ends of human

life, which according to the cakyars included not dharmam, arttham, kdmam

and moksam, but asanam (gluttony), vahcanam (treachery), vinodam

(amusement) and rajaseva (serving the rulers). Vaduttrkkal or vivadutir-

kkal (debate) was another important component of the kudiyattam theatre.83

Together, the vddutirkkal and the purusartthas formed an integral part of the

kudiyattam and were known as the purusartthakkuttu.84 They represented the

ways and waywardness of a satirical self. The Bhagavadajjukam Krama-

82 In the first act of the Subhadradhananjaya, these are performed between the sixth and

the eighth day.

83 Ibid., Day 5.

84 Krishnachandran 2007 is an important compilation of the purusartthakkuttu.

135
dipika is more complex. It speaks of a distinction between the purapporul
oc
(outer meaning) and the agapporuj (inner meaning). The purapporul is a

summary of the plot, while the agapporuj explores the possibilities of

transforming the purapporul into a metaphor of ascetic practices. Another

feature of this kramadipika is that eight days are set aside to present a

treatise on life, which begins by classifying life into four categories, viz.,

plants, sweat-bom creatures like insects and worms, egg-bom creatures like

birds, snakes, crocodiles, fishes, tortoises etc., and mammals, including

human beings. It then gives an account of the human body, its anatomic and

chemical constitution and the process of its evolution from the time of

conception, and concludes with a description of the diseases which afflict the

body.86 Here was a cognoscent self not producing commentaries, but

appearing on the performance stage! We also come across a day of extensive

rituals performed on the stage.87 Surely, the kudiydttam theatre eludes

simplistic characterizations. It was something which Aristotle, Bharata,

Ibsen and Stanislavski would have hardly been able to make sense of.

Kudiydttam was, if anything, a great carnival of the compelling forms which

selfhoods could assume in their tryst with the production of what we will

identify in one of the coming chapters as the enchantment-effect.

85 Bhagavadajjukam Kramadipika Day 16.

86 Ibid., Days 8-15.

87 Ibid., Day 19.

136
 Towards the close of the seventeenth century, another new genre of j

performance emerged in Kerala. This was the kathakali. It w'as originally |

called Ramanattam. According to one tradition, King Manavedan of

K5iikkod composed the Krsnagiti and transformed it into a theatrical genre

called Krsnanattam.88 A rival king is said to have locked his aesthetic horns

with him, which resulted in the making of Ramanattam.89 We do not know

who this rival king was. Tradition identifies him as the chief of

Kottarakkara. It is not unlikely that he was the chief of Vettam, who

maintained hostile relationships with Kolikkod and was opposed by the latter

in the so-called War of Vettam Succession. By the end of the eighteenth

century a distinct Vettam-style of kathakafi had come into being. The

earliest extant kathakali text is the Putrakamesti, where the poet identifies

himself as the nephew of VIrakeralavarma of Kocci. Many VTrakeralavarmas

are known to have ruled over the Kocci principality. The present reference

may be to the one who ruled from 1663 to 1687. By the early decades of the

eighteenth century, many local styles seem to have evolved. It is likely that

each kalari (troupe) formulated its own style. The Madilagam records of

88 This happened sometime in the mid seventeenth century. Manavedan is, like Samudiri, a

title and not a personal name.

89 See Mankombu and Sivarama Pillai 2006:114-83 for a discussion.

137
Tiruvidankur of the time of Marttandavarma refer to several centres of

kcithakaU in southern Kerala, like Kottarakkara, Aranmuja, Tiruvananta •

puram, Ambalappula, Tiruvalla, Mavelikkara, Kujattur and Mlnaccil.

Kottayattu Tamburan, a cousin of Kottayattu Keralavarma, was an important

kathakali poet. His works include Balivadham, Toranayuddham, Baka-

vadham, Kirmmiravadham, Kalyanasaugandhikam and Kalakeyavadham.

The Tamburan inaugurated the Kalladikkod style with the help of

Cattuppanikkar, a renowned performer form Kocci. This style took roots in

northern Malabar. The Madilagam records do not mention the performance

of any of the KSttayam plays till 1751,90 which seems to be suggesting that

they were composed in the later half of the eighteenth century. The

Tamburan’s cousin Kerajavarma is said to be none other than Keralavarma

Palassiraja, who died fighting the British on 3dt^November,|) 1805. In the

third quarter of the eighteenth century, efforts were made to evolve certain

standards, which led to the eclipse of many local styles. The Kaplinhadan

style, which was promulgated by Kaplihnattu Narayanan Nambudiri (ca.

1775), became influential within a short period. His influence is also seen on

the Kalluvaii style. The southern style, which was the brainchild of

Marttandavarma’s successor Karttika Tirana! Ramavarma (better known as

90 Ibid., 179.

138
Dharmaraja, r. 1758-98), was designed by KapHnnattu and is more-or-less

indistinguishable from the Kaplinnadan style.

It has been argued that kathakali has its roots in the martial arts of

Kerala.91 The training involved in preparing the body for the flexibility and

suppleness which the performance demands, is almost the same in both. It is

not known if the fall of chiefdoms and principalities in eighteenth century

Kerala rendered many of the martial-art training centres (also called kalaris)

obsolete, and eventually transformed them into kathakali troupes.92

The best way to characterize kathakali is that it is a hermeneutical

theatre. Prolonged scenes, unraveling the interpretive dimensions of every

moment in the story makes it an elitist form. What suits it best is a familiar

story from the itihasa-purana traditions rendered into a text - no matter how

superficial - in which the abiding-emotion (sthayibhava) which informs the

central mood (rasa) is adequately foregrounded. The hermeneutic torrents to

which the text is exposed on the stage is contingent on this abiding-emotion.

91 Ibid., 110-13.

92 In the neighbouring Karnataka, the decline of Nayaka polities in the late eighteenth

century led to the closing down of many military training centres (garadis). Some of them

survived by transforming martial art into a sport meant to be played during fairs and

festivals.

139
Another requirement is that all transitory-emotions (sahcaribhava or

vyabhicarfbhava) must take on the veneer of the abiding-emotion. This is

done to ensure the continuity of the central mood throughout the

performance, which may last for several days. Kathakali as a genre is

informed by this continuity of the central mood and not by an emphasis on

narrative continuity. There is no need to narrate the story. It is a well-known

one. Thus, when Marttandavarma’s protege Unnayi Variyar composed his

well-knit Nalacaritam Attakkatha which insists on narrative continuity to the

detriment of the central mood, it had few takers. It was first performed,

several years after its composition, in 1744-45 jointly by the Aranmula

troupe and Periya Aladivagakkudu of Tiruvanantapuram. It was never

performed for nearly century thereafter. The Nalacaritam Attakkatha is

notorious for being stage-resistant because of the elusiveness of its central

mood. One cannot identify a central mood in the text without taking recourse

to inference (anumana), in which case too much of rhetoric needs to be

expended in “bringing to light” the “latent” or “underlying” central mood.

We also see the display of a stunning range of transitory-emotions in

Nalacaritam Attakkatha, but each one is rich in itself and stands on its own

without underwriting any abiding-emotion. This makes Unnayi Variyar’s

work a veritable reading-feast, but a less rewarding text as far as staging is

93 Ibid., 179.

140
concerned. A striking contrast to this is seen in the attakkathas of Irayimman

Tambi (1783-1861), which are not only considered as literary masterpieces,

but also adhere to the abiding-emotion law. Tambi’s KTcakavadham,

Uttarasvayamvaram and Daksayagam lay explicit stress on the abiding-

emotion of utsaha (enthusiasm), which makes vfra (valour) prevail as the

central mood throughout. All transitory-emotions are so crafted as to present

a visage of utsaha. Consider these lines from the KTcakavadham.

tatkale dyutavrtya prasabhamapahrte

darttarastraih svardstre

kantarante kathahcit saha nijasahajih

kantaya santaya ca94

These lines speak of the exile of the Pandavas following their defeat in the

game of dice, and are meant to evoke the transitory-emotion of dainya (pity).

But the orchestration of words like darttarastraih and svardstre, and kantaya

and santaya produce at once an aura and a rhythm suffused with utsaha

rather than dainya. The focus, clearly, is not on the pitiful condition of exile

but on building up cumulatively the mood of vfra upon which the slaying of

Kicaka rests. Another example can be seen in the following words spoken by

Bhlsma in the Uttarasvayamvaram, where the patriarch agrees with Duryo-

94 KTcakavadham Attakkatha, verse 3.

141
dhana’s opinion - that the Pandavas are living in disguise in Viratanagara -

by saying that none other than Bhlma is strong enough to kill the mighty

KTcaka.

sdravediydya ninre vakku parttukankilinnu

ceruminnadinnu tellumilla samsayam

bhlmabdhuviryandya kicakanekkolvadinnu

bhTmasenanenniye marraru bhutale95

The transitory emotion here is vitarkka (surmise). Yet, the cambada rhythm

of these lines clothes vitarkka in the gown of utsaha, which ensures the

constancy of vira. The awareness shown by Irayimman Tambi about the

axial role of abiding-emotions and central moods in kathakali is far more

refined than Unnayi Variyar’s weakness for semantic content while at the

same time matching - and frequently surpassing - the latter’s literary

heights. It is no wonder, then, that Tambi has had a far more successful stint

on the stage than Variyar.

Another major performance form which arose during this period was

the tullal. Its rise to prominence is associated with the name of Kunjan

Nambyar, who was patronized by Marttandavarma and the chief of

95 Uttarasvayamvaram Attakkatha, song 7.

142
Ambalappula. Bom in the early eighteenth century at Kihikkurissimangalam

near Orrappalam, Nambyar seems to have commenced his literary career by

experimenting with various forms like prabandham, kilippattu and

manipravalam, which led to the composition of Sivapuranam, Pancatantram

and SrTkrisnacaritratn Manipravalam respectively. But his fame rests on his

redoubtable tullal songs, known for their energy, rhythm and satire,

representing a combination of rustic, playful and satirical selves. The tullal

seems to have had its roots in the padayani, a performance-form from

northern Tiruvidankur.96 Its transformation into a distinct genre is attributed

to Nambyar. Nambyar composed more than forty works in three distinct

forms of tullal, viz., the ottan-tullal, parayan-tullal and sTdangan-tullal. His

major tullals include Syamantakam, Nalacaritam, Kiratam, Ravanodbha-

vam, Banayuddham, Bakavadham, Satydsvayamvaram, Ghosayatra, Santa-

nagdpalam, Pdtracaritam and Sftasvayanivaram in ottan-tullal, PancalTsva-

yamvaram, Tripuradahanam, KTcakavadham, Ndldyanicaritam and Pulindt-

moksatn in parayan-tullal and Kalyanasaugandhikam, KrsnalUa, Nrga-

mdksam, Harimsvayamvaram, Dhruvacaritam, Sunddpasundopakhyanam

and Kdliyamardanam in sidangan-tullal.

96 Ganesh 1996: 50.

143
 The tullal was generally performed in temples during the festival

months of summer. It represented the quotidian face of eighteenth century

Kerala through its satirical treatment of contemporary life - particularly the

life-world of nayar families. Nambyar’s tullals, unlike the kathakali, were

not prone to elicit an extensive set of meanings during performance.

Spontaneity was the chief hallmark of their satire, which meant that the

critiques reached the audience without the mediation of too-many

hermeneutical flights of fantasy.

The tullal theatre, as pioneered by Kunjan Nambyar, was a theatre of

wakefulness. Narration was swift, terse and rhythmic, and the production of

meanings, besides being spontaneous, had an air of immediacy about it. The

attention which it demanded from the audience was almost akin to a call to

stay awake and keep watch. The engendering of wakefulness becomes

meaningful in the context of eighteenth century Kerala, where the political

economy was increasingly - and almost frenzily - gravitating towards the

praxis of plunder and predation. It will not be wrong therefore to argue that

tullal was the product of an age when contingency and uncertainty had

become the rule rather than the exception. Kunjan Nambyar responded to it

with quotidian beauty, rustic frenzy and passionate concern that was at once

earnest and playful. And the result was that Kunjan Nambyar became

Kunjan Nambyar while the Unnayi Variyars and Irayimman Tambis were

144
forced to remain as nothing more than Unnayi Variyars and Irayimman

Tambis.

If the kathakali and tullal can be safely traced to the seventeenth and

the eighteenth centuries, the origins of forms like teyyam, purakkaji,

padayani and mudiyerru continue to be a problem, as do the so-called

vadakkan pattugaf or “northern ballads”. Most of them deal with narratives

which are not found in the kavya-nataka or itihasa-purana traditions. The

Kaduvanurviran Torram is one such text. In its invocations are found the

words

ksirasagara variyil tira

pole vankavi tonnuvan97

which is clearly inspired by

ksirasagara varirasiyil
~ — —98
nagavira varasane

97 Kaduvanurviran Torram Invocation 3.

98 Krsnagatha 2.29.141.

145
occurring in Cemsseri’s Krsnagatha. The text cannot therefore be older than

the mid fifteenth century. The torram narrates the story of Mandappan, who

travels for Mannad near Talipparamba to Kaduvanur in Kodagu, where he

manufactures oil and starts selling it in the Virajpet market. The oil-trade

there is monopolized by the Muttarmudi Kudagas. Mandappan’s entry into

their forte becomes a matter of concern. Soon, it leads to a conflict,

culminating in Mandappan’s death. This torram cannot therefore be older

than 1786, when VTrarajendra, the chief of Kodagu, established the Virajpet

market." Such clues occur in other texts as well. The “Cidambaracaritam”

deploys the Niranam meters, while the “Dehatattvam” describes the human

body as consisting of ninety-six elements, which points to its connections

with a school of asceticism to which the Cintaratnam (ca. 1800) and the

Harinamakirttanam (ca. 1600) were also affiliated.101 The Purakkali, in

which the “Cidambaracaritam” and the “Dehatattvam” occur, may not

therefore antedate the sixteenth century. The vadakkan pattugal, which

comprises mostly of the Taccoli and Putturam corpuses, may date back to

the late seventeenth and eighteenth century. There are several allusions in

these songs to the British presence in Malabar, and interestingly enough, the

99 Krishnayya 1995.

100 Dehatattvam Line 13.

101 Cintaratnam Lines 281-354; Harinamakirttanam 25.

146
life-world which the songs represent have striking parallels in the Tellicherry

Consultations, which are records of the British factory at Talasseri.102 Many

of the intrigues figuring in the songs, which recent scholarship tends to write

off as repetitive structural tropes, appear as real historical events in the

Tellicherry Consultations, which supports an eighteenth century date for the

vadakkan pattugaf.

The Taccdli and Putturam corpuses mostly deal with the heroic

exploits of the cekavar warriors of the two families. These warriors were

hired by local chiefs or warlords to settle civil disputes. Whenever a dispute

arose, the contending parties hired a cekavar each and organized an armed

combat in front of a large gathering. The dispute was settled based on the

outcome of the combat. Odenan (Udayanan) and Ambu of the Taccoli

family, and Aromal of the Putturam family are the best known among the

cekavars.

The vadakkan pattugals, and works like Kaduvanurviran Torratn,

Valiyatambi Kuhjittambi Katha and Murikkahjerikkeluvinre Pattukatha are

1021 owe this remarkable insight to Abhilash Malayil, who is presently engaged in a study

which examines the possibility of approaching the life-world of the vadakkan pattugaf

with the Tellicherry Consultations as an entry-point.

103 Raghavavarier 1982.

147
governed by a tragic self, amply supplemented by the heroic, erotic, rustic

and the quotidian selves. Clan-affiliations, and at times caste and blood-

feuds, determined the production, circulation and performance of these

forms. Fury, and the ideal of vengeance as the ultimate form of gratification,

informed forms like the teyyam and the mudiyerru. The eroticization of

death and retribution inheres in many of them. They were performed in

sacred-groves (kavus) as part of annual or periodical rituals. It cannot be

said, though, that these performances were merely expressions of piety or

devotion is a “primordial” form. More often than not, they subsumed,

sublimated of gave expression to local clan, caste or professional rivalries.

At a more abstract level, they also nurtured forms of selfhood which reveled

in constituting themselves through desire, death, grudge and fortitude. And

in doing so, rarely ever did they fail to invoke Sarasvatl, Valmlki and Vyasa.

In other words, they transformed desire, death, grudge and fortitude - which

made or unmade many a life in premodem Kerala - into poetry.

This, in brief, is the story of literary practices in Kerala between the

thirteenth and the eighteenth century. It points to the fact that there was more

to literature than the writing-centered, book-centered, commodity-centered

view concedes. Literatures in premodem Kerala assumed a large number of

forms, and brought almost every sphere of life within their provenance. They

were not restricted to temples, courts and the circle of scholastic elites

148
known to Sanskrit poetics as sahrdayas. Nor did practices like reading,

writing, criticism and commentary effect a closure on their circulation and

reproduction. Literatures entered the urban hubs of hospitality and the rural

agro-pastoral worlds. They made their presence felt in dance-houses, sacred-

groves, households, kitchens, courtyards, cradles, paddy-fields, the ferry,

performance-stages, schools and leisurely gatherings. In other words, literary

practices transformed everyday life into a great aesthetic enterprise. This was

not a world in which literature was a mode of being in the world. Rather, it

was one in which being in the world itself was literary. The breadth and

vision of life which literatures in Kerala encompassed is compelling, to say

the least. It is compelling not because there was something exotic about

them. After all, it was too human a world in spite of its irresistible weakness

for gods, demons, fairies and vampires. The selfhoods it precipitated were

not unique to Kerala either. The paternal-ascetic self in Eluetaccan, the erotic

self in Malaamarigalam, the quotidian self in Cerusseri, the enterprising self

in Niranattu Raman and the complacent self in Ramapurattu Variyar were

tendencies which could find expression in any part of the world under

similar material conditions. Kerala literatures cannot claim any monopoly

over them, If, then, the pageantry is compelling, which it indeed is, it is

obviously pointing to the stunning possibilities of the muse as to the limits

which capitalism and its forms of fetishes have imposed on our

understanding of literature, knowledge, desire and beauty.

149
 Chapter 4
Territoriality

The Padirruppattu, which happens to be the first known literary

work in which Kerala figures prominently, refers to the territory between the

Himalayas and Kanyakumari in its very first song.1 This is the territory over

which the influence of the Cera chieftain Imayavaranban Nedunceraladan is

said to have extended. We come across this territory again in the

Padirruppattu in a song dedicated to Cenguttuvan.2 The fascination for

territory is unmistakable in these songs. The Padirruppattu also gives us the

first known historical description of the piece of land bound by mountains

1 “ariyar tuvanriya pericaiyimayam / tennahkumariyodayidai,” Padirruppattu 2.1.23-24.

Padirruppattu is an anthology of ten decades singing praise of Cera chieftains like

Imayavaranban Nedunceraladan, Kadalpiragottiya Cenguttuvan and Perunceral Irumborai.

The first and last decades are lost. We only have eight decades with eighty songs with us.

2 “vadadisai yellai imaya makat- / tennankumari yoddyidai aracar,” ibid., 5.3.7-B.

150
and the sea on either side. The region which would in subsequent centuries

emerge as Kerala was located here. Land figures prominently in many songs

in the Padirruppattu and other Ettutogai anthologies like the Purananuru.

But the notion of territory, important as it is, is still universal in these works.

None of the territories figure as distinct localities or regions. We do not see

them juxtaposed against one another in the language of ownership,

possession or control. Land per se, and its ability to create affluence, is what

captured the bard’s imagination. This is quite understandable. After all, the

milieu which produced the Padirruppattu had not yet witnessed the advent

of landed property - of land being divided as mine and yours - in its

entrenched forms. Private property in land was still an incipient institution.

Reference to land grants made by the chieftains are very rare. Pari is said to

have granted three hundred villages in his country.34 This is of course an

exaggerated figure. We have some sober instances as well. The Cera

chieftain Adu Kot Pattu Ceraladan gave a village in Kudunadu, along with

some cows, to brahmanas.5 Celva Kadungo Aiiyadan, another Cera chieftain,

granted the village of Ogandur for the service of Visnu (Mayavannan).6

Settled life and farming practices had gained deep roots by the third century,

3 “kunrutalai manandu kulu ukkadaludutta / mankelu nalattu," ibid., 4.1.1-2.

4 Purananuru 110.

5 Padirruppattu 6.padigam.

6 Ibid., l.padigam.

151
although economic life was yet to become predominantly agrarian. Expres­

sions like nadu and itr were being used widely to represent villages. The ur

appears in the Purananuru 100 times,7 and the nadu 107 times,8 pointing to

their extensive use. It had also become possible by this time to juxtapose

nadu with kadu (forest), identifying one as the diametric opposite of the

other.9 Not infrequently do we come across vivid glimpses of agriculture in

the Ettutogai corpus.10 A song in the Purananuru says that life would be

impossible if clouds stopped pouring and fields stopped growing food.11

7 Or. 3,7,18, 23, 24, 36, 37,48, 52, 54, 57, 65, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 94, 97,99, 104, 110

(2 times), 123, 126, 132, 136, 143, 144, 156, 166, 170, 174, 178, 191, 192, 197, 201, 202,

220, 228, 240, 242, 256, 257, 258, 260 (2 times), 265, 272, 285, 299, 300, 302, 306, 308,

314, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328 (2 times), 329 (2 times), 330,

331, 332, 333 (2 times), 336, 341, 343, 344, 345, 347, 349, 350, 351, 354, 355, 379, 381,

384, 387, 389, 390, 391, 392 (2 times), 395, 398,400.

8 Nadu: 2, 4, 6, 7, 17, 20, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35 (2 times), 38, 40, 41, 42, 49, 52, 54, 57

(2 times), 58, 60, 61, 63, 67, 68, 70 (2 times), 71, 72, 76, 97, 98, 109, 110, 117, 118, 119,

120, 122, 126, 130, 135 (2 times), 137, 141, 146, 148, 150 (3 times), 151, 152 (2 times),

157, 158, 165, 166, 170, 172, 174, 177 (2 times), 184, 187, 193, 200, 201, 202, 212, 215,

217, 229, 232, 236, 239, 240 (2 times), 242, 249, 266, 301, 306, 313, 359, 362, 363, 374,

375, 377 (3 times), 381, 382, 383, 386 (2 times), 388, 390, 393 (2 times), 394, 397,400.

9 Purananuru 17,150,166,187.

10 Devadevan 2006: 207. See also Gurukkal 1989 and Ramaswamy (Vijaya) 1997.

11 “kalindatu polindena vankanmarinum / tolladuvilaindana nilainvalain karappinwn /

ellavuyirkkumilldl valkkai.” Purananuru 203.

152
Elsewhere, we are told that “those who provide food for all the bodies

(lands) for which water is inevitable are indeed the life-givers,” that “those

who make water and land embrace [each other] are the creators of the body

and the breath” and that only those who enrich the earth with water reserves

attains fame in the world while those who fail to do so lose their name.12 The

Ettutogai corpus seems to be suggesting that the earliest attempts to

designate a set of mimetic language-uses as literary occur in a milieu where

settled life and agriculture have taken considerably entrenched forms. In

other words, the making of literatures is contingent, directly or through

indirect, itinerant networks of circulation, on an economic life dependent on

land as a mode, or at least a means, of production. This does not mean that

non-agricultural, pastoral and mobile human groups do not produce

literatures. What it indicates is that such groups, as and when they take to the

muse, do not antedate or exist in isolation from an agrarian milieu. By the

fourth century, the use of iron-tipped plough had enabled the production of a

considerable surplus in South India, paving way, inter alia, for the

emergence of territorially rooted chiefdoms and the Kadamba, Gahga and

12 “nirinramaiyayakkaikkellam / undikoduttoruyir koduttore / undimutarreyunavin pindain

/ unavenappaduvadu nilattodu nlre / nlrunilanum punariyorm- / dudambumuyirum padai-

tticinore / vittivanokkum punpulankannan / vaippirrayinu nanniyalum / iraivanrat kuda-

adeyadanal / aduporcceliya vikaladuvalle / nilanelimarungi nimilai perukat- / tattoram-

mavivattattore / tallatorivattalladore.” Ibid., 18.

153
Pallava states. Pattupdttu songs like Maduraikkanji,n Nedunalvadai14 and

Pattinappalai15 celebrate the new-found agrarian affluence. Paddy-fields,

agrarian activities, trade, urban life, festivals and splendours of the regal

paraphernalia figure prominently in these songs. We come across land

reclamation,16 rivers,17 torrential rains,18 crops ready for harvest,19 grains,20

exchange centres,21 banners in the exchange centres,22 trade,23 traders’

streets,24 ports and ships,25 pearls,26 the wealthy folks,27 festivals,28 toddy,29

13 Maduraikkanji 244-89.

14 Nedunalvadai 21-28.

15 Pattinappalai 8-19.

16 Maduraikkanji 285.

17 Ibid., 338.

18 Ibid., 237-39.

19 Ibid., no.

20 Ibid., 290.

21 Ibid., 356-64.

22 Ibid., 365-73.

23 Ibid., 425-29.

24 Ibid., 505.

25 Ibid., 74-87.

26 Ibid., 134.

27 Ibid., 430-51.

28 Ibid., 459.

29 Ibid., 752.

154
bards and singers,30 prostitutes,31 Buddhist monasteries,32 temples of the

brahmanas33 and Jaina centres,34 besides war elephants,35 horses36 and

-j*7

chariots. Many of these were of course familiar to the Ettutogai world as

well. But they never betrayed the pomp and confidence found in the

Pattupdttu. In the Pattupdttu, it is hard to find worries about crop-failure or

lack of rains. There is one instance in the Purananuru, where Lady Earth

cries:

I do not die like the chiefs of yore....

Like a whore, I linger on,

While many who revere me pray

That I live on and on and on.38

30 Ibid., 748.

31 Ibid., 582.

32 Ibid., 466.

33 Ibid., 473.

i4Ibid., 474-87.

35 Ibid., 46.

36 Ibid., 48.

37 Ibid., 50.

38 Purananuru 365.

155
It is almost impossible to find a similar expression in the Pattupattu or some

of the works which followed in its wake. What we see instead, in works like

the Cilappadigdram, is a riotous celebration of wealth and prosperity.

In the marketplace were sold carriages, two-wheeled carts,

Ornamented chariots, coats of mail

For the entire body, fine goads

Inlaid with gems, leather gloves

Useful medicines, curved bludgeons,

White yaktail fans, boar-faced shields,

Leather shields, bucklers with a picture

Of the forest on them, pikestaff studded

With pearls, workers in copper and bronze,

Ropemakers, makers of garlands, saws

And other tools, workers in ivory, incense,

Sandalwood, and wreaths of flowers. The envy

Of kings, they were spread out in rich profusion.

In the wealthy neighborhoods, unmolested by enemies,

Were shops glittering with diamonds without faults,

Such as crow’s-foot, spot, hole, or line.

They had no natural flaws that an expert

Could detect, and had the color of the four castes.

Emeralds of brilliant green, free of dark spots,

Lines, and curves; rubies called the red lotus,

Sapphire, pearl, and flawless crystal;

156
 The pusparaga stones covered in gold

And resembling a cat’s eye; the pure sardonyx,

The color of honey and sunlight; the onyx

Like clear darkness; two-colored opals;

The fine, lucky gems that came from the same mines

And had the colors of sunset. White and pink pearls,

Pearls of the finest quality that sparkled

Without any fault, caused by wind, sand,

Stone, or water, lay in heaps,

As also branches of red coral without holes,

Not bent with stones in them or twisted.39

This is not the lone example of its kind. The following description of Vanji

in the Cilappadigaram is another instance.

Like defeated kings come to pay tribute

And wait for an audience at the court in Vanci,

Overflowing with a profusion of riches,

The hill dwellers came before him. They carried

Gifts on their heads: white tusks

Of elephants, piles of eaglewood, whisks

39 Cilappadigaram 14.208-49. The translation of this stanza and the two following ones are

from R. Parthasarathy. 2004 [1993]. The Cilappatikdram: The Tale of an Anklet. New

Delhi: Penguin. The numberings also follow this translation and not the original

157
 Of deer hair, pots of honey, sticks

Of sandalwood, lumps of sindura, kohl

And orpiment, stalks of cardamom and pepper,

The floor of arrowroot, rich millet,

Coconuts, ripe mangos, wreaths of green leaves,

Jackfruits, garlic, sugarcane, flowering creepers,

Clusters of areca nuts from rich palms,

Bunches of sweet plantains, cubs of lion

And tiger, baby elephants, young monkeys,

Small bears, mountain hinds, fawns,

The young of deer, musk deer, harmless mongooses,

Peacocks with brilliant feathers, civet cats,

Wild hens, and sweet-talking parrots.40

This affluence transformed the city into a sensuous presence, as it were. The

urban space became a space of magic and enchantment.

To our girl with wide eyes like blue lotuses

They showed the sea god again and again,

But failed to keep their rich promises.

How can we know, sir,

Naive as we are, they aren’t virtuous?

In Pukar, our town,

40 Ibid., 25.41-59.

158
Seeing bright, spiraled conches and pearls,

The bud of the water lily opens

Taking them for the moon with outspread rays

And a cluster of stars.

In the seaside grove on the backwater,

They waylaid us from behind

As lovers bearing gifts in their hands.

How can we know, sir,

They will turn into strangers

And leaves us standing to beg of them?

In Pukar, our town,

A whirling bee can’t tell a woman’s eyes

From a pair of blue flowers

Opening in the moon’s reflection in the water.

Conches with echoing lips,

Tossed about by the huge, swirling waves,

Swept and hurled on the shore,

Plow over and wreck the sand houses, sir,

Made by the girls on the wrinkles sand.

In Pukar, our town,

Upset, they shred their garlands with soft fingers,

And fling the blue lotuses to scatter the conches.

Passersby in the evening see the flowers,

159
 Take them for blinking eyes, and stop.41

By the tenth century, territoriality had become rooted enough to generate a

sense of nostalgia. Pampa’s description of Banavasi in his Vikramarjuna-

vijayam is perhaps the best known instance of its kind.

Splendidly grown mango-trees, tender betel-leaf creepers, blossomed

jasmines and champaks, sweet-throated cuckoos, singing bees, lovers

with smiling faces patting their bright-faced beloveds, making love, only

these are to be seen on any of the hills and in any of the gardens in the

Banavasi country. The people are the people who are the store of the

sweetness of joy of the gatherings of sacrifice, amusement, letters and

music. Is it possible to be bom like them? If it is not possible, then [one]

should be bom a little bee or a cuckoo in the garden of the Vanavasi

country. When the southern wind blows, when [I] listen to sweet words,

when melodious songs fill my ears, when [I] see the bloomed jasmine,

when [I] partake of love-making, when it is the spring festival, O what

shall I say, [even] when someone pierces [me] with a spear, my heart

remembers the Vanavasi country. Looking at my palms, if I am reminded

of the sweetness of love-making that beats ambrosia, the gathering of

letters cuddling like a song, the sweet words of the wise, the cool

41 Ibid., 7.5-7.

160
 bunches [of flowers], and what shall I say of the pleasures of the body, is

it possible to make up the mind to forget the southern country?42

The transformation which material life witnessed between the age of

the Ettutogai and the Pattupattu was indeed momentous. This transformation

gave rise to the earliest expressions of distinct and self-conscious territoriali­

ties by the seventh century.43 The new material formation, gravitating

increasingly towards agriculture, brought forth newer forms of economic and

political control in the form of regional monarchical states and locality

polities (i.e. nadus or visayas). Territoriality arose from these forms of

control and the conflict which they engendered. It rested, in the ultimate

analysis, on the institution of landed property.44 We find these developments

in a visible form in the Cilappadigdram. Thus, the effects of territoriality

were beginning to be closely felt by the ninth century, when Saktibhadra

accomplished the “impossible” task of producing a play from the south by

composing the Ascaryacudamani. It will not be an overstatement to say the

Ascaryacudamani was composed in Kerala, by Kerala and for Kerala. It

never enjoyed wide circulation in other parts of South Asia. This was also

42 Vikramarjunavijayam 4.28-31.

43 The emergence of territoriality is a less-studied area in South Indian and South Asian

history. But see the overview in Veluthat 2009: 295-311.

44 Devadevan 2009b.

161
true of Kulasekhara’s TapatTsamvarana and Subhadradhananjaya. In the

Subhadradhananjaya, the royal playwright identifies himself as the “over-

lord of Kerala”45 and refers to Kerala as a territory rich in paddy-fields,46

At least four broad tropes can be seen in the configuration of

territory in the literary works from Kerala. The first of these, which is also

the most popular, involves a fascination for material prosperity and.

affluence. The city of Kdiikkod, as Uddanda sees it, can be taken as a

paradigmatic instance. House after house, Uddanda tells us, has rooms

washed with ever new sudha (“lime”, but also “nectar”), room after room is

adorned with beds fragrant with flowers, bed after bed has couples

intoxicated with love, and couple after couple take valourous walks through

their imagined empires.

gehe gehe navanava sudhaksalitam yatra saudham

saudhe saudhe surabhi kusumaih kalpitam kelitalpam

talpe talpe rasaparavasain kdminTkantayugmam

yugme yugtne sa khalu viharan visvavTro manobhuh

45 “Kerajadhinatha,” Subhadradhananjaya Prologue.

46 “kalamarasipesalakaidarikaibid.

162
 The second trope invests the city or territory with a long and

entrenched political presence, at times imagined, but often real. It is in this

sense that Mahodayapuram becomes important in the UimiyadTcaritam.

Mahodayapuram, which is surrounded by a hundred-thousand coconut trees,

is the abode of the King of Kerala.

keralaksanhafalavrtcun yatra va

keralaksmabhrto dhama mahodayam.47

The Sukasandesa refers to the city as the abode of the brahmanas who are

said to be the kingmakers.48 Descriptions of the Mahodayapuram complex

occupies twenty-seven verses in the Kokasandesam,49 Mahodayapuram

(Kodunhallur) is referred to as the city of the royal family (nrpakulapura) of

the Ceramans.

bhuyassambhdvaya viyanelum ceramannadu cilli-

ttuyattakkuin nrpakulapurlm nirjjatasvarggasobham

tararmatin capalacaritappokkodunnallurenrum

47 UnniyadTcaritam Prose 13.

48 Sukasandesa 1.69.

49 Kokasandesam 54-80.

163
 perandTrelulagilumulavinra nanabhiramam50

The king of Mahodayapuram is known to have inspired an entire kavya, the

Mahodayapuresvaracarita (also called Tolakavya), in Sanskrit. This work

has not come down to us.51

The third trope, almost invariably deployed in the context of pilgrim

centres, evokes the territory by affiliating it with a god or a goddess, or a

figure from the itihasa-purana tradition, or even a historical person from the

past, to whom the installation of the deity in the temple is attributed. Many

such stories are known in the oral tradition. The Krsna image at Guruvayur

is said to have been jointly installed by Brhaspati (Guru) and Pavana (Vayu).

Similarly, the Siva temples at Vaikkam, Kadutturutti and Errumanur are

associated with Vilvamangalam. A good literary example is found in Nllaka-

nthan’s Narayamyam Cainpu, where the Purnnatraylsan temple at Trppuni-

ttura is attributed to Aijuna.

anupurvyena nirvrtya

vastusuddhyadikah kriya

haribimbapratistharttham

50 Ibid., 76.

51 Only two stanzas of this work survive, which are quoted in Ulloor 1990: Vol. 1, 158.

164
 samarebhe dhananjayah

vaykkum vadyapranadattodinigamasamul-

ghosavum brdhmandsri-

vakyastomanhalum nalstutikalumorumi-

cculgamikum dasayam

slaghye purnatrayidhamani kuru perumdl

bhagyavdn masikumbhe

bhagyarksetan pratisthiccidu phanipatibha-

drasanam pankajaksam52

The fourth trope takes recourse to miracles. A territory is important

because it has witnessed, or is the outcome of a miracle. There is no better

example from Kerala for this trope than the story of land reclamation by

Parasurama. This, Nilakanthan says in the Tenkailanathodayam, was indeed

a miracle (citram).

pettannarddhaksnamkonduditamadu mara-

nnoru nerattu surppam

tasminneva pradese bhrgukulamani ci-

ksepa yajnayudham tam

ottalle citramappol viravodu varuno-

varina dure riinhi

52 Ndrayaniyam Campu Verse 84-85

165
 pustabhogam samantatsamamatha dadrse

bhutalam drstiramyam53

The Ulatilakam points to a fifth trope that was available to the poet

for configuring territories in premodern South Asia. This was language. But

the possibilities of this trope were never systematically explored before the

late nineteenth century. We have very few exceptions from the subcontinent.

The Ulatilakam itself is one of them, and the only one from Kerala.

A relatively innocent reading54 of the Ulatilakam may suggest that it

was an attempt to produce a distinct poetics for Manipravalam. But informed

by the practices which led to the production of linguistic identities in the

modem period, the text can be read as representing the language-pride

(bhasabhimcinam) of its composer, and the greatness of Malayalam.55 This

was the predominant thesis for a long time, but it has since been called into

question. A more measured account in recent years has tried to trace in the

Ulatilakam the emergence of a sense of linguistic identity in premodem

Kerala, intertwined with questions of language, region, topography and the

53 Tenkailanathodayam Verse 30.

54 We have learnt from Louis Althusser that there are no innocent readings; hence the

emphasized qualification.

55 Suranattu 2006.

166
forms of interfaces they entail.56 But a closer scrutiny of the text, especially

the longer of the commentaries on the aphorisms and the 250-odd citations

used by the author, points to a picture not so optimistic. To locate the roots

of modern linguistic identities in fifteenth and sixteenth century texts may

not stand the test of sustained scrutiny. It is true that the language question

figures prominently in the LUatilakam. There are also allusions to language-

pride in sixteenth century texts from the neighbouring regions, like the

Amuktamalyada in Telugu and the Madurai Cokkanadar Tamil Vidudutu in

Tamil, but inasmuch as we do not see any attempt before the nineteenth

century to sustain this rhetoric, we cannot grant these early pronunciations

the status of linguistic identities. All that can be said is that language as a

marker of identity was certainly not impossible in the premodem period, that

the identification of regions based on languages in so early a text as

Bharata’s Natyasdstra and the reference to the “territory imagined in

Kannada” in the ninth century Kavirajamargam pointed to this possibility,

and that by the sixteenth century, a situation had emerged where it could be

deployed at the service of a set of emerging identities, but it must also be

conceded that this possibility was never systematically exploited before the

modem period. It was only after the coming of print-capitalism that the

56 Raghavavarier 1997. See also Freeman 1998, where the argument is repeated at a more

conceptual level.

57 See Narayana Rao 1995 and Ramaswamy 1998 respectively.

167
relationship between language and territory came to be rearticulated as a

relationship between language and its speaker.58

There is an air of uneasiness running through the LUatilakam like an

undercurrent, though its presence is mute and subdued. Going against the

grain of existing scholarship, we shall try to explore this ambience of

disquiet and account for it. To begin with, the LUatilakam is marked by a

sheer lack of poise when compared to treatises on poetics and grammar from

the neighbouring states, like Tolkappiyam, Nannul and Vfracolfyam in

Tamilnadu, Andhrabhasabhusanam and Appakaviyam in Andhra and Kavi-

rajamargam, Chanddmbudhi and Karnatakabhasabhiisanam in Karnataka.

This is evident from the very beginning of the text, where there is an

extensive discussion on identifying a set of features essential for a text to be

qualified as Manipravalam. The most important of them, of course, is that it

should belong to Kerala. Manipravalam is defined as a “union of language

(bhasa) and Sanskrit,”59 and in the commentary that follows, it is clarified

that “language” refers specifically to the Kerala language. In an extensive

unpacking of this claim, the author makes a set of arguments about the

ontological status of the forms and uses of language, which any of his fellow

58 Pollock 2007: 510.

59 “bhasa-saimkrta-yogd-manipravalatn” LUatilakam 1.1.

168
connoisseurs of letters trained in the schools of Panini and Patanjali would

have found ludicrous, if not odious.

[Objection]: Let this description of the beauty of composition stand here.

This feature itself demands reexamination. Haven’t you said that the

language here is the Kerala language and not any other language? You

also do not acknowledge its union with any language other than Sanskrit.

This means that what was said was “Manipravalam is a union of the

Kerala language and Sanskrit.” This feature is not nuanced enough. Mani­

pravalam also contains the Cola language. We find in it words like kundal,

kulal and konka. These are Cola language [words].

[Refutation]: 0, you give very few examples. You should be telling that

there are myriad C5ja language words, like mula, tala, kal, port, ten, vila,

tala, tina and pana. Then the objection becomes much more stronger. It

can also be said that there are Karnnata language words too. Don’t words

like ana, alu, alia, ilia, eli and adu belong to this category? And why did

you not say that there are also Andhra language words like udal and

Kudanadu words like acchan, talla etc? Will not the argument become

stronger then? Besides, why should it be said that the Keraja language

contains words from Cola, language, Karnnata language and Andhra

language? Why should we refuse to acknowledge that Karnnata and other

languages contain Cola language words? It should also be said that Keraja

language words figure in the prabandhas of Coja language and the kavyas

of Karnnata language. There is Prakrit in Sanskrit - words like mani,

rama, viraha and moha. It should also be said that there is Sanskrit in

169
 Prakrit. Why did you not say that there is Cola language in Sanskrit kavyas

like the Raghuvamsal Don’t you find Co]a language words like kalpana,

kama, kanaka, kamala, kala, vanita and so on in it? Prakrit kavyas also

contain Coja language: aravinda, makaranda, taranga, kanka etc. If we

proceed in this fashion, we will end up declaring that there are no proper

vernaculars (desabhdsas), and no proper language prabandha and no

region itself. Sanskrit becomes Apabhramsa, Apabhramsa becomes

Sanskrit. That’s fantastic!

The objections and refutations proceed, focusing on the specific example of

the word kiindal (hair) - the famous kiindal debate (kundal-vadam) - and

after many fantastic and dramatic turns, we are told that all similarities are

apparent and accidental, not the outcome of common origins or borrowings.

[Objection]: Why should it not be conceded that words like kiindal are

common to CSlas and Keralas?

[Refutation]: What do you gain out of it, my friend? If it is to prove that

there is Cola language in Manipravalam, then it is impossible. It is only

possible to determine one of them, based on the specific circumstances.

So it is better to identify words like kiindal as different words, similar to

each other [in appearance]; not that they are words common [to both

languages].

The author makes it clear that this formulation need not be true in

the case of words borrowed from Sanskrit in an original or corrupted form,

170
for “language has a beginning, [and] Sanskrit is the beginning.”60 But in his

discussion of forms of words, he identifies a category called bhasantara

bhavam - transformation from one language to another - wherein the source

language can be a vernacular and not essentially Sanskrit. Here, the

similarity of words between two languages is not explained as apparent and

accidental, but seen as the result of borrowing and corruption, annulling the

very position expounded so passionately in the kiindal debate at the

beginning of the text. Kerala words like vannan, namukku and venda are

identified as corruptions of Kannada words like bandanu, namugu and

beda.61

The author’s deliberate attempts to characterize the Kerala works as

unique are evident from the kundal debate. There is great anxiety in this

discussion, a fear that a cherished “genre” may have several alternate

affiliations cutting across regions, languages and themes. Manipravajam was

a language-form used for the first time in the ninth century Deccan by two

Jaina monks, Acarya VTrasena and his disciple Jinasena II. The latter - and

perhaps the former too - was patronized by the Rastrakuta king

Amoghavarsa I. The Acaryas composed two extensive commentaries on the

Satkhandagama and called it Dhavala and Jayadhavala, which perhaps

60 “bhamyah saditvat, adiscasydh saimkrtamityasceyam” (7.135 com).

61 LTlatilakam 2.14 com.

171
inspired their patron to assume the title Atisayadhavala. In their works, the

masters deployed a mix of Sanskrit and Prakrit and called the genre

Manipravalam. Two centuries later, Abhinavagupta held that the mixed use

of Sanskrit and the vernacular was known as Manipravalani in the south and

sathakulam in Kashmir. He was commenting upon the expression ardhasam-

skrtameva in the Natyasastra,62 and observed that in the western parts of the

subcontinents, Vararuci and others consider Prakrit itself as ardhasamsk-

rta.63 Manipravalam was also discussed in the twelfth century Tamil treatise,

ViracolTyam, and referred to in the Agananuru, the latter pointing not to the

antiquity of the genre, but a more recent date of the text’s compilation and

the possible interpolations that might have occurred in the process. The

author of LTlatilakam does not refer to these instances anywhere, but his

repeated allusions to and citations from Sanskrit and Tamil treatises on

poetics suggests that he was familiar with the prevalence of the genre

elsewhere, adding to his apprehensions. It therefore became imperative to

declare that only Kerala can produce Manipravalam, other regions cannot.

62 Natyasastra 32.384.

63 “anyat trivarga prasiddham, padamadhye sainskrtam madhye desa bhasadiyuktam

tadeva karyain. daksinapathe manipravalamiti prasiddham, kasmire sathakulamiti, anye tu

sakalalokaprasiddhair vyakhyandnapeksibhih sainskrtaih krtamardhasainskrtamahuh,

apare vararucyadipramta prakrtalaksananvitam saurasenyadi desabhasadhyatiriktam

prakrtamevardhasamskrtamiti manyante.” Abhinavabharati 32.384.

172
This is verily the point which the theorist tried to firmly underline in so

many words.

[Objection]: Manipravajam has been produced by the union of the Cola

language and Sanskrit. Similarly, Manipravajam is also produced by the

Karnnata language-Sanskrit union and the union of Andhra language etc

with Sanskrit. Since Sanskrit unites with all languages, Manipravajam is

obtained in all those countries. How, then, can it be said that there is no

Cola language in Manipravajam?

[Refutation]: True. Sanskrit enters languages like the Coja language.

Therefore, in all those countries, the respective languages unite with

Sanskrit and produce slokas, kavyas and prabandhas. But they are

referred to as pattupattu, padatn etc, nowhere as Manipravajam. The

name Manipravajam is reserved only for the union of the Keraja

language and Sanskrit. Just as the word padam does not figure in Coja

language poetry, and just as names like venpavu and kalittura are absent

in the Karnnata language, the word Manipravajam does not appear in the

Coja or Karnnata language [either].64

More than being a measured appraisal of language by the then-

prevailing standards of scholarship, this discussion is a veneer spread over

the theorist’s weakness for the territory and its charms. All that he wanted to

64 Lilatilakam 1.1 com.

173
highlight in this extensive detour was that only Kerala was capable of

producing Manipravalarn.

The pauranic tradition attributes the creation of India’s western

coast to Parasurama, who is said to have reclaimed it from the sea by hurling

a weapon, identified variously as arrow, axe, spoon and winnowing-sieve.65

The legend occurs for the first time in the Mahabharata, where Surparaka

(Sopara) in Gujarat is said to have been created by Parasurama winnowing-

sieve (surpaj.66 As early as the fifth century, Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa

deployed the legend in the context of Aparanta on the west coast.67 The first

reference to the legend while speaking of Kerala seems to be the one found

in the Tiruvalangadu copperplates of Rajendra I (r. 1012-44).68 We do not

know if the story of land reclamation has anything to do with Ceriguttuvan,

who is said to have driven the sea back (kadal-pii'agdttiya). The popularity

of Parasurama in Kerala - and the adjoining Tulu country - on a scale not

found in other parts of the west coast may be due to the Keralolpatti and

65 The present writer knows of no text which speaks of the arrow {band). But oral legends

in Goa attribute the creation of Banalium (Banal!) to an arrow shot by Parasurama.

66 See Choudhary 2010 for Parasurama legends in the subcontinent.

67 “ramastrotsarito 'pyasit/sahyalagna ivarnnavah." Raghuvamsa 4.54.

68 South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. Ill, Pt. 3, p. 382-439.

174
Gramapaddhati traditions in which it figures decisively.69 Be that as it may,

the legend appears in more than one literary work produced in the region.

According to the Tirunilalmala, Parasurama made a request to Varuna and

transformed the sea into earth by hurling a lovely winnowing-sieve.70

Nllakanthan’s Tenkailandthodayam repeats this story more elaborately.71 It

introduces Parasurama as an incarnation of Visnu, and attributes to him the

killing of KarttavTryaijuna and all the ksatriyas in the world. (The reason for

this fury is not mentioned.) Parasurama proceeds to atone for this sin by

creating a new piece of earth for the brahmanas.72 He hurls a winnowing-

sieve (surppatn) into the sea.73 The waters withdraw, and land appears

miraculously in just half a moment’s time.74

It was possible to affiliate Kerala with the exploits of Parasurama

even without invoking the legend. We are told in the Candrotsavam that it

was the decree of the great Parasurama which bestowed rains on Kerala; and

69 For the Keralolpatti, see Veluthat 2009: 129-46.

70 “paracuramen / varunenddiratmukondu manimuramedutterindu / paraveyattarani-

yakkippaduttanen." Tirunilalmala 1.7.57-58.

71 Tenkailanathodayain Prose 3-4.

72 Ibid., Verse 23-24.

73 Ibid., Verse 29.

74 Ibid., Verse 30.

175
so the rains descend down from time to time to feed the earth, like a mother

breast-feeding her child.75 Another work in which Kerala is identified with

Parasurama (Jamadagni) without recalling the legend is the Sanskrit

Sukasandesa. Kerala is described here as the land where pepper and betel

vines grow on coconut and areca nut palms.76

It is conspicuous that the legend appears only in the texts which are

concerned specifically with Kerala. Tirunilalmala is about the rituals in the

Aranmula temple, and Tenkailanathodayam an account of the

Vadakkunnathan temple in Trssur. Candrotsavam is the story of MedinT

Vennilavu, who was a major player in the hospitality industry of central

Kerala. And Sukasandesa is a messenger-poem addressed to a woman in

Gunaka. Clearly then, the legend served the purpose of underwriting

territoriality by distinguishing Kerala from the rest of the subcontinent in

geographical - and therefore, fundamentally ontologically - terms. There

was no need, however, to recount the great event every time the story of

75 “sakala phalasamrddhyai keralanam pratapam / periya parasurdmasyajnaya yatra

nityam / kanivodu mala kalamparttupdrttarbhakandm / janani mulakoduppan enrapole

varunnu”, Candrotsavam 1.51.

76 “brahmaksatram janapadamatha sphltamadhyaksayethah / darpadarsam drdhataram-

rser jamadagnyasya bhavoh / yam medinyam ruciramaricottalatambulavallT / vellatkera-

kramukanikaran keraldnudgmantC, Sukasandesa 1.34.

176
Parasurama was told. The anonymous Ramarjuniyam Campu narrates the

story of the great manslaughter carried out by Parasurama to wipe out the

ksatriyas from the world in revenge for Karttavlryarjuna’s minister

Candragupta’s “anti-brahmana”77 act of killing his (Parasurama’s) father

Jamadagni. But the story of reclaiming land from the sea does not occur in

this work.

Territoriality inspired a large number of works on towns and pilgrim

centres in Kerala. The Tirunilalmala and the Tenkailanathodayam are only

two such works. Nllakanthan’s Cellumathodayam and Ndrdyaniyam Campu

on the Rajarajesvaran temple of Peruncellur and the PurnnatrayTsan temple

of Trppunittura respectively, Melpattur’s Gdsrmagaravarnanam on the city

of Kocci, and the anonymous Vilvadrimdhatmyam Kilippattu on the temple-

town of Tiruvilvamala are other prominent works. Mention must also be

made of the Anantapuravarnnanam and the Anantapuramahatmyam Kummi,

both describing the city of Tiruvanantapuram. Tiruvanantapuram was not the

only city to inspire more than one work. The Aranmula temple has at least

one eulogy other than the Tirunilalmala - Nedumbayil Koccukrsnanasan’s

Aranmulavilasam Hamsappdttu. According to this work, the Pandava

brothers Yudhisthira, BhTma, Aijuna, Nakula and Sahadeva established

77 “abrahmanyamRamarjuniyam Campu Verse 29.

177
Visnu temples in Kerala at Trccirrar, Puliyur, Nilakkal, Tiruvanvandur and

Trkkodittanam respectively. The Nilakkal temple was subsequently shifted

to Aranmuja by the earth goddess.79 The river Parnba, which flows alongside

the temple, is said to be holier than the Ganga and the Kalindi.80 Another

temple which attracted the muse more than ones was the Peruncellur

Rajarajesvaran temple. It is the subject of two short works other than

Nllakanthan’s Cellurnathodayam. One is a Manipravajam work called

Cellunsavilasam. The other is the Cellumathastavam, a kesadipadam (hair-

to-toe description) litany. Besides, Ramavarma wrote the Candrikakala-

pidam, a five-act play in Sanskrit, meant to be performed exclusively in the

Peruncellur temple during the caitraydtrotsava festival.81

The configuration of territory followed several patterns, though they

were ultimately informed by what Jameson has in the context of Balzac

called “the awakening of a longing for possession, of the mild and warming

78 Aranmulavilasam Hamsappattu 1.9.251-60.

19 Ibid., 1.10.371-74.

80 “gangayum pambayodu neralla kalindiyum.” Ibid., 1.6.143-44.

81 “cellurapuravasino nigamavana ntlakanthasya caitraydtrotsava samagamaih,” Candrik-

akaldpidam Prologue.

178
fantasy of landed property.”82 In the Candrdtsavam, the poet brings us to

Kerala and Trssur through a process of descending downwards from Mount

Meru. On either side of the Meru are eight great continents. But Bharata, the

ninth continent to the south is the greatest of them all. Within Bharata is the

country ruled by the Ceras, a piece of land which resembles the sacred mark

on the forehead. And in Kerala is Trssur, worshipped by the immortal sages

O-J

and kings. This model of locating the territory is reminiscent of the

eighteen-fold description (astadasa-vamana) of the kavya-nataka aesthetics,

and occurs even in the Tirunilalmala. Here, Meru is the axis of the world. To

its south are nine continents, overlooked by the Himalayas. South of the

Himalayas is Bharatakhanda, which is divided into eighteen kingdoms, viz.,

Malava, Kalinga, CIna, Maruta, Tilihga, Mina, Kekaya, Kanci, Pancala, Sin-

dhu, Kannada, Pulinda, Kosala, Cola, Pandya, Pati, and the crown of these

seventeen - Kerala.84 The Umiyadwaritcun also begins its territorial journey

from Meru and reaches Bharata, where it rests for a while to describe its

affluence. Bharata is, Damodara tells us, a land of the rose-apple fruit, of

rivers, of rich resources, temples, sacred rivers, brahmanas, kings, gardens,

82 Jameson 1981: 157. The same cannot be said of the Padirruppattu and the other

Ettutogai works, where the fascination is for land per se, and not for land as private

property.

83 Candrdtsavam 1.45-47.

84 Tirunilalmala 1.6.48-55.

179
crops, sacrifices and its fragrances, lotuses and bees, mango trees and

cuckoos, women, money, grains, exponents in sciences, legends, music and

arts, and poetry.85 It then takes us to Kerala (Malanadu), which is said to be

the best of all lands.86 And in Kerala, ruled by the king of Mahodayapuram,87

is the country of Odanadu,88 where Unniyadi lives. It may be recalled here

that Unniyadi was later married to the king of Mahodayapuram. Damodara

deploys the marketplace of Kandiyur, the headquarters of Odanadu, as the

most important vector to register the greatness and prosperity of the

chiefdom. He produced a rather laboured list of over two-hundred items sold

in the market, which includes food-grains, pulses, fruits and vegetables,

household articles, medicines, timber, flowers, incense, glass, bottle, conch,

utensils, diary products and a wide range of other articles.89 The

UimunUTsandesam gives a less exhaustive inventory of commodities found

in the marketplace.90 These rich - if tendentious - descriptions of

commodities are well at home with the logic of land-centered mode of

85 Unniyadlcaritam Prose 11.

86 Ibid., Verse 36.

87 “kerala visayam palippdnay / mahita mahodaya nilaye maruvum / nrpasvnha," ibid.,

Prose 15.

88 Ibid., Prose 15.

89 Ibid., Prose 19.

90 Umunlllsandesam 1.80-83.

180
production, where commodities come to underwrite the aesthetics of

territoriality. Odanadu is Odanadu because of, inter alia, the riot of commo­

dities in the Kandiyur market. Kollam in the UwmnTITsandcsam is Kollam,

for the same reason. Capitalism inverts this relationship. It places territory at

the mercy of commodities. The capitalist logic expects the territory to

underwrite commodities, which is what we see in expressions like “Made in

India”, “Made in China” and “Printed in the United States of America.”

The description of commodities in the marketplace is a strategy

adopted by many texts. The Anantapuravarnnanam is one of them. Although

an avowedly devotional poem, nearly a third of it (62 out of 188 stanzas)91 is

reserved for describing the marketplace with a quarter (48 stanzas) set aside

to enumerate the goods sold there. Territory was territory. Devotionalism,

asceticism and renunciation were not reasons enough to disavow it or be

disinterested in it. This perhaps explains the prejudice for Bharatakhanda we

see in Pundanam’s Jndnappana. Everything in Pundanam’s world is open to

91 Anantapuravarnnanam 43-105.

92 Ibid., 43-90. The goods sold in the market include book (pottagam, 44) which in fact

casts doubt about the antiquity of the text. Besides, there is a suspicious expression,

“carccikkappettu pdmavar,” (“they get discussed”, 132) which is grammatically possible

in premodem Kerala, but semantically tenuous. It is not unlikely that the Anantapura­

varnnanam is a recent fabrication.

181
critique, except the self, the teacher, and Bharatakhanda. The Bharatakhanda

is presented as the greatest among the nine continents of JambudvTpa. There

is no release from karma for anyone who is not bom here. Paradoxically

though, Bharatakhanda is also invested with the sole monopoly of producing

karma?* Pundanam, however, is in no mind to resolve this paradox. He is

only interested in worshipping all human beings bom in the subcontinent,95

no matter how sharply he criticizes them elsewhere in the text.

The works of Eluttaccan and Kunjan Nambyar present two

contrasting dimensions of territoriality. The territory is more-or-less absent

in Eluttaccan’s works. It occurs only as the geographical matrix of the

narrative. Never once do we come across exalted or colourful descriptions of

Ayodhya or Lanka or the vast stretch of land lying between the two in the

Adhyatma Ramayana. The picture is no different in the Mahabharatam

either. And when the territory does appear, it is more in the form of a passing

remark, like the one in these lines from the Bhdgavatam Kilippattu, where

the celestial vidyadham travel merrily across “divya bharata-khandham,”

overwhelmed by it.

93 Jnanappana 9.131-48.

94 Ibid., 9.141-42.

95 Ibid., 10.167-68.

182
 pandoru dinam divyabharatakhandhatteyum

kandukanddnandiccu kaliccukaliccennwn

sahcariccTdwn vidyadharigaf96

We have to move beyond the text to see how territory functioned in

the process of transmission, circulation and reproduction rather than how it

figured in the text itself. The tullal songs of Kunjan Nambyar are, on the

contrary, explicitly attached to the territory. They are satirically crafted to

invoke the quotidian life-world of Kerala and thereby domesticate the

itihdsa-purana narratives to the local landscape. Nambyar accomplished this

by peppering his texts with the etiquette and errands of the Nayars. In the

Nalacaritam Tullal, for instance, the swan is carrying the message of Naja’s

love to Damayanti. During the journey, it comes across country-sides and

houses and nests and fortresses and carts and the hollows in the trees and the

shade of the trees. And then, the description suddenly turns to the all-too-

familiar Nayar world of eighteenth century Kerala, and the swan sees houses

and the noise of the dim-witted Nayars residing in these houses and their

quarrel with the women-folk and the breaking of pots and...

nadukal kandu vldukal kandu

ktidukaf kandu kodukal kandu

96 Bhagavatam Kilippattu 8.3.1-3.

183
 cadukal kandu podukal kandu

codukal kandu vldukal kandu

vldukalil cila nayanmarude

mudhatakondoru ghosain kandu

accikalddu kalainbiccila kal-

meccililittu takarkkina kandu

Nambyar brings in the rustic Nayar life in a number of tullal songs in almost

a formulaic fashion.

We must now take up an interesting motif in the Kerala texts for

discussion: the motif of journey. Journey appears as a prominent device for

presenting the territory in several works. The Kaduvanurviran Tdrram gives

a description of the route from Mannad near TaHpparamba to Kaduvanur in

Coorg, It mentions a number of temples like the Karihgurri Bhagavati,

Makkiyil Sasta and the Malayil Sasta temples, rivers and streams like the

Odappallam, Kollippula and Kaliyar, and toll-collection points like Kandiyil,

Keyapparambil and the one controlled by KTlur Vairajatan.97 This is the

route through which Mandappan, the hero of the tdrram, travelled to

Kaduvanur in Coorg and tried to establish himself in the oil trade of the

Virajpet market. It must be noted that the popularity and circulation of the

97 Kaduvanurviran tdrram Lines 128-170.

184
Kaduvanumran Torram was restricted only to those areas of northern

Malabar, which fell within the vicinity or hinterland of this route. This need

not always be the case. Nor is the geography real in all instances. The

Taccoji corpus of the ‘northern ballads’ generally presents us with real

geographical locations, but a fertile imagination functions in the Putturam

corpus as far as the configuration of territory is concerned, with the result

that we introduced to Nedanamadu, Karuttenamadu, Nadallanadu, Pratiya-

dirinadu and such other places which do not exist.98

The preference for the journey motif has almost been stereotypical.

Description of the sights seen in the course of a journey is in fact a narrative

strategy which goes back to the arruppadai songs of the Pattuppattu. We

cannot however say that works produced after the twelfth century were

influenced by or developed from the arruppadais. Journey in these works

was informed by its own entrenched histories of being located in a milieu

characterized by perpetual movements, migrations and mobility.

It is in the accicaritams and the messenger-poems that we see the

greatest tryst with the journey motif. The Unniyaccicaritatn begins with a

vivid description of Tirumarudur, which is said to be located in a marvellous

98 See Raghavavarier 1982: 62-4 for a discussion.

185
country. The city resembles Alakavati, where Siva’s abode of Kailasa is

found. It is protected, like Lanka, by Atula," and is known, like Bhogavati,

for its serpents (or, by a pun, courtesans). Tirumarudur is renowned, like

Amaravati, for its protected gardens. It beats Kollam and Kodunnallur in its

affluence, turns the virtuous Gunavay (Trkkanamadilagam) lifeless, beats

Vajluvanagaram and the brilliance of PudavTdu, makes the glory of Manga-

lapura (Mangalore) dull and draws the sap out of Dorasamudram.

tasmin vismayantye dese

kasminnapi ca virajati melme-

lalakeva svayamambili cudin-

rappahkdyilkkunru vibhusa

lankevatula raksodard

[bhogajvativa bhujanganisevya

guptamandhara nandanamdnya

kevalamamaravatiyeppole

kollavibhutim kollum vi[bhava]

nuru madamiu kodunhollurilu-

mere vilahhina pahhupayata

kunavay kunamapi kunapandadhatT

valluvanagarappalli jayanti

99 Atula was a scion of the Musaka family of chiefs of Kolattunadu. “atulah prthuloraskko

daksasunur-ajdyata," Musakavamsam 11.44.

186
 pudavldinpukal vilttina sobha

mandikrta mahgalapura mahima

dorasamudram nTrasamudram

The journey begins at Tirumarudur where Unniyacci is participating

in the astami vela festival at the Cadaittambiran temple. A young gandharva,

enamoured by her beauty, follows her to her residence. The route of the

journey is briefly described. The description is not extensive or exhaustive. It

is restricted to a caricature of a crowded marketplace, and a reference to an

Ayyappa temple.100 Cirikuman takes greater interest in describing

Unniyacci’s mansion and her charms. The messenger-poems on the other

hand capture almost everything which warrants attraction on the route.

Temples, markets, paddy-fields, gardens, ports, palaces, chiefs, trade and

piety figure prominently in them. These descriptions draw from a larger

semiotic pool - Raghavavariar’s “metanarrative” - and follow common

aesthetic preferences than realistic territorial descriptions. While the temples,

palaces, markets, commodities and traders are indeed real and not conjured

up by the poet’s imagination, their representations varied only to the extent

that the varieties available in the semiotic pool permitted, resulting in a great

measure of similarities in the descriptions.

100 Unniyaccicaritam Prose 12-15.

187
 The messenger-poems betray a distinct territorial logic. The

Manipravalam works are fully set in Kerala. Umuniltsandesam describes the

route from Tiruvanantapuram to Kadutturutti, while the Kokasandesam

beings in Trprahnod and ends in Kollam.101 On the other hand, the Sanskrit

messenger-poems are often set partly or fully outside Kerala. In

Pumnasarasvati’s Hamsasandesa, the journey begins at Kanci and ends in

Vrndavana. The cuckoo in Uddanda’s Kokilasandesa also starts off at Kanci

and reached Cennamangalam. LaksmTdasa sends his parrot from the city of

Ramesvaram in Tamilnadu to Gunaka (Trkkanamadilagam) near Koduhallur

in Kerala. The journey in Narayana’s Subhagasandesa can in fact be called a

detour de force. It commences in Kanyakumari. The destination is Trssur.

But the messenger does not take the short route along the west coast. Instead,

the journey is directed eastwards. It passes through Cidambaram,

Kumbhakonam, Srirangam and Jaipbukesvaram, after which it comes to the

Kongu country and enters Kerala! Unlike the Manipravalam works, the

journey in the Sanskrit messenger-poems were always longer and passed

through territories outside Kerala, which, needless to say, points to the wider

territorial circulation they enjoyed.

101 The extant texts, which is incomplete, breaks off a little after Kodunnallur.

188
 It will be interesting to trace the journey in one of the messenger-

poems to have a closer understanding of the concerns which fed into the

configuration of territoriality. The UnmmflTsandcsam can be taken as a

paradigmatic case on account of the descriptive richness it offers. Let us

follow the trail of the messenger, prince Adityavarma of Trppappur.

The journey begins at the Padmanabha temple in Tiruvanantapuram.

The prince is directed to pray before Padmanabha and then Narasimha,

Vyasa, Visvaksena, Rama, Laksmana, Hanuman and Krsna, then quickly

pass through the gopuram, pray to Aryan, then Kannan and Ksetrapalan, and

come out through the western gopuram, which resembles mount Meru

(icempon kunru). There the prince will find a crow-pheasant, calling out to

his beloved and flying towards her. Then he will find a black bird (vayan)

singing. There, he will be welcomed by Unniyacci, an acci. The prince

should then remove his golden footwear, board his palanquin, and along with

his soldiers, pass through the highway where the punna flower makes the

breeze fragrant. He should then reach the temple of Palkkulannara and pray

to Durga, who bathes in the pond of milk and who is the sister of Krsna. The

prince should then move ahead, till he reaches the sea. The sea resembles the

prince in its virtues, but unlike the prince, is not of much use to the people.

The prince should then pray to Kali’s father (Siva) at Viyamper (perhaps

189
Trppappur) and ask him how Parvati fell for him, though he looks so ugly,

clad in elephant-hide. The prayer should go on till the noon puja, while the

horses [of the accompanying soldiers] sleep. After prasddam, the prince

should leave for Mudalappoii, pass through the highway lying along a blue

stretch of pandanus (kaida). Further ahead, he will reach the market of

Puttidam, where one hears the conversation of the folks speaking different

languages. The prince will then go to Valkkala (Varkala), pray at the temple

of Valkkalattambiran (Janardhana), move on, pray at the temple of Durga on

the way, cross the river and reach Kollam. The city of Kollam has no

comparison in the fourteen worlds, and puts even the abode of Indra to

shame. There, the prince will be welcomed by Vellur Nani. He should then

pray to the Ganesa of Murittittu, go to Panahnavanam, pray to the Kali called

Bhairavi, and then to the lord of Adiccapuram. There he will meet with the

brahmanas (bhattaranar), who will approach him for gifts. The prince

should then meet the “emperor” (cakravartti) Iravivarman and inform him of

the lover’s news through Mambilli. Learning of his arrival, shippers will

approach him with numerous gifts. The prince is advised to leave

immediately and reach Muccandi by evening and watch the trade at the

market. The lover gives a picture of the goods sold in the market, and

snippets of the conversations which take place there. The prince may find it

boring after a while, whereupon he should leave for Karippukkalam, where

he will rest for the day. He is then directed to leave even before daybreak,

190
and after the morning ablutions and prayers, make the daily gifts to the

brahmanas, listen to the Mahabharata recitation and hurry on. He should

leave Pudiyapoii and Pukkaida behind, worship the lord of Panmana

[Subrahmanyan] and cross Kanrerri [Kannetti]. The province of Venad ends

here, and Odanad begins. The prince is advised to avoid any confrontation

with the people of Kayankulam. He should pray at the two temples of Banari

(Visnu) and reach the marketplace. He will meet fisherwomen as he crosses

the highway. He should reach Kandiyur and go to Marram and Tattaram-

balam. The prince is asked to visit the market at Tattarambalam, though it

may delay his journey. He should then cross the bridge and arrive at the

Kandiyur country, where he should pray to Kandiyur Tambiran

(Mahadevan). The lover then tells that he will be greatly worried if Ceiukara

Kuttatti, the acci, calls on him and delays the journey. Cerukara Unniyadi

may also meet the prince. On the way, he will also meet another acci,

Ilayacci of Mutturru. The prince should then meet Iravivarman, the king of

Odanad. He will then be treated by Kuruhnattu Unnunili. The prince is

requested not to spend too much time with the king, but leave quickly

informing him of his errand. He should then meet Kuruhnattu Unniccakki

and Kuruhnattu Cirudevi and spend the night there. Next morning, the prince

should cross Marram and the river and return to Kandiyur, from where he

should go to Cennittala, move on and pray at the Siva temple at the place

191
whose name should not be uttered (perhaps Iramattur), cross the grove with

the fragrance of the kuvil flower and the green canopy, reach Trkkuratti, pray

to the god there and reach Panayanarkkavu. He should pray to the goddess

(at Kadapra?), watch the crocodiles in the river, cross the bridge and move

on to meet the warrior of Ciiava. The lover advises the prince not to go to

Niranam, for he will surely loose himself in the beautiful women in the

pandanus bushes there. He asks him to go to Alandurutti instead, which is

home to the warrior of Cirava. Here, the prince should perform the ritual

called palavar. He should visit the chiefs (madambi) place on his way back.

From there, he should go to Kaidakkad, then Vallavai (Tiruvalla), visit the

temple [of Srlvallabha], pray to the deity there, and leave immediately

without being delayed by the hospitality of brahmanas from the Ilaman and

Mecceri families. He should pray to Vinatanandana (Garuda) at the temple,

and travel on till he reaches Kariyanattukavu. The marketplace there beats

Kolikkod and Kollam in its glory. But it is a temporary place [of fair]

though, and will soon be deserted. The prince is then directed to go to

Muttujru, cross the bund and the river and quickly reach Nalukodi, from

where he should come to Trkkodittanam, pray at the feet of Karvarnnan

(Krsna) and reach the province of Tekkuhkur. The road ahead is forested on

both sides. The prince should then reach Manikanthapuram, the capital of

Tekkuhkur. As he stands praying to Murari (Visnu) in the north-east

192
direction, he will hear the noise of the passersby. The prince should meet the

king Ramavarman if he is in town, move on and reach Tiruvanjappuja. He is

then advised to cross the river by foot. On the banks of the river are many

brahmana households. The prince is advised not to go to meet the acci of

Kandankulam, as it involves a detour and may cause delay. By the afternoon,

when the shadow is five feet long, the prince will reach Errumanur, where he

should pray to Maravairi (Siva), have his food and prayers quickly, and rush

like an arrow. He will then reach Kodanallur where there are girls with such

long eyes that deer flock to them mistaking them to be one of their species.

The prince should then pass through the new road built by the king of

Vadakkurikur and reach Kadutturutti. At Kadutturutti, the prince will be

attracted by the Mali bund. As he reaches Kodapuram (Govindapuram), he

will be welcomed by a certain Srikanthan. He should then meet the king,

Manikanthan, and leave quickly telling him of his mission. The prince will

also meet Kodavarman, Iravi Manikanthan and Ramavarman. He should

then leave for Unnunlli’s mansion, VTramanikyam. On the way, he must

pray at the Taliyil temple. At VTramanikyam, the prince will meet UnnunTli

and inform her that her lover will soon be back. The journey ends there.

Through this elaborate description of the journey, the poet

resuscitates the territory into a visual spectacle, whose sensuous ambience

transforms land into an object of desire. The Utopian drive manifests not

193
through the endlessly deferred image of an unattainable abstraction - as the

case is with most modem literatures beginning with Baudelaire - but by

investing a voluptuous aura to what is very much on hand: the temple of

Tiruvanantapuram, the marketplace of Puttidam, the ships of Kollani, the

accis of Kandiyur, the warrior of Cirava, the girls of Kodanallur and so on.

Land - which during the period under discussion was the greatest

determinant of reification - infuses desire with immediacy, contiguity and a

sense of plenitude, which can then permeate across boundaries - separating

temples, markets, paddy-fields, palaces, groves and rivers from one another

- to orchestrate an alluring tapestry of colour, caprice and contentment. This

stands in striking contrast with the capitalist world, where reification is

primarily contingent on commodities. The corollary is that desire will not be

marked by immediacy, contiguity and plenitude any more, but is destined to

be ephemeral, fragmented and discontented. In Unnunlli’s world, the

seductive charm of the territory forms the backdrop against which the

libidinal warmth of the heroine makes its presence felt. The Utopia which

territory precipitates is also a prelude to the Utopia which Unnunlli

promises. Beauty begins at the tower of the Padmanabha temple in

Tiruvanantapuram and ends in Unnunlli’s body, an end which is in fact the

promise of a beginning and of perpetuity.

194
 The history of human settlements in and around the route taken by

Adityavarman has an interesting story to tell. The older of the settlements are

found between Kandiyur and Kadutturutti, which the prince will traverse on

the third day. This was a prominent agrarian belt during the Perumal days,

and inscriptions refer to several places in and around this area, like

Kandiyur,102 Tiruvarruvay,103 Kaviyur,104 Tiruvanmandur,105 Tiruvalla,106

Perunna,107 Valappalli,108 Trkkodittanam,109 Kumaranallur,110 Cennannur,

Cirrur, Muruhhaiyur and Ayirur,111 Ten of the thirty-two famed brahmana

settlements of the Keralolppatti tradition are from this part of Kerala:

Kidannur, Errumanur, Kumaranallur, Kadamuri, Kaviyur, Tiruvalla, Aran-

mula, Cennannur, Venmani and NIrman or NTrmanna.112 Of the 108 sacred

centres (tiruppatis) of the Vaisnavas mentioned in the Nalayira Divya-

m Puthusseri 2007, No. 154.

103 Ibid., No. 1 & 5,

104 Ibid., No. 153 a &b.

105 Ibid., No. 17, 81 & 82.

106 Ibid., No. 120.

107 Ibid., No. 32.

108 Ibid., No. 1,

109 Ibid., No. 29, 30, 31, 33, 34 & 47.

110 Ibid., No. 159.

1.1 Ibid., All four in No. 80.

1.2 Veluthat 1978.

195
prabandham, thirteen are in malainadu, among them, eleven in Kerala and

two in the Kanyakumari district of Tamilnadu. Six of the eleven Kerala

tinippcitis are found in the region which the prince will cover on the third

day: Trkkodittanam,113 Tiruvalla,114 Tiruvanmandur,115 Aranmula,116 Cehn-

annur117 and Puliyur.118 Understandably enough, the largest number of settle­

ments - nineteen in number - are found on this segment of the prince’s

journey: Cennittala, Iramattur(?>, Trkkuratti, Panayanarkkavu, Kadapra(?>,

Alandurutti, Kaidakkad, Niranam, Tiruvalla, Kariyanattukavu, Mutturru, Na-

lukodi, Trkkodittanam, Manikanthapuram, Tiruvanjappula, Kandamkulam,

Euumanur, Kodanallur and Kodapuram. To this, we may add Tattaram-

balam and Marram, the two suburbs of Kandiyur. As opposed to this, the

only settlement between Kayahkulam and Tiruvanantapuram known to us

from inscriptions before the eleventh century are Kollam and Punalur.119

Tiruvanantapuram was one of the thirteen malainattu tiruppatis mentioned

113 Nalayira Divyaprabandham, 3618-28.

114 Ibid., 3321-31.

115 Ibid., 3343-53.

1,6 Ibid., 3552-61.

117 Ibid., 3596-3605.

118 Ibid., 3651-60.

119 Pudussery 2007, No. 2 & 80 respectively.

196
 19ft _
in the Nalayira Divyaprabandham. No brahmana settlements are named in

the Kemlolppatti from this part of Kerala. These do not indicate the absence

of settlements, but only their infrequent occurrence. Settlements are found in

greater number to the south of Tiruvanantapuram before the eleventh century

- Kandalur Salai, Vijinnam, Parthivapurarn and Tirunandikkara - but it was

much later that the region between Tiruvanantapuram and Kayahku}arn came

to be consistently populated, which is found reflected in the prince’s

itinerary. Only six settlements are named between Tiruvanantapuram and

Kollam - Palkkulannara, Viyamper, Mudalappoli, Puttidam, Varkala and an

unnamed location with a Kali temple - and six between Kollam and Kayah-

kulam - Pudiyapoli, Pukkaida, Panmana, Kannerri, and two other places

where Visnu temples are said to be located.

The distance between Tiruvanantapuram and Kadutturutti by the

present-day motor road along the coastline is about two hundred

kilometers,121 but the route prescribed for the prince in the

UnnunTlisandesam is shorter by nearly thirty kilometers. Adityavarman,

travelling on his palanquin, covers about sixty kilometers each on the first

and the third day, and fifty kilometers or so on the second. Settlements occur

120 Nalayira Divyaprabandham, 3794-3804.

121 There is also a shorter motor road passing via Kottarakkara and Pandajam.

197
throughout the messenger’s trail. Nowhere do we see two settlements

separated by more than fifteen kilometers or so. But then, we do not come

across any cohesive conglomeration of houses either. Only in urban centres

like Kollarn, Kandiyur and Kadutturutti, and markets like Puttidarn and

Kariyanattukavu do we see a considerable human gathering.

It is well known that Kerala is characterised by dispersed settle­

ments, unlike the integrated nucleated clusters obtaining to the east of the

Western Ghats. Thus, a ‘village settlement’, as understood by modem

ethnography, is more of a normative category than a functional reality in

Kerala. There are at least four specific factors, all of them geographic, which

contributed to the evolution of dispersed settlements. One, no part of Kerala

is deprived of a perennially available source of drinking water, which means

that it is in principle possible to establish a settlement anywhere in the region

even under premodem conditions. Two, the numerous rivers draining the

region, as also the lagoons, function as excellent navigable waterways,

enabling easier transportation as well as transshipment of goods. This in turn

keeps the cohesiveness among class and kinship groups vibrant enough,

without necessarily being organized into nucleated hamlets or villages.

Three, extensive stretches of paddy-growing wetlands, like the ones found in

Bengal, Orissa, or the deltas of Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri, are absent in

Kerala. Wetlands are scattered throughout the region in small clusters in

198
such a way that no part of Kerala is located at a distance of more than twenty

kilometers from one such cluster. This is an outcome of laterisation, which is

contingent on humid tropical conditions. Up to 60% of Kerala’s surface area

- except in the uphills - is of residual laterite formation.122 Land holdings are

therefore too small to necessitate nucleated settlements. These wetlands are

rich enough to produce a surplus, though productivity is considerably low

due to saline soil conditions. Nevertheless, Kerala’s surplus can hardly

compete with that of Tamilnadu, Andhra or Bengal in the grain-export

market. This makes it profitable to import rice from the neighbouring states

and harness the fields for cultivating plantation crops like coconut, areca nut,

pepper, cardamom, plantain, sugarcane, betel leaves, nutmeg, ginger, and so

on. In other words, agriculture is subjected to a veritable choice regime.

Four, small land holdings do not entail the setting up of large-scale

irrigational installations. Canals, rivulets, wells and ponds are adequate

enough. The lake watershed, a prominent phenomenon in south India, is

more or less alien to Kerala; it is known only in the northern parts of

Vayanad district, but on a scale that is hardly comparable with the great lake

networks of Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra or Sri Lanka.

122 Gurukkal and Raghavavarier 1999: 36.

199
 It is this dispersed pattern of settlements which Adityavarman will

encounter on his journey. Kollarn, Kandiyur and Kadutturutti are the only

places which bear an urban demeanour. These were major political centres -

being the headquarters of Venad, Odanad and Vadakkunkur respectively -

and seem to have cherished some kind of a spatial distinction and a well

demarcated boundary. Besides, these centres had a few settlements within

their vicinity, operating as suburbs: Murittittu, Panannavanam, Adieca-

puram, Muccandi and Karippukkalam for Kollarn, Marram and Tattaram-

pbalam for Kandiyur, and Kodapuram for Kadutturutti. In the city, or in one

of its suburbs, was a major marketplace. This was a necessary presence in

the urban space and a significant marker of urbanity. But the presence of a

marketplace alone did not ensure the graduation of a settlement to cityhood.

Puttidam was not a city, though endowed with a marketplace. So also was

Kariyanattukavu, the site of a periodic fair. It was political presence which

determined whether or not a settlement was a city. The warrior of Cirava,

whom Adityavarman will meet on his journey, appears to be an exception.

He is not found commanding control over any city. Significantly enough, a

marketplace is conspicuously missing in Cirava. It is likely that his control

extended over the adjoining Niranam, where a market perhaps existed. The

emerging picture of the city is indeed transparent: urbanity in fourteenth

century Kerala was defined by the presence of a powerful line of chiefs who

drew their authority from the control which they exercised over a vibrant

200
marketplace frequented, among others, by ‘malayalTs’ and ‘paradesis’, the

latter including “Aryas, Kannadas, Malavas, Kunjaras, Vahgas, Tulihgas,

Kalihgas, Barbaras, Coliyas, Pandiyas, Ottiyas, Konkanas, Conakas, CTnas

and Tulikkaprabhus.”123 And interestingly enough, it is only in the city that

we come across accis, whose forte it was to run the urban hubs of

hospitality. We can thus hypothesize that an urban centre, as understood in

fourteenth century Kerala, was a conglomeration of settlements - one of

them being the centre and the others functioning as suburbs124 - with a lively

marketplace and an influential political household whose authority issued

from the control which it exercised over the marketplace. Such a

conceptualization was indeed new, not known during the Perumal period,

and seems to have prevailed at least till the mid fifteenth century. This

essential characteristic of the city - political presence, marketplace, and

inevitably enough, a greater concentration of population - did not invest it

with any significant functional attributes distinguishing it from the rural

world as far as the minutiae of everyday life was concerned. Writing about

123 The merchants reported from the Kandiyur market in UnniyadTcaritam prose 19. These,

respectively, were people from north India, Karnataka, Gujarat, Chattisgarh, Bengal,

Andhra, south Orissa, north Africa (Berbers), the Cola country (Kaveri delta), the Pandya

country (southern Tamilnadu), north Orissa (Odra), Konkan, the Arab countries (Yavanas),

China and Turkey.

124 Cirava can then be treated as a suburb of Niranam.

201
Pandalayini Kollam (Koyilandi) in north Malabar, Raghavavarier notes that

there was a farming element in the city, making it part of a ‘rural-urban

continuum’. The settlements found on the route from Tiruvanantapuram to

Kadutturutti betray this fluidity and continuum, so much so that on many

occasions, we find settlements having no names at all; they are merely

identified as the location of a Devi temple, a Siva temple or a Visnu temple.

The marketplace was thoroughly foisted into the nucleus of everyday life by

the fourteenth century, to such an extent that visiting the marketplace had

more or less become an everyday activity. This made a distinction between

rural and urban life-worlds functionally impossible, though normatively

acknowledged. Fourteenth century Kerala had its own clear parameters to

distinguish the city from the village. The city was a city and the village, a

village. It was not possible to swap their positions in any way. But this

distinction never produced alternate, different of mutually exclusive life-

worlds. There is no settlement in Adityavarman’s journey which lies at a

distance of over twenty kilometers from a marketplace. Evidently then, the

making of settlements and the making of marketplaces followed a symbiotic

pattern of distribution during this period. A similar settlement geography has

been noticed in Karnataka, where two markets (petes) - or a settlement and

its nearest market - are situated at a distance of not more than fifteen to

125 Raghavavarier 2003: 154-179.

202
thirty kilometers, facilitating regular visits to the marketplace by foot or by

cart. Thus, a settlement in fourteenth century south India, whether

dispersed or nucleated, cannot be understood independently of the

marketplace entwined into its life-world.

Life in these settlements was generally organized around the

agrarian calendar. This is underlined by the presence of as many as twenty

temples on the route between Tiruvanantapuram and Kadutturutti. In his

monograph on the Kerala temple, Raj an Gurukkal explores the arch-role

played by temples in the emergence of an entrenched agrarian system

between the ninth and the twelfth century. Temple-building was coeval

with and constitutive of the rise of an agrarian milieu. The Tiruvalla

copperplates throw precious light on the centrality of temples in agrarian

production, redistribution, regulation of ownership and tenancy rights over

land, and the reinforcement of economic and political relations they

precipitate. The presence of temples throughout the length of Adityavarma’s

route is the indicator of the extent of agrarian expansion and spread of

settlements in south Kerala after the eleventh century. Robust temple­

building continued in subsequent centuries as well, and in the early twentieth

126 Devadevan 2009a: 82-83.

127 Gurukkal 1992.

203
century, there were 2,200 of them in worship between Periyar and

Kanyakuman. 128

Not all agrarian settlements of fourteenth century Kerala were

engaged in paddy production. After the eleventh century, and for reasons

already taken note of, Kerala began to shift increasingly towards cash crop

cultivation, relying more on imports for its wet-rice requirements. By the

fourteenth century, the garden (parambu) surrounding the residential plot

ipurayidam) had evolved as a significant locus for cash crop production. We

may take note of Ibn Battuta’s oft-quoted words here, “everybody has here a

garden, and his house is placed in the middle of it, and there is a fence of

wood up to which the ground of each inhabitant comes.”129 This growing

fascination for cash crops involved two processes, practiced extensively in

the Malabar region even to this day. One is the acclimatization of wetland

crops, particularly fruits and vegetables, to garden conditions. Here, during

the first year, a crop is transferred from wetland soil to a field which is partly

wet and partly dry. In the second year, the seed from this semi-garden is

sown in a full-fledged garden, which will henceforth be its home. Planting it

for two consecutive years in the garden after the said interlude in the semi-

128 Kramrisch, Cousins and Poduval 1999: 3.

129 Lee 1829: 167

204
garden will transform it into a garden-seed which will not sprout if taken to

the wetlands again. A wetland crop thus becomes a garden crop. The other

process is the transformation of a piece of wetland into a garden. This begins

by the planting of plantain saplings - and also tapioca after the nineteenth

century - in the wetland and the drawing of channels to drain away the

excess water. Plantain in then replaced with coconut in the following year.

The alterations made in this erstwhile wetland to make it coconut-friendly -

like the digging of a base (tadam) around the sapling - will eventually

transform it into a garden in a few years.130

Reclamation of wetlands on a large scale led to the genesis of a

strong, but invisible garden economy, invisible because production and

marketing were largely informal in this dispensation,131 carried out as they

were by individual households without being entangled into the formalized

tenures of ownership (janmam) and tenancy (kanam).132 The gardens became

more vivid after the sixteenth century, when the Portuguese introduced crops

130 I thank the agriculturalists in Thamarasserry, Balusserry, Ulliyeri, Kunnamangalam,

Perambra, Koduvalli, Kuttyadi and Nadapuram in Kozhikode district; to them I owe this

information. Also see Malayil 2007: 25-26.

131 For an overview of the garden economy, see Raghavavarier and Gurukkal 1997: 23-33.

Also see, Kumar and Nair 2004: 135-152.

132 On kanatn and janmam, see Ganesh 1991.

205
like cashew nut, clove, tapioca and green-chilli. These localized regimes of

production were of course not self-contained units, but intertwined within

the larger networks of markets and monetized forms of exchanges in the

region.133 Nevertheless, they were strong enough to generate greater levels of

conflict over the control of local markets, which eventually precipitated

newer forms of authority and selfhoods.

There were different ways in which the selfhoods produced by the

political economy and territorialities found expression. Unlike what Bruner

believes, making stories was not the only way of doing it.134 In the sphere of

law, it took the form of discretion and powers to arbitrate. Political authority

often spoke the language of might. Initiatives like temple-building, public

works and religious patronage involved a considerable measure of entrepre­

neurship. And exemplary action depended on, among other things, restraint,

compassion and fortitude. As far as literary practices were concerned, the

selfhoods expressed themselves through the faculty to produce the sublime,

the faculty to orchestrate an enchantment-effect, or in other words, to engage

in the praxis of mimesis. This, however, was not a phenomenon native to

literatures alone. The worlds of dance, theatre and rituals were as much

informed by mimesis as were the realms of the muse.

133 Malayil 2007: 23.

134 Bruner 2003: 86.

206
 In what ways did literary Kerala court the charms of enchant­

ment? This question anticipates the next chapter.

207
 Chapter 5
Mimesis

Once ParvatT happened to catch sight of Gahga who was hidden in

Siva’s matted hair. She asked Siva,

“What is the object that I see hidden in your hair?”

“It is water which refuses to go away.”

“Aren’t you lying, Lord? I see a lovely face.”

“Face? No. It must be a lotus which has blossomed in the water.”

“Why, then, do I see curly hair on the lotus?”

“Not hair. What you see is a swarm of bees flying towards the lotus for

nectar.”

208
 “Why, then, are a couple of eyebrows seen?”

“They are not eyebrows. Can’t you see, they are the mild ripples in the

water.”

“What makes two lovely eyes appear there?”

“They are not eyes. They are fishes sporting in the water.”

“What have you to say about the two cool breasts which look like dark

pots?”

“They aren’t breasts, but a couple of geese sporting near the lotus.”

Kunjan Nambyar’s Nafacaritam Tulfal begins with this playful anec­

dote.1 By transposing a lake with its lotus, fishes and geese on to the figure

of Ganga, the poet breaks the distinction between simile (upama) and

metaphor (rupaka) to orchestrate an amazing enchantment-effect, in which

we see a subtle desire for possession, deception and sublimation. The

anecdote is open to several interpretive possibilities, but in the ultimate

analysis, it is the metaphor of a self which is prone to tacitly possess even as

1 Nafacaritam Tuflal 1-36.

209
it expressly disavows. In other words what we see here is a self which

exercises control by transforming the object of desire, Ganga, into an

aesthetic - and therefore ethicalized - object, which is what the lake - which

does not really exist - is. The ruse of displacement is accomplished by trans­

forming the material into the ethical. That is to say, the presence of Ganga in

Siva’s hair becomes a question of rights and wrongs. The poet invokes it to

point as much to the limits of normativity as to bring alive the pleasure of

deception. One thing must be noted here even at the risk of stating the

obvious, if not of being accused of an over-reading. Not only does /the 9

'9 -

anecdote/contain any visible trace of the milieu in which it was first

produced, we also know that never once in the subcontinent’s history has the

famous quarrel between Parvatl and Ganga been traced to the opposition

between the celestial bearings of the latter and the terrestrial origins of the

former. The basic incompatibility or clash of interests is concealed under an

ethical veneer. Moving beyond the anecdote, it can be said at a more general

level that the forms of control or defiance lose their transparency through

their moonwalk into the ethical domain. It is no more a question of the

conflicts arising from the hard realities of the political economy. It assumes

an ethical countenance and a measure of given-ness contingent on reifica­

tion, so that what appears to the naked eye is not the unfurling of production-

and property-relations based on inequality and injustice. Rather, we see them

in their metamorphosed form as relationships governed by equations of

210
rights and wrongs. In other words, control remains control and dissent,

dissent, but they come to be played out in the reified language of ethics.

How does this shift occur? It is our contention that the reified self

asserts its distinction by underlining its faculty to produce an enchantment-

effect. Monsieur Self courts Madame Beauty, and the result is that we have a

piece of poetry, or painting, sculpture, dance, music. It also takes the form of

patronage to the arts, the building of temples and architectural marvels, and

other modes of orchestrating beauty. And where none of these are possible

as is the case in most instances, enchantment takes the form of an osten­

tatious display of wealth, of conspicuous consumption, which in our times

centres on clubs, casinos and the dazzle of lights and colours.

Speaking of literary practices, this faculty to produce the sublime,

and the enchantment-effect it brings forth, are familiar to every student of

Indian poetics as pratibha and camatkara respectively. In this chapter, we

shall examine the modalities through which the aesthetic object, or more

appropriately, the enchantment-effect (camatkara), is produced. The next

chapter will show how the selfhoods - which claim distinction through their

faculty {pratibha) to produce the sublime - go on to articulate the rights and

wrongs through which production- and property-relations come to be

211
concealed, naturalized, reified or reconstituted through subversion or

conciliation.

The process through which the enchantment-effect is produced,

transmitted, received and nurtured is what we designate as mimesis. Thus,

mimesis is rooted in the forms and notions of selfhood produced by

entrenched and contingent histories. This understanding differs from the

classical Aristotlean view of mimesis as imitation, and the more recent

reworking of it by Ricoeur, which places it at the multiple interfaces of the

source, the act and the reception of imitation.2

The production of mimesis involves a lofty claim. A poet, we are

told, has privileged access to a greater, other-worldly order of things, in

relation to which the manifest world is only a trifle. The unmanifest is the

legitimate preserve of the poet. This is best expressed in the Kannada

proverb “ravi kanadda kavi kanda'’ (the poet (kavi) sees what the sun (ravi)

cannot). The sun, like most of us, can at best see its light being spread over

the world, but when a poet sees it, what appears is “the marginless taste of

orange sunlight on curtains and tapestries,” as Jibanananda Das put it in one

2 Ricoeur 1984: 46, 52-77.

212
of his poems.3 The rhetoric of sublimity is governed by this claim of having

access to an alternate vision of the world. In his Kavyakautuka, Bhattatauta

holds that a vision of the unmanifest is the special privilege of a sage and

that a poet, inasmuch as he or she is concerned with the unmanifest, has to

verily be a sage.4 Anandavardhana insists that a great poet is one who

radiates what is uncommon in this world.5 This is too big a task. Not

everyone can accomplish it. It is no wonder, then, that the world has hardly

produced half a dozen great poets. Kalidasa is one of them.6 According to

Bhamaha, only a handful of illustrious ones are endowed with the poetic

faculty. Even they are not capable of sustaining it over long periods of time.7

These are highly exoticized positions about creativity. More demanding are

the standards set by Vamana. Poetry for him is no poetry unless it carries the

3 Jibanananda Das, ‘Naked Solitary Hand,’ in K. Satchidanandan, ed. 2000. Signatures:

One Hundred Indian Poets. New Delhi, National Book Trust, p. 5.

4 “nanrsi kavirityuktain / rsisca kila darsanat / vicitra bhava dharmasya / tattva prakhya

ca darsanam." Bhattatauta’s work has not come down to us. This verse is quoted in

Hemacandra’s Kavyanusasana, p. 379 of the Nimayasagar edition.

5 “aloka samanyamabhivyanakti / pratisphurantain pratibhavisesam." Dhvanyaloka 1.6.

6 “samsare kalidasa prabhrtayah dvitrah pancasa va mahakavayah." Ibid., commentary on

1. 6 .

7 “kavyam tu jdyate jatu kasyacit pratibhavatah.” Kavyalankdra 1.5.

213
impress of refinement accomplished over several births.8 We are reminded

of the faint and obscure memories from previous births which afflict

Dusyanta in Kalidasa’s Abhijhaa Sakuntala. There is a fascination here for

the other-worldly and the unmanifest, which functions through the logic of

the inexplicable than can allegedly transcend the boundaries of space, time

and births. Obviously then, poetry was meant only for the chosen few. These

were the sahrdayas. Anandavardhana’s Dhvanyaloka, which seems to have

been originally known as Sahrdayaloka, begins by invoking the sahrdaya in

the very first two aphorism^ and the explanations (vrttis) there of.10 In his

commentary on Dhvanyaloka, Abhinavagupta defines sahrdaya as those

who have studied poetry extensively and have attained the power to become

one with the spect-acle seen in the mirror of the mind.11 The following

generations upheld the loftiness of poetry, but most of the future poets were

to reject the sahrdaya-politics of their predecessors. They were keen on

making poetry accessible to the less fortunate ones. Or should we say that

8 “janmantaragata samskaravisesah kascit yasmad vina kavyam na nispadyate”

Kavyalankarasutra, commentary on 1.3.16.

9 “taccetasa smarati niinamabodhapurvani / bhavasthirani jananantara sauhrddnr,

Abhijmna Sakuntala 5.2.

10 Dhvanyaloka 1.1-2.

11 “yesam kavyanusUanabhydsavasad visadibhute mandmukure varnaniyatanmayt-

bhavana yogyatd te svahrdayasatnvddabhajah sahrdayah.'1'

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under new historical circumstances, the less fortunate ones began to lay

claims to loftiness? We are reminded of Auerbach’s comparison between

Petronius’s high literature in Greece and Peter’s story for everyman in the

New Testament. Clraman’s Ramacaritam was meant for “the little people

of the world.”13 Ayyanappilla Alan’s Bharatam Pattu was written for the

ignorant ones.14 Poetry, nevertheless, was presented as sublime, no matter

whether it was meant for the ignorant or the sahrdaya. What this fascination

for the other-worldly indicates is that there is no room for reason in the

world of poetry. Poetry supposedly requires something more spotless and

sublime than intellect. This is precisely what Pampa has in mind when he

declares in his Kannada work Adipuranam (941-42) that poetry is not meant

for “the dry grammarian, the dry rhetorician and the fool.”15 The loftiness

that we see here is not without its corollary. It awakens us to the fact that the

praxis of aesthetics is enmeshed within complex regimes of control and

dissent, where access to the production of beauty is regulated in various

ways. Beauty, after all, is not innocent. It is as predatory as the great Wall

12 Auerbach 2003: 47.

13 “utiyilcceriyavarkkariyumaruraceyvan,” Ramacaritam 1.2.

14 “ajhasa,” Bharatam Pattu 1.1.2.

15 “suska vaiyyakaranahgam suska tarkikahgam bellakkarigahgam visayame kavyaV

Adipuranam 1.24.

215
Street. Rilke was perhaps right when he declared in the first of his ‘Duino

Elegies’ that “beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.”16

The story of Siva and Parvati was perhaps part of a common pool of

anecdotes in wide circulation. It is repeated in the Asdkavani-kangam

Attaprakaram.n Another famous anecdote establishes an infamous

relationship between the potter and Brahma, the creator. Brahma is said to

have created the world out of earth, water, fire, wind and space. It is believed

that the universe is made of these five elements, and that it is ultimately

reducible to them. These, precisely, are the materials used by the potter to

make his pots. The potter gathers earth, mixes it with water, creates a body

with space within it, dries it in wind, and bakes it on fire. This is how his

pots and other earthen containers are made. Thus, the potter and the creator

are as good or as bad as each other. This anecdote is found in the

Purusartthakkuttu.18 Kuftjan Nambyar invokes it in his Syamantakam with a

different purpose in mind. He contrasts the wonderful creations of Brahma

16 Rilke, Rainer Maria. 1989 [1982], The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. Edited

and Translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Vintage International, p. 151.

17 Asokavanikahgam Attaprakaram Day 2.

18 Purusartthakkuttu 1.

216
with the mud-containers made by the potter and goes on to use it as a simile

to distinguish the good poet (salkavi) from the bad one (duskavi).19

In his Adhyatma Ramdyanam, Ejuttaccan is concerned with this

other-worldly sublime. The form of Visnu, to which the poet has access,

belongs to the other world.20 It is something which others are not entitled to

see. Hence the plea that the great god must conceal his form before the gaze

of others falls on him.21 While Bhattatauta equates the poet with the sage,

Eluttaccan goes a step further. He declares that the god’s divine feet cannot

19 Syamantakam Tullal 190-206. It appears that the use of popular anecdotes was a

common practice among poets and performers in premodem South Asia. In his Telugu

work Amuktamalyada (4.210), Krsnadevaraya speaks of a brahmana who killed a crane for

a meal. The brahmana had no qualms about the fact that the bird had once saved his life.

The story itself is not told here. It was perhaps a well-known one. The full story occurs in a

seventeenth century Kannada text, Timma’s Yadavagirimahatmyam (13.43-53). According

to this story, NalTjangha, a crane, is moved by the plights and poverty of a brahmana and

sends him to the king of gandharvas. The king rewards the poor brahmana with wealth and

riches. On his way back, the brahmana feels hungry, kills the sleeping crane and cooks a

meal. This sinful act takes him to hell. But NalTjangha, who reaches heaven, is

magnanimous enough to have the brahmana rescued from hell.

20 “kevalam alaukikam vaisnavamaya rupam.” Adhyatma Ramdyanam 1.1.651.

21 “devesa maraykkenwn marrullavar kanum mumbe.” Ibid., 1.1.652.

217
be seen even by the great sages.22 The sages have no access to god.23 The

god’s demeanour is indeed a wonder. What can be said of it?24 It is this

unmanifest world towards which the poet’s cognoscent-ascetic self is

directed. The enchantment-effect or camatkara, which this unmanifest world

brings into being, is largely the result of this self, as far as the Adhyatma

Ramayanam is concerned.

Eluttaccan’s works display a remarkable swing movement of sorts.

In Adhyatma Ramayanam> Rama figures alternately in his human form and

in his form - or formlessness - as the supreme cause of the universe. The

narration of Rama’s acts in the human world is frequently interrupted to

describe or sing praise of his true, supra-human nature, which alone is

believed to be the ultimate cosmic truth.25 There are two ways in which the

poet brings forth this swing. In the first case, he smuggles in lengthy

22 “mdksakdmigalaya siddhayoglndranmarkkum / saksal kanmadinnarudattoru

padambujain," Ibid., 1.1.411-12.

23 “yogindranmaral polumalabhyamaya'' Ibid., 1.1.339.

24 “cintikkil parinamamilloratmanandam / endoru vaibhavam citram citram.” Ibid.,

1.1.797-98.

25 Our use of the word ‘truth’ must be distinguished from the ‘real’. The two are not

synonymous expressions, because the ‘true’ has its antithesis in the ‘false’, which is as real

as the former.

218
 Oft
instructions (upadesam) about the self, like ‘Taropadesam’ and the two

instances of ‘Laksmanopade-sanT27 where the slain Bali’s wife Tara and

Rama’s brother Laksmana respectively are made aware of the transitory and

illusive nature of the manifest world. The mundane world is one in which

Eluttaccan finds it apposite to worship the feet of brahmanas to purify

himself; for aren’t they the great causal beings?

karanbhutanmaram brahmanarude cara-

narunambujalTnapamsu sancayain mama

cetddarppanattinre malinyamellam tfrttu

sodhana ceytTduvdnavolam vandikkunmen211

But when it comes to realizing the supreme nature of Rama, which is also

the supreme nature of the self, who cares for a brahmana or a king or a

noble, who after all ends up as a heap of ash, or may even end up as shit

after being devoured by a beast.

brahmanohain narendrohamadhyohame-

nnamreditam kalarnnidwn dasantare

jantukkal bhaksiccu kasthiccu pogilam

ventu venniray camannu pdyTdilam29

26 Adhyatma Ramayanarn 1.4.731-840.

21 Ibid., 1.2.1062-1440 and 1.3.595-730.

28 Ibid., 1.1.45-48.

219
The other strategy is to intersperse the narrative with long or short eulogies

of Rama, where a glimpse of his true nature is offered. The

‘BharggavadarpasamananT is one such instance. Here, Rama is retum-ing to

Ayodhya along with STta, after marrying her. The couple is accompanied by

Vasistha, Dasaratha and the latter’s royal entourage. On the way, they meet

Parasurama. A brief conversation follows, in the course of which the

Bhargava realizes Rama’s true nature. The narrative breaks off there, and

Eluttaccan puts a lengthy eulogy of his protagonist in Parasurama’s mouth,30

before eventually resuming the story. This is the manner in which the text is

woven in the Mahabhara-tam and Bhagavatam kilippattus as well. The

emphasis is certainly not on narration but on refamiliarizing a well-known

story in tune with one of the neo-advaitic schools of asceticism which arose

in south India after the fifteenth century. The swing is accomplished through

the collective play of different forms of selfhood. Story-telling is largely the

work of the paternal-ascetic, prophetic and therapeutic selves while

description of the supreme emanate from the cognoscent-ascetic self.

Through this movement to-and-forth between the embodied and dis­

embodied countenances of Rama, Eluttaccan constantly reiterates the

presence of the ultimate determinant of the cosmos in our midst and even

29 Ibid., 1.2.1123-26.

30 Ibid., 1.1.1565-1652.

220
within us. The great paternal-familial dramas of life are thus ontologically

suffused with and ethically shielded by the benevolent shadow of the

supreme. Thus is accomplished what Victor Nell has elsewhere called “the

domestication of immortality.”31 Human life, with all its delights and

denoue-ments, is transformed into an unfurling of grace, a realization of the

otherwise invisible divinity which it embodies. In Eiuttaccan’s world, it is

the unavoidable destiny of every life to live such an enchanted life.

The enchantment in Eluttaccan emanated from bliss, or from an

invisible source. But many a poet in premodem Kerala preferred

enchantments which sprang from pleasure, or from a visible source, which

oftentimes were informed by the erotic and romantic selves. Physical beauty

- which included not just the beauty of the human body, but also of land,

nature, seasons, temples, palaces and gardens - and lovemaking were the

two ways in which pleasure-induced enchantments were brought to life.

Here is Cerusseri’s description of the beauty that the spring (sarat) was:

kalusyam puridulla varigafellama-

kkalattu calattehnnu ninnu

govindan tannude bhavanain piindittu

mevunna manasamennapole

31 Nell 2002.

221
 variyilrtinnulfa varijamellame

parain vilannittudannTdennwn

venunna kantanekkanunna nerattu

narimamanmukhamennapdle

munname poyulldrannanhalellame

pinneyum ponninhu vannukudi

vidareppediccu pdyulla jaranmar

vlndihhu pinneywn vannapole

vegattil pdyunna toyannalelldme

vegani kurnnu camannudappol

premam kurmulla kamukanmarellam

kaminiarvFtfil pokwnbole32

Muddy waters became transparent like the mind lost in thoughts about

Govinda; lotuses in the waters bloomed like the faces of the women who met

their lovers; swans which had flown away returned like adult-erers coming

back to their wives; waters gushing forth swiftly slowed down like reluctant

lovers going to the houses of their beloveds; thus did the spring unfurl its

beauty.

The other strategy of deploying lovemaking as a mode of producing

enchantment was to be seen in a number of texts like Vaisi-katantram,

Ceriyacci, Kaunottara and Uttaracandrika. But nowhere was it more

32 Krsnagatha 1.8.8-15.

222
explicit than in Candrotsavam and Maiamangalam’s Kodiyaviraham. The

latter is important in this respect, because not only does it present us - like

the former - with a self constituted almost exclusively through desire, it also

presents death as the only option if a life of sexual contentment becomes

impossible. The story is about Srhgaraketu and his love for Srhgaracandrika.

Note the nocturnal suffix (candrika) in the heroine’s name. The two are

united in wedlock and spend their days in the most animate of carnal

pleasures. But they are separated, thanks to some unpleasant intrigues, and
/ /
Srngaraeand-rika leaves Srhgaraketu. The separation is too much for her to

endure. She decides to end her life. The hero arrives at the right moment to

rescue her and the couple goes back to their good old days - or good old

nights - of passionate union, which is what constitutes their subjectivi-ties in

the first place. Malamangalam represents the other pole of what Eluttaccan

stands for. He had greater faith in the visible world of pleasure than the

invisible realm of bliss.

It is difficult to trace mimesis to any specific devices because these

devices are as diverse and multivalent as the forms of selfhood which inform

them. Broadly speaking, they occur at two levels, the formal level involving

genres, meters and alliterations, and the semantic level involving plot,

narrative and the possibilities of direct and indirect meanings. Indian literary

theories identify them as sabdalankara and artthalarikara respectively. At

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the level of plot and narrative, the production of enchantment-effect can

draw upon anecdotes like the afore-cited ones. A large number of anecdotes

circulated in the form of songs and single verses (slokams) in premodern

Kerala. Most of them were used during informal conversations and other

leisurely chores of everyday life, which resulted, so to speak, in the

aestheticization and enchantment of everyday life. The Umaramasamvadmn

is one such anecdote. This is a conversation between ParvatT (Uma) and

Laksmi (Rama), the consorts of Siva and Visnu respectively. It is a playful

narration of the rivalry between the two goddesses, and was immensely

popular among women up to the last quarter of the twentieth century, when

the advent of television drove it out of circulation.33

Rama: What does your husband do to earn a livelihood? Does he still go

begging?34

Uma: He (i.e., your husband) went begging only once. At the sacrifice

performed by Mahabali.35

33 This was recently published by V. Rajendran Nair in a popular astrology magazine in

Malayalam, Jyotisharatnam, Vol. 13, No. 22, Nov. 16-30, 2009, p. 14-17.

34 Siva once went begging with a bowl made of human skull.

35 This refers to Visnu begging at Mahabali’s sacrifice in the guise of Vamana.

224
 Rama: Why did your beloved become a hunter? Was he fond of the meal

from a hunt?36

Uma: No. It was to kill the boar which shook the world.37

Rama: Why is your beloved wearing the animal-hide? Has he no clothes

to wear?38

Uma: He has no clothes. Yet, he never stole the clothes of women.39

Rama: Why is his hair smeared with ash? Can’t he afford some oil?40

Uma: Why is your beloved wearing feathers? Are his locks not long

enough?41

Rama: Why does he wear a serpent around his neck? Can’t he find a

garland?42

36 Siva and ParvatT are known to have sported in the forest, disguising themselves as

hunters.

37 Of the ten incarnations of Visnu, the third one was Varaha, the boar. He assumed this

form to save the earth from drowning.

38 Siva wears an elephant-hide (tiger-hide according to some accounts).

39 This refers to Krsna stealing the clothes of women bathing in the river in Vmdavana.

40 Siva’s body is fully smeared with ash.

41 Krsna wears peacock-feathers on his hair.

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 Uma: Why does your beloved sleep on a serpent? Can’t he find a bed?43

Rama: Does he believe that he is handsome because of his dark throat?44

Uma: Only his throat is dark. But what about your beloved, whose body

is fully dark?45

Rama: Where is that old bull of yours? Is it still alive, or has it died?46

Uma: Nothing can be said without enquiring with the cowherd.47

Rama: What became of the deer which your beloved had? Is it dead?48

Uma: He (i.e., your husband) chased it with a bow and an arrow, and

killed it.49

42 Siva wears a serpent around his neck.

43 Visnu sleeps on Ananta, the serpent.

44 Siva’s throat is deep-blue in colour, because of the venom which he once drank.

45 Krsna is said to have been dark blue in colour.

46 This refers to Siva’s bull Nandi.

47 Krsna was a cowherd in Vrndavana.

48 Siva holds a deer (sarahga) in his hand and is therefore called Sararigapani.

49 This refers to Rama’s killing of the demon-sage MarTca disguised as a deer.

226
 Rama: Will I ever be able to watch your beloved dance?50

Uma: You can always see it when he (i.e., your beloved) goes to

Vrndavana and dances around.51

Rama: Did not your beloved fall in love when my lover once disguised

as a woman?52

Uma: Did not your beloved go behind 16,000 girls?53

Anecdotal verses attributed to Tolan were widely popular among the

brahmanical and scholastic classes in Kerala. Tolan was a figure of legends.

It is doubtful if he was a historical character. He was perhaps invented as a

metaphor for tolan (“friend”) and was the paradigmatic vidusaka (“jester”)

in the Kerala theatre. He is said to have been a friend of Kulasekhara and

one of the principal architects of the kudiyattam theatre. A number of

sarcastic verses in circulation are attributed to him. It appears that most of

50 Siva is a dancer (Nataraja) and the exponent of the tandava dance.

51 This recalls Krsna’s deeds in Vrndavana.

52 Siva is once known to have fallen in love with Mdhinl, without realizing that she was

actually Visnu in disguise.

53 Krsna had 16,000 cowherd women (gopis) as his lovers.

227
them were originally produced extempore during leisurely conversations.54

Many of them ridicule the sophistry of the scholastic elites. Here is one such

verse.

uttimhottiunha rajendra

mukhain praksalayasva ta

atra kujayate kukku

ca vai tu hi ca vai tu hi

In this verse, the poet asks the king to wake up and wash his face, because

the hen has started clucking. On the one hand, it ridicules the stereotype

association of daybreak with the clucking hen. On the other, it pokes fun at

what is known as “poetic license” which often results in the twisting and

manipulation of words and the use of unwarranted expressions like ca, vai,

tu and hi. In the above verse, ta, which is part of the word kukkuta (“hen”) in

the third line, is broken from it and taken to the second line, and ca, vai, tu

and hi, which are generally sprinkled throughout the text, are brought

together in a single line.

54 See Narayana Rao and Shulman 1998 for a discussion of extempore poetry in the

context of Andhra Pradesh.

228
 Many of the Tolan verses deploy pun to great sarcastic effect. The

following verse is one of them.

pallittoladayam yasya

yasya pandrandara priya

konaccettabhidhanasya

arddharddham pranatosmyaham

Literally, it means “I bow down to the half-of-half of the one who wears the

lizard-skin, who is beloved of the twelve halves, and who is known as the

comer-brother.” What is the poet really suggesting? The palli refers not to

the lizard, but to the one with teeth (pallu) or tusk, viz., the elephant. So,

pallittol is not the lizard-skin, but the elephant-hide. The twelve halves make

six, which is aru in Malayalam. Now, aru also means river. The reference

here is to Ganga hiding in Siva’s matted hair. The word kona (“comer”) and

cettan (“elder-brother”) are to be replaced by their equivalents mukku and

annan, which when brought together produces the compound mukkaman, or

the three-eyed one (mu-kannan). Finally, the half-of-half, arddharddham, is

a quarter or kdl, which also means feet. The verse will then read, “I bow

229
down to the feet of the one who wears the elephant-hide, who is the beloved

of the river, and who is known as the three-eyed one.”55

Another figure to whom similar verses are attributed is Kakkasseri

Bhattadiri, who is said to have been one of the eighteen-and-half poets in the

court of King Manavedan. Once in his childhood, Kakkasseri was returning

from the Mukkutala Bhagavati temple when a passerby asked him where he

had been. “To the Bhagavati temple,” Kakkasseri replied. “What did the

Bhagavati tell you?,” the man asked, to which the boy replied:

ydgimdr satatam pottum

tumbatte tallaydraho

naliyil padiyadila

palakdsena vd na vd

This means, “the great mother of the edge of that which the yogis constantly

close did not play half of the nali, perhaps because of the many skies.” Now,

isn’t that enchanting? Not really, until we know what the boy had in mind.

That which the yogis constantly close is the nose, mukku, and an edge is tala.

So the edge of it is mukkutala, and tallayar is the mother. The nali is a

55 See Kottarathil 1978: 474-84 for the legend of Tolan and a discussion of the verses

attributed to him.

230
measure, equivalent to the volume of a quarter kilogram of paddy, and half

of it is uri, which also means breath or speech. So, naliyil padiyadtla is

uriyddila, “did not speak.” Why? Perhaps because of palakasa, where pala

(“many”) must be replaced by its synonym bahu, and akasa (“sky”) with its

Malayalam equivalent manam, which makes it bahumanam, respect. That is

to say, the goddess of Mukkutala did not speak to Kakkasseri, perhaps

because of the high esteem in which she held him!56

Kunjan Nambyar’s Syamantakam Tullal is known not only for the

creator-potter anecdote, but also for another brilliant scene in which the

entire story of the Ramayana is cleverly smuggled in. Krsna is wandering

through the forest in search of the syamantaka jewel, when he comes across

a huge cave. He enters the cave, which brings him to a tower. On its walls he

finds paintings, which he soon realizes are scenes from the Ramayana.

tatra valatte bhittitalattil

citrameluttugal kandan devan

citram tatra vicitrakaram

cittavinodam ramacaritram

56 Ibid.. 92.

231
Nambyar now starts describing them one by one. The story begins at the end

and moves towards the beginning in what may be called a reverse-narrative.

The first picture depicts the death of Ravana. Then comes the picture in

which Ravana’s heads - ten in number - are being tom apart by the arrows

shot at him. In the next painting, Krsna sees Laksmana killing Indrajit,

followed by the killing of Kumbhakarna by Rama. Then follows the killing

of Kumbha and Nikumbha, the battle between the raksasas and the

monkeys, and so on. The scenes move backwards in this manner, till we

reach the birth of Satrughna, Laksmana, Bharata, and finally, Rama.57 The

text is a veritable feast of enchantment. Its performance by a trained artist

can be even more enthralling. The word kandan (“he saw”) appears with the

description of each picture, producing a less laboured rhyme and rhythm.

hanuman vannacudamaniywn

manukulavaranu kodukkana kandan

dhrstatayode lahkanagarain

cuttupodikkana ghosam kandan

aksakumaraka nidhanam kandan

vrksalatadigal nasam kandan

citdamani medippadu kandan

modiramannu koduppadu kandan

57 Symantakam TuUal 1238-1366.

232
 simhikayekkola ceyyana kandan

maindkatteyamarppadu kandan

The purpose of this reverse-narrative, Nambyar would have us believe, was

to remind Krsna of his previous incarnation as Rama.

purvvacaritram kandu mukundanu

piirvva smaranayumunday vannu*

But given Nambyar’s temperament for sarcasm and playfulness, we can’t

help appreciating it as the outcome of a selfhood which revels in

manipulating the past and inverting the accepted logics of time and space,

not to make us aware of the meaningless existential ephemera that they are,

but to simply produce a stunning enchantment-effect.

Another way of effecting mimesis was by introducing an unusual

turn in an otherwise popular story. Bhasa’s Dutavakyam is a fine example.

Here, the great Mahabharata war is averted by Krsna’s mediation. Pampa’s

Vikramarjunavijayam offers another instance. Aijuna is the hero of this

work. Pampa therefore found it apposite to crown him - rather than

Yudhisthira - king of Hastinapura after the great war. More recently,

58 Ibid., 1251-52.

233
Kuvempu altered the accepted semantics of the fire-ordeal (agniparfksa)

when, in his Kannada work Ramayana - da rsan am, he made Rama enter the

fire along with SIta after the conquest of Lanka. There is at least one work

from Kerala which manipulates the narrative in a similar way. It occurs in

the Kusalava-caritam Kilippattu. In this work, SIta does not disappear into

the womb of the earth at the end of the story. Instead, she returns to Ayodhya

along with Rama and her sons Lava and Kusa, resulting in the archetypal

“they-Iived-happily-ever-after” climax. “What?” is all that we end up asking,

with a smile of enchantment of our lips.

nijasahaja saciva ratha karituraga jalavwn

nflepparannoru kalalppadayodum

amitagunaganamudaya janakasutaydduma-

hhatyantaviraram nandananmarodum

padahapada nidanamodu raghuvaranandkulam

paradayddhyakku yatrapupappettu

atha sakala nrpagunavumakhila manuvrndavwn

paurajanahnaluin marrullavarkajwn

matiyilati kutukamodu raghuvarasutanmarkku

mdniccu kalcayum vaccu kandTdinar59

59 Kusalavacaritam Kifippattu 446-50.

234
 The question of mimesis - and therefore the question of selfhood -

is intimately connected to the choice of genres. They are not so much

informed by conventions as they are by the notions of selfhood prevailing in

their respective realms of production, circulation and performance. These

notions also govern the choice and adaptability of exemplary models from

which the form, theme, plot or narrative may be drawn. A work meant to be

recited as part of the everyday chores of agrarian and pastoral life is less

likely to be high-mimetic and verbose than an accTcaritam meant to the

performed before an urban, itinerant elite. What this means is that it is more-

or-less impossible for an accfcaritam to produce the sea of enchantment

which it does on the performance-stage, if it takes recourse to the mild and

subdued undippattu rhythm adopted in Ceiusseri’s Krsnagatha.

Mimesis in Ceiusseri’s work revolves around the minute nuances of

everyday life in the pastoral and agrarian worlds, and their ability to evoke

smile, sympathy and pity. In other words, it aestheticizes everyday life by

tracing beauty in the simplest of gestures. Thus, Cerusseri will not say that

people shiver in the cold of a winter morning. Instead, he draws attention to

the teeth beating against each other rhythmically, as if they are

accompanying a song or a dance.

dantanriajuin kondu talam pidiccittu

235
 sandhyaye vandiccitandanarum60

Consider these lines:

pe parannidinal kit parannidnal

va parannidinal papiyenne61

A cowherd woman accuses another of having stolen her cows. The latter

denies it, but the former continues to accuse her. She “utters mad words,

hoots and shouts.” This is what the above line wishes to communicate. The

repeated use of the expression parannidinal (“she said”), prefixed by mono­

syllables like pe (“mad words”), ku (the hooting sound) and va (“loud

mouthed words”) has a profound visual impact, which unfurls the scene not

as an incident in a popular narrative, but as an event to which we once stood

witness, which we have since forgotten, and which is now coming back from

the dusty corridors of time. Few literary works from Kerala have this quality

to evoke visual imageries in so simple, yet striking a manner. Another

instance where Cerusseri deploys gestures to produce an arresting visual

impact is the scene where Kamsa tries to kill his sister Devaki after learning

that the eighth son bom to her will slay him. Here, the poet describes

60 Krsnagdtha 1.9.27.

61 Ibid., 1.3.271.

236
reactions of the onlookers: “they closed their eyes, they jerked tears, they ran

a few steps in dismay, they rubbed their hands, they reddened their eyes,

they stroked their hands all over their bodies.”

kannadaccUinar katmunlr tuginar

tinnamannodinar khinnarayi

kaittirummrdinar kan cuvattldinar

kaiyalaccidinar meyyilehhwn62

We see this subdued and down-to-earth approach even in important

sequences like the slaying of Kamsa. Krsna and Kamsa stand facing each

other. It is the decisive fight, the outcome of which has already been foretold

many a time. But the tenderness and visual passion with which Krsnagatha

treated the great event had no precedence. Krsna, who embodies (the weight

of) the fourteen worlds, hurls himself at Kamsa. The latter falls down and is

compressed, “like cotton”, under the great weight of his nephew. Gradually,

life begins to depart from his body.

pettennu cadinantanumannerattu

dustanayulloru kanjanmide

parellamirelumullil cumannavan

62 Ibid., 1.1.97-98.

237
 parade meniyil panna neram

vTranay vTnu kidannoru kanjantan

nere padunhinan pahnipole

jTvanumennappol kanjane vervvittu

povadinnayittudahhum neram63

Cerusseri was no Basho. He was producing a narrative and not a haiku with

its seven-syllable rule. But his aptitude to produce visual specta-cles created

many a scene, which stands in the league of the Japanese master’s

Silent pond

Frog leaping in

“Plop!”

The anti-thesis of this approach is seen in Ayyippilla Asan’s Rama-

kathappattu, where mimesis is caused by a loud outburst of words. When

Ravana dies in the battle, we hear, “He met with his end in the battle, Ho!,

the wicked one met with his end in the battle, Ho!”

porilandamacce kandakanukku

porilandamacce64

63 Ibid., 2.19.267-70.

64 Ramakathappattu Yuddhakandam 114.

238
And when STta enters the fire to prove her purity, we hear, “Look at the

woman whom the fire can’t burn! Harasankara Deva! Look at the woman

whom the fire can’t bum!”

tl cudata mangai kan harasankara deva

tl cudata mangai kan

tT cudata mahgayenra

tiruvaiyenra manumadandai

vacudadayakkinippen

vadumo vadadudan

tl cudata mangai kan harasankara deva

ti cudata mangai kan65

The patience and the spirit of complacency in Cerusseri, and the frenzied

deployment of sound and fury in Ayyippilla Asan point to two very different

forms of selfhood and two different realms of literary production,

circulation, transmission, performance and reproduction. The quotidian and

romantic selves in the Krsnagatha stands in striking contrast with the heroic

and festive selves in Ayyippilla Asan. Surely, the rhythm of a lullaby cannot

be expected to create rapacious outbursts of emotions like the ones found in

65 Ibid., 128.

239
the Ramakathappattu, Nor can a carnival of meters, rhythms and alliterations

serve to create mild and alluring images of an agro-pastoral world and its

rooted-ness in the delights and denouements of everyday life. It is hard to

imagine a woman rocking a cradle or churning curd or cutting paddy by

humming, “tt cudata mafigai kan harasahkara deval”

Visuality was not very common in the works produced in premodem

Kerala. But works which match with Cerusseri’s visual quality were

certainly not unknown. The Kokasandesam is one such work. To handpick

an example from it without accepting the blame of being arbitrary is nearly

impossible, given the sheer parade of visuals it offers within the short space

of ninety-six verses. Take this verse for instance, where the poet presents the

scene of a cakravaka bird pecking at the stamen of a lotus bud left half-eaten

by his partner who has come back to him at daybreak:

kottikkottikkamalakalika kesaran vasaradau

pratyavrttapriyasahacarljagddhasesan nisevya

makkappuinpoykakalil vilayadinra cakrahvayanam

salkkaramkondavideyavidettola vaikayavendum66

66 Kokasandesam 13.

240
Here is another verse, where the poet speaks of dawn the maid sweeping the

dust of darkness with the broom of sunrays and immersing the pot of moon

in the ocean to wash the courtyard of sky the mansion:

dhanya bhandhpularivalivellatti bhanukkafennum

ponnin citlkondirulmayamadikkadadiccannu nikki

imbantceruin gaganabhavanam currumurrandalippd-

nambhorasau sasadharakudam karika mukkinravaru67

Yet another instance is the description of the Guruvayur temple. There is a

garden where the trees block the sunrays even as swarms of bees continue to

hum their song. There is a shining rampart constantly rubbed by great

tuskers. And then we have a sculpted tower rising towards the firmaments, a

golden pole with its flag, and windows from which fragrant smoke emanates.

The poet is painting a picture which reminds us of Monet’s Cathedrals.

appumboykaykkarigil mulugin kuttamarttum kularrum

pusparamaksitiruhaghatdruddhagharmmamsutdpam

drpyaddantavalakatataUghrstamanikkavapram

silpasrf cemnuyara vilaswn gopuralingitabhram

calapponnin kodimugalilninruyaladum pataka-

67 Ibid., 71.

241
 ncalekattinnidayilumilum dhupasaurabhyasdram

nanavadyadhvanimukharitam sarhgapanemnivasa-

sthanam prapya pranamasirasa m tadtyain padabjam6S

The kilippattu is an interesting genre in many ways. We have

already taken note of the flexible nature of many if its meters, particularly
4
keka, which enables easier narration. But \j has also often resulted in low-

mimetic works, which do not succeed in producing the desired effect either

at the level of sound or visuals. This did not go unnoticed in premodem

Kerala. The Vaisakhamahatmyam Kilippattu offers an apology for it by

saying that the work is meant to propagate bhakti, and therefore that the

focus must be on the spiritual outcome and not on the textual form. For,

should not the sick person be concerned with the cure rather than the taste of

the medicine?

vyadhitanayullavanausadham sevikkumbol

svadutan cintyamalla cintitam rogaharain

ennadu pole bhaktarikkatha cevikondu

nannayittanugraham nalguvin madiyate69

68 Ibid., 35-36.

69 Vaisdkhamahatmycun Kilippattu 1.51.54.

242
 Given its flexibility, it was possible to use the kilippattu to produce

multiple effects. It is one of the few genre from Kerala which can

simultaneously present itself in both high-mimetic as well as low-mimetic

forms. Both are richly explored in Eluttaccan’s works. In the ‘Yuddha-

kandham’ of the Adhyatma Rdmayanam, we come across some of the finest

exemplars of high-mimetic poetry from Kerala, as can be seen in the battle

scene which culminates in the death of Ravana’s son Meghanada (Indrajit).

suryatmajanumadu kandu kopiccu

suryatmajdlayattinnayaccidinan

sugrivanagrajanekkonnanerama-

tyugran nikutnbhan parighavumayudan

samhara rudraneppole ranajire

simhanadam ceyduduttanadu nerain

sugrivaneppinnilittu vatatmaja-

nagre ceruttan nikumbhanettalksane

mdruti mariladiccan nikwnbhanum

paril nurunni vimi talparighavutn

uttamangatteppariccerinnanati

kruddhanayoru jagalpranaputranum10

70 Adhyatma Rdmayanam 1.6.2975-86.

243
On the other hand, the following forest-scene in the ‘Ayodhya-kandham’

almost evades attention by its low-mimetic disinterested-ness.

vaidehi tannodu kudave raghavan

sodaranddumoru mrgattekkonnu

sadaram bhuktva sukhena vasiccidu

pddapamule daladhytalpasthale71

The above discussion does not really confirm to the tenets of arttha-

lankara as spelt out in Indian poetics. For, the term is not burdened there by

too many hermeneutical baggages by the poeticians. It only refers to figures

of speech like simile (upama), as in the comparison drawn between the

sound of cupid’s trumpet and the cock crying at daybreak in

kalatn pole kusumadhanuso hanta punkoli kukf,72

metaphor (rupaka), like the reference to the black-bodied (Krsna) moon

appearing on the white sky of the Yadava line after the departure of Kamsa,

the cloud, in

71 Ibid., 1.2.1841-42.
72 Unnunilisandesam 1.6.

244
 kanjanayulloru kdrmugil pogaya-

lanjana varnnanam tingalappol

venmakalamnulla yadavavamsamam

ambaram tamil vijannininnal,n

conjecture (utpreksa), as in the statement that the lotus, with the sound of the

bees, is calling out to the cakravaka bird in

appalende vicarati bhavanippuram poru kana-

yulphullambhoruhamaliravaistvam vilikkinra varu.n

There is one interesting instance in Eiuttaccan’s Adhyatma Ramayatiam of

what may be called a self-simile. Let the sky take on the sky, the poet says,

or let the ocean fight the ocean, but they can’t match the battle between

Rama and Ravana, which resembles only one thing - the battle between

Rama and Ravana.

ambudhi ambudhiyodonnedirkkilu-

manibaramcunbarattddedirttTdilum

raghava ravana yuddhattinu samam

raghava ravana yuddhamotinnilla.15

73 Krsnagatha 2.20-1-2.

74 Kokasandesam 5.

245
ValmTki, who inspired these words, had put it differently. The ocean looks

like the sky, he said, and the sky resembles the ocean, but the battle between

Rama and Ravana resembles only the battle between Rama and Ravana.

sagaram cambaraprakhyam

ambaram sagardpamam

rdmaravamyor yuddham

ramaravanyoriva,76

On to the sabdalankdras now. The early Manipravalam works were

performed by the cakyars in the form of pathakas. These works had the

reputation of being inspired by women, as this famous verse testifies:

manipravala vidyeyam

pathakesvavatisthate

lambasipra parTvara

mahildli mahaspadd

75 Adhyatma Ramayanam 1.6.3967-70.

76 Ramayana 6.107.52.

246
A major role in the performance as well as production of these texts was

played by the cakyars. DamSdara, the author of the UnniyadTcaritam, is

identified as a bharatacdrya, i.e., a master of the art of performance.77

The emphasis in the accTcaritams was more on sound than on

meaning, which in the hands of a trained cakyar could generate a stunning

spectacle on the stage. The choice of metres and the deployment of a range

of mimetic strategies were clearly aimed at producing the maximum effect

on the stage. Consider the following stanza from the UnniyadTcaritam.

tadanantara-mudayacala-kataketuta-mutaydcila

vatapatala-calapallava-navakesara-panasasana

laghucandana-bakacampaka-tilakarjuna-kadalikula

sahakaraka-mukhapadapa-patalairuta-nitacernnati

78
sisirenala-kusumaiinalil

A similar verse occurs in the UnniyaccTcaritam.

avide para-mapi rajati-duritapaha-caritohrdi

perudayina-karunanidhi-paratdnata-maruddmrta

tarulceyduda-naruddyina-vidamundava-teruderina

79
puratapana-neritugina-miliyambuli-yurituyadu

11 UnniyadTcaritam Prose 25.

78 UnniyadTcaritatn Prose 3.

247
Each unit in these examples contains five syllables, the third one long (guru)

and the remaining ones short (laghu). One only needs to imagine what

spectacular effect a trained performer - particularly a cakyar - could

produce out of it on the stage. The meter here is similar to the

sarikaracaritam, and is obtained by adding two short syllables to it in the

QA

end. A good example for sahkaracaritam is found in Vilva-mahgalam’s

SrTkrsnakamnamrtam.

tarundruna-karunamaya-vipulayata-nayanam

kamaldkuca-kalasibhara-vipulikrta-pulakam

muralTrava-taralikrta-munimdnasa-nalinam

mamakhelatu-madacetasi-madhuradhara-mamrtam81

Such effects were sought to be produced by an excess of alliterations

(prasa) as well. Note the use of the letter la in the following stanza from the

UnniyaccTcaritam.

kalakalamilakina valayoli viravi

ttalirila mrdukara krtatuti taralam

kuliceyumoli kilar kilakala molimar

79 UnniyaccTcaritam Prose 5.

80 “sanajam nabha saganannalodiha sankaracaritam", Rajarajavarma 2006: 40.

81 SrTkrsnakarndmrtam 18.

248
 82
kulirila valor mulayakil parimalitam

The use of second-syllable rhyme was a mimetic device often resorted to.

Note the use of yyum in this stanza from Unniyacctcaritam,

meyyum kanacila cilayodu dadhata

nceyyum mrgayd viharana catura

mmeyyainpina mani bhusana rucirain

83
koyyummalarani kulal makutdjvala

or the nc employed as the second syllable in each half of a line in the

following stanza from UnniccirudevTcaritam.

ancikkurukula cancukkaleyida

vanciccavakale minciccudanava

tuncikka...ka

thancilkkalivana cahcalpporukayal

The use of the second-syllable rhyme was very common in Kerala texts.

Some more examples may be noted here. The use of nd in the following

lines from Kunjan Nambyar’s Banayuddham Tullal

82 UnniyaccTcaritam Prose 6.

83 Ibid., Prose 15.

249
 pandu mahabali tannude sutara-

yunday nuru kumaranmaril

kandaladhika bhayankara gatran

kunthan bdndsuranennoruvanM

and na in these lines from his Kiratam Tullal

pranayiniyakina malakagal tanum

pranayasukhena ramippdndyi

ksanamoru karivaramithunamadayi

ksanikamadakina visayasukhattil

pranayamiyannoru rasikanmaravar

pranihita kutukam valumkalam

manamiyalumma marappunkavil

manalil nadannu madiccu maranhade

tanalilirunnu ramikkunnerwn

gunavatiyamumatannude maganay

ganapatiyennoru murttivisesam

pranatajanahnade vighnamolippan

pranayitakutukani vannupirannu

ksanamatram tantiruvadiyadiyanu

tunamatram ceytldunnagil

84 Banayuddham Tullal 1-4.

250
 guriapatram nanenniha varuvan

anumatram mama samsayamilla

ganaratrannal kalinnadilannoru

kanamatram punarunddyilla

trnamdtram bahumanavumilla85

are fine examples. The second-syllable rhyme was commonly used in all the

four major Dravidian languages. The recurrence of ma in

srimadanupamateja natajana

kamitartha phalapradayaka

somasekhara suramunTndrarcita padambhoja

samaganapriya sadasiva

vamabhagasrita bhavani

prema srTgirimallikarjuma salahu mujagava86

and nda in

tandaratananavara janani pitariddedege

kandaniravain kandavar marugi beragdge

nindanallamanolagofagalaldu balalutam

sanda nehada sadgunahgalam nenevutain87

85 Kiratam Tullal 13-32.

86 Mahalingaranga’s Anubhavamrta 1.1.

251
are good examples from Kannada.

The practice of deploying second-syllable rhyme goes back to the

Ettutogai period. The use of lla in these lines of Vennikkuyattiyar in the

Purananuru,

naliyirumunmr navayotti

valitolildndavuravon marukam

nda in the following lines of Viricciyur Nannagamar from the same

anthology,

vendor kendiya undamavcun

yandanakkurumurai valavavilakki89

and Paranar’s use of na in these lines form the Padirruppattu

panarpuri narampin tlndodai puluniya

87 Harihara’s Prabhudevara Ragale 187-90.

88 Purananuru 66.

89 Ibid., 292.

252
 vanaramai nalyal ilaiyar poruppa90

are among the early instances of their use. But they were never consistently

used at this stage. They occur quite sporadically in these anthologies.

Sanskrit works from Kerala do not share this fascination for the

second-syllable rhyme. We have very few exceptions. The use of l in this

verse from Vilvamangalam’s Srikrsnakarmamrtam

lilayatdbhyam rasasttalabhydm

nilarunabhyam nayanambujabhyam

alokayedadbhuta vibhramdbhyam

kale kadd karunikah kisorah91

and lam in a verse from Melpattur Narayamyam

alatnbo bhuvananam

pralainbam nidhanamevamaracayan

kalam vihaya sadyo

lolambaruce hara klesan92

90 Padirruppattu 5.1.1 -2.

91 Srikrsnakarrindmrtain 45.

92 Narayamyam 57.11.

253
are among the few available instances. It occurs on and off in the

Narayamyam, as for instance in the use of ra in

aralamarggagatanirmmalapam

marala kujdkrta narmmalapamn

and ytt and rin in

mayura kekasata lobhanlyain

mayukha mala sabalam manitidm

virihca lokasprsamuccasmgair-

ggirinca govarddhanamaiksathastvam.94

Melpattur was not really fascinated by the second-syllable rhyme. Nor did he

take recourse to any structured forms of alliteration. In fact, the frequent

occurrence of informal and rhythmic rhyme in the Narayamyam is far more

captivating that the above-cited cases. The effect produced by the words

sugrahe and vigrahe in

93 Ibid., 49.7.

94 Ibid., 49.8.

254
 tasmin dhanya ramante srutimatimadhure

svagrahe vigrahe te95

is one such example.

The use of second-syllable rhyme in Cejrusseri’s Krsnagatha is

particularly worthy of note. Its presence in the text is consistent, but it is so

normalized as to render it plain and almost invisible. Its mildness suits the

mellow tenor of a lullaby. The presence of the rhyme is made felt only on

rare occasions through a fluid use of words, as in

pancama ragatte ppadunna nfyendu

nanju niraykkunnuten ceviyit6

or in

istamayulloru vrstiyeppeyyiccu

pustikku karanamindranalle 97

95 Ibid., 1.3. Compare this with Irayimman Tambi’s “kantarante kathancit saha nijasaha-

jaili kantaya santaya ca,” (KIcakavadham Attakkatha 1, Verse 3) and the anonymous

“pritistomam vara nirmmalagunanivaha vasame manase me (Uttaracandrika 3).

96 Krsnagatha 1.15.589.

97 Ibid., 1.12.16.

255
or in

ancitamayoru punjirikondavar

nenagam kitdekkulurppikkunndr

anjanakkunninmel ninnu vilanmtnna

kancamandramanenna pole98

The second-letter rhyme was commonly used in most Dravidian languages

up to the late nineteenth century, but in Kerala, the accfcaritams also

deployed many other patterns. One was the use of rhyme in the second and

third syllables. The use of kuta in the following stanza from UnniyaccT-

caritam is an example.

cokkuta mukhavisa valayalavanta

nkonkutayituvutorabhimata dayita

mulkkata madabharamanukina jalacara

kukkuta vihaga kutlkna jaladam

This was not unique to the accTcaritaim. Here is an example from

Krsnagatha:

98 Ibid., 1.16.33-34.

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 putana tannude vanmulayundundu

cetana kondato pandivandan99

Another example from the same work is

cemantike nalla pumaranhalkkinnu

sTmantamayitu nTyallotan

hemanta kalatte varijam poleyay

namantike vannu ninnatwn kanm

Another feature was the deployment of rhyme in the second, third and fourth

syllables, as seen in the use of tarina in this stanza from the Unniyacc-

waritam,101

Marina kurukuca kulacala tundham

patarina paranira vicalita nalam

katarina madhukara mukharita kamalam

citarina katipaya madhukana kapilain

99 Krsnagatha 1.17.70.

100 Ibid., 1.15.347-48.

101 This, and the preceding example (cokkuta mukhavisa...), are both from Prose 6.

257
and in the effect sought to be produced by llallalli in the following example

cited in the Lilatilakam.

allallallTpurikulalidam manmathan nammayeyyum

villallallTpurikamabale tinrumennalkkivannam

illallallT karuna dayite nammilinrunnunilf

102
kallaltalli tava manamedd collu kalydnasJle

Other mimetic devices included the use of second and fourth syllable rhyme.

The following stanza from the UnniyaccTcaritam, where ra and lla are used

as the second and fourth syllable in each half of a line is a good example for

this pattern.

varamallika dhavala varinellilam kalama

yari nalla vamalavu tarumallal kettavakaj

tirumellati pranata varavullasal peruma

ciramallilum pakatumurukallil vinnupari

parivellitambugati girikulya tTrtha nadi

tiratalli vittakhila nararvallitarkkoduma

suravallipdliniya taruvalli meludita

virivalli nanmalariloru kolli pddumali

karanelliyoda poruluruvalli nallavari

102 Lilatilakatn 6.104.136 com.

258
 lurakalliti srtisu haritulya yoginira

maruvalli maya pula marumallaraipporudu

suramalla cittagata gurusalya kamsanava 103

The messenger-poems offer a different picture. We do not see any

unrestrained use of verbal mimetic devices in them. They are also consistent

in the use of meters. Mandakranta is the preferred meter in all works.104 The

systematic deployment of the journey motif provides ample space for rich

descriptions, which makes laboured play of words less desirable. The poet’s

concern is to craft words, phrases and expressions into a harmonious whole

so as to create a lucid narrative flow. The narrative is not ruptured by any

protracted engagements other than what the journey and the errand warrants.

Nor do we see any outbursts of wonder or ecstasy in a form which

mandakranta cannot contain. This measured use of formal mimetic devices,

laying greater stress on meaning rather than sound, can the noticed in the

following verse from the Unnunflisandesam

kokasremvirahanihitam tl nurunnenrapole

tugittugittuhinakanikam tumna pimkavilude

stokonmilannalina teliten kdlakutambu kori-

103 UnniyaccTcaritam Prose 3.

104 “mandakranta mabhanatatagam nalumarelumay gam”, Rajarajavarma 2006: 39.

259
 ttekittokappavananavaneccenrukonrantadanTmm

and in this verse from the Kokasandesam

sanandam vannusasi malalakkannimarokka magha

snanam ceyyum polutavarkalil cittamambhassu gatrain

yunam magnant bhavati nitaram yatra sa darsanlya

vano[r]polwn kanivodu vananninra perdrupante'06

The Candrdtsavam enjoys a similar narrative advantage, which makes it less

drawn towards verbal mimetic devices. Consistent flow of the narrative and

meaning is what matters, as can be seen in these stanzas in the malini

107
meter.

madanamanipatake medinTmaddhya khandham

madhurayati sumerurmmanusandmagamyah

manimasrnitamurddha sikarairmmakarandaih

snapitakataka bhumTsvarllata manjarinam

parabhrtamoli currwn marru khandhaniiajettund

105 Unnunxllsandesam 1.10.

106 Kokasandesam 23.

107 “nanamayayugamettil tattanam mdlinikku,” Rajarajavarma 2006: 37.

260
 atilumadhika hrdyam daksincun bharatakhyam

vilanila malarmatinnahgajannum trilokf

cerutodukuripole ceraman nddu yasmin

duritabharamakarrippdpinamatmasuddhyai

maruvumakhilapunyam ksetratirtthabhipurnnam

amaramuninarendrair vanditam visvavandyam

sivasiva sivaperur ksetramdbhati yasminm

It is tempting to prolong this discussion on enchantment. There is

after all endless room for it in Kerala literatures. But our point has already

been made. There was magic in the ornamentations (alankara) of sound

(sabda) and semantics (artha) which the poets orchestrated. They produced

rhythms and music, meanings and metaphors, poignancy and piety. They

celebrated love and war, conceit and deception, beauty, devotion, submission

and rebellion. And far more importantly, the production of enchantment-

effect or camatkara also represented or underwrote distinct forms of

selfhood, from the vainglorious to the cognoscent, erotic to the melancholic,

paternal-ascetic to the prophetic. It was these selfhoods which gave birth to,

nurtured and changed the ethical forms through which the discontents of

108 Candrotsavam 1.45-47.

261
production- and property-relations came to be concealed, naturalized, reified

or reconstituted.

\
\

A
l
tr^

Is -rA

262
 Chapter 6
Ethicality

There are four legends concerning Prometheus:

According to the first he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for

betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed

on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.

According to the second Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the rearing

beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became

one with it.

According to the third his treachery was forgotten in the course of

thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by

himself.

263
 According to the fourth everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair.

The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.

There remained the inexplicable mass of rock. The legend tried to

explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in

turn to end in the inexplicable.1

This little story from the enigmatic oeuvre of Kafka is interesting for two

reasons. Firstly, it demystifies the story of Prometheus without removing the

aura which characterizes most myths. Secondly, which is what concerns us

here, it warns us that the notions of ethics that we cherish may in fact be

smeared with a veneer of essentialism. Kafka presents us with four different

ethical positions, without justifying, privileging or endorsing any of them.

He seems to be suggesting that it is humankind which produced ethics and

not the other way round, and therefore that there can be no such thing as a

universal ethic valid for all times.

The question of ethics is an axial question as far as literature as a

praxis is concerned. Significant as it is, it is not a difficult or complex

question as long as we refuse to believe - like the philosophers - that there is

1 Franz Kafka. 1992 [1983]. ‘Prometheus.’ Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. In Kafka:

■y Short Stories, edited by Nahum N. Glatzer. London: Minerva, p. 432.

264
something essential or ontological about ethics. An ethic, which is primarily

meant to determine what is right and what is wrong, is historically produced.

We are concerned with this contingent phenomenon and not with the

question of what ethics should or should not embody. After all, an ethic is

susceptible to change and decay. It is not static^ frozen in time. A glance at

the way ethics has come to be appreciated since the European Enlightenment

- and even earlier - can amply demonstrate the discontents involved in our

synchronic understanding of ethics. Hegel believed that State represented the

fruition of ethical life. But the author of Discipline and Punish, and many of

his peers, beg to differ. There is no reason to privilege the one over the other.

The two positions are separated by Hiroshima, the holocaust, Heisenberg

and the Origin of Species. Hegel’s ethic cannot therefore be Foucault’s or

Badiou’s.

It will be a fruitful exercise to examine the explicit position taken by

Kerala literatures with respect to the rights and wrongs that govern love,

valour, piety, gender relations, sexuality, fidelity and a wide range of other

aspects of life. How did in the Krsnagatha differ from the one in

Candrdtsavaml What distinguished Pundanam’s bhakti from Melpattur’s? In

what ways did the relationship between Nala and Damayanti differ in Maia-

marigalam’s Naisadam Campu, Unnayi Variyar’s Nalacaritam Attakkatha

and Kunjan Nambyar’s Nalacaritam Tullall While these questions are

265
interesting in their own right, the present discussion will not engage with

them. We are on the other hand concerned with the larger modalities through

which ethics came to be articulated. This chapter will examine three such

modalities, viz., the body, the guru and lila or cosmic-play as an ontology of

the world. Lets begin with the body.

There is a puzzling stanza in the Harinamaterttanam, attributed to

Eiuttaccan.

aiyyahjumahjumudan aiyyarumettumudan

avvannamettumutan enmunnumelumatha

covvodoranjumapi randonnu tattvamadil

mevunna natha hari narayanayanamah2

Translated literally, it reads:

Five times five, and five, and with it five times six, and eight, and with it

Another eight, and with it eight times three, and seven as such

And rightly another five, and two and one elements, in this

You dwell, O lord, Hari Narayanaya namah

2 Harindmakirttanam 25.

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What do these numbers indicate? The Harinamakirttanam does not answer

this question. Five times five is twenty-five, and another five makes it thirty.

Five times six is thirty. Thirty and thirty, sixty, is added to eight and another

eight, making it seventy-six. To this is added eight times three, or twenty-

four, making the total one hundred. Adding seven and another five to it, we

reach one hundred and twelve. And then we are asked to add two and one to

it, which brings the final figure to one hundred and fifteen? These are

identified as the elements (tattva) in which Narayana dwells.

In his commentary on this stanza, G. Balakrishnan Nair suggests that

the aiyyaru in the first line must be understood as five and six, and not five

times six.3 If this is true, then the number is reduced from thirty to eleven,

and the final total from one hundred and fifteen to ninety-six. And it is

indeed true, for Balakrishnan Nair enumerates the ninety-six elements by

citing the authority of the Cintaratnam. The ninth section of the Cintaratnam

is reserved for explicating the ninety-six elements.4 Classifying them

according to the numbers obtaining in the above stanza from the

Harinamakirttanam, we have the following:

3RanJu Malayala Mamarakal: Harinamakirttanam, Jnanappana, p. 86.

4 Cintaratnam 281-354.

267
 Five times five and five, or thirty:

1. The five great elements (mahabhiitam): earth, water, fire, wind and space

2. The five organs of cognition (jnanendriyam): nose, tongue, eyes, skin and

ear

3. The five functions of the organs of cognition (jndnendriya-visayam): smell,

taste, form, touch and sound

4. The five organs of action (karmendriyam): mouth, hands, legs, anus and

genitals

5. The five functions of the organs of action (karmendriyavisayam): speech,

gift, movement, defecation and coitus

6. The five winds (pranan): pranan, apanan, vyanan, udanan and samanan

Five and six, or eleven:

1. The five sub-winds (upa-pranan): Nagan, Kurman, Devadattan, Dhanan-

jayan and Krkalan

2. The six spinal circles (satcakram or sadadharam): muladharam, svadhisth-

anam, manipuram, anahatam, visuddhi and ajna

Eight:

268
1. The eight drives (astaragam): passion (ragam), hatred (dvesam), desire

(kamam), anger (krodham), jealousy (matsaryam), love (mdham), greed

(Idbham) and conceit (madam)

Eight:

1. The eight modes of cognition (astakaranam)

a. The four inner modes of cognition (antahkaranam): mind (manas),

intellect (buddhi), consciousness (citta) and ego (ahamkaram)

b. The four forms of these inner modes: volition (sankalpam),

conviction (niscayam), conception (abhimanam) and determination

(avadharanam)

Eight times three, or twenty-four:

1. The three nerves (nddi): ida, pingala and susumna

2. The three realms (mandalam): the realm of fire (agnimandalam), the realm

of the sun (arkkamandalam) and the realm of the moon (candramandalam)

3. The three desires (esana): the desire for wealth (arthesana), the desire for

wives (daresana) and the desire for sons (putresana)

269
4. The three pollutants (dusanam): wind (vatam), bile (pittam) and phlegm

(slesmatn)5

5. The three qualities (gunam): sattvam, rajas and tamas

6. The three states [of awareness] (avastha): wakefulness (jdgrat), dream

(svapnam) and deep sleep (susupti)

7. The three bodies (deham): the gross body (sthulam), the subtle body

(suksmam) and the causal body (karanam)

8. The three lords of the body (nathari): Vis van, Taijasan and Prajnan

Seven:

1. The seven constituents (dhatu): skin, blood, flesh, fat, bones, marrow and

sperm

Five:

1. The five capsules (kosatn): the food-capsule (annamayam), the breath-

capsule (pranamayam), the mind-capsule (manomayam), the knowledge-

capsule (vijhanamayam) and the bliss-capsule (dnandamayam)

5 Also called kapham.

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 Two and one, or three:

1. The three fires (tapatrayam): adhyatmikam, adhidaivikam and bhautikam

These, according to the Cintaratnam, are the ninety-six elements

which constitute the human body. There are in fact only ninety-five, as one

of them, skin, is mentioned at two places, in the five organs of cognition and

the seven constituents of the body. It is in these elements, the

HarinamakTrttanam tells us, that Narayana dwells. As a matter of fact, this

list presents only an outline of the body. An entire section, the thirty-fourth,

is set aside in the Cintaratnam to describe the nadis, which we are told are

72,000 in number.6 Only three of them, ida, pingala and susumna, are found

in the list of the ninety-six elements.

This is one of the most complex descriptions of the human body

produced in premodem South Asia. We see the influence of several

traditions in this configuration of elements. Wind, bile and phlegm are

borrowed from the Ayurveda, and the six cakras come from tantrik and

siddha traditions which in turn were influenced by one of the six classical

darsanas, Yoga. The first twenty-five elements were common to several

6 Cintaratnam 1580.

271
traditions of the subcontinent from the Trika Saivism of Kashmir to the

Saiva Siddhanta of Tamilnadu; we know that they issued from another of the

sad-darsanas, Sankhya. Some of the constituents go back to the Upanisads.

Visvan, Taijasan and Prajnan, and jagrat, svapnam and susupti occur in the

Mandukya Upanisad, while the five capsules, annamayam, pranamayam,

mandmayatn, vijhdnamayam and anandamayam, are from the TaittirTya

Upanisad.8 What is intriguing, though, is the fact that this impressive

inventory is marshalled only to deny the ontological primacy of the human

body.

The rejection of the body was not a specific trait of Kerala texts like

the Cintaratnam and the Harindmakirttanam, but found across much of

south Asia. And in almost all cases, the justification was that the body is full

of undesirable substances like blood, flesh, phlegm, urine and shit, which

makes it despicable.9 In Eluttaccan’s words, “the body is a mass of filth,

consisting of urine, flesh and shit; the more one thinks about it, the more

wretched.”10 Nijaguna (ca. 1500), while endorsing this view, makes another

interesting argument in his Kannada work Paramanubhavabobhe. According

1 Mandukya Upanisad 3-5.

8 TaittirTya Upanisad 3.2-6.

9 See Devadevan 2009c for a discussion.

10 Adhyatma Rdmdyanam 3.289-90.

272
to him, sometime I say that “I am the body”, and at other times that “the

body is mine”. The latter implies possession, and we can possess only things

which are external to us; on the other hand, the former does not suggest

possession, but likeness instead. Surely then, there is some confusion here

about the status of the body, which, Nijaguna argues, is reason enough to

reject the body.11 On the other hand, Cidananda (ca. 1750), in his Kannada

text Jnanasindhu, presents us with a debate between the atman and the body,

which reads more like a master admonishing his benign slave and the latter

humbly conceding his inferiority.12

Denying the ontological primacy of the body in favour of the atman

was almost a stereotype. Nonetheless, it was unanimously held that the

atman was housed in the body and that the latter functioned as the abode

where the former resided. The Cintaratnam makes a distinction between the

temple (ksetram) and the body (gatram), and goes on to argue that atman

resided only in the latter. It is reasoned that the presence of atman produces

conscious-action (cesta), that the ability of the body to engage in conscious-

action is verily due to the presence of atman, and that if the atman resided in

11 Paramanubhavabodhe 3.3.2. See 3.1-8 for an extensive argument. Also see Devadevan

2009 for a critique of this argument.

12 Jnanasindhu 27.2345.

273
the temple, the temple would have been as consciously-active as the body.13

A similar distinction between the body and the temple can be seen in a

vaccina in Kannada found in sixteenth century compilations but popularly

attributed to the twelfth century saint Basava, where we are told that things

standing (sthavara) will fall apart, while the moving ones (jangama) will

not.14 The former refers to the temple, the latter to the body. The

Cintaratnam's disavowal of the temple is more convincing and offers what

can be seen as a refined version of the sthavara-jangama hypothesis, spelt

out in terms of the presence and absence of cesta, but the vacana is certainly

not making a case for the body, as it appears at the outset. More such

vacanas, singing praise of the body, can indeed be found from the extant

corpus, which exceeds 20,000 in number. Nevertheless, what is most

forcefully expressed in this corpus is an uncertainty about the ways of the

body, leading to a rejection of its ontological primacy. Cripple me, blind me,

deafen me, and place me at the feet of your saranas, says another vacana

attributed to Basava.15 Elsewhere in the corpus, we are told to worship the

13 Cintaratnam 1501-20.

14 Ramanujan 1973: No. 820 (p. 70) for the most popular translation of this vacana. Also

see the discussion of this vacana (p. 1-4), where Ramanujan engages in the most

untrammelled of over-readings.

15 Ibid., no. 59, p. 52.

274
lord before age, grey and death takes us.16 More ruthless is the treatment of

the body in the vacanas attributed to Akka Mahadevi. The body is dirt, we

are told,17 and after it has known the lord, who cares if the body feeds a dog

or soaks up water? All that perhaps matters is a prayer: O

Cennamallikarjuna, don’t say those you love have a body.19 Explicating the

wretchedness of the body was to become a favourite and indispensable part

of the ascetic lore of south Asia after the ninth century. Cidananda goes to

the extent of saying that the long association which the atman has had with

the body had made it as woe-begotten as the latter, though it remains

omnipotent enough to retain its resilience and inhibit the body’s

waywardness.20 Why, then, is the putrid body - and not the temple made of

impeccable marbles and granites - presented as the abode of the atmanl The

latter is certainly more enduring than the former, though frivolous

testimonies to the contrary are not unknown.

This position, ambiguous as it is, must be placed in the context of

contemporary notions of selfhood. The self, according to our authors, dwelt

16 Ibid., no. 161, p. 60.

17 Ibid., no. 12, p. 98.

18 Ibid., no. 117, p. 109.

19 Ibid., no. 157, p. 113.

20 Jnanasindhu 27.23-45.

275
in the polluting body, but remained immaculate even so. It was never one

with the body. It retained its distinction.21 What we see here is an insistence

that the self is too spotless to be rendered base and despicable by its

association with the crass material world represented by the body. The self

may inhabit the body and deliberate through the filth and refuse of the

material world, but it retains an incorruptible core whose essence is too

pristine to suffer any wound and scar on account of it unholy associations.

The fantastic description of the body with its ninety-six primary elements

and countless secondary ones - like the 72,000 nadis - is among the most

solemn of attempts to underwrite the sublimity of the self which was

believed to the stainless no matter how complex and convoluted the body’s

constitution was. It is perhaps for this reason, and perhaps for this reason

alone, that the Jndnappana of Pundanam tells us that the attainment of

mukti does not warrant any sacrifice, any exertion, any prayer, any study of

the vedas, or birth in a high caste. All that is required is a mere utterance of

the lord’s name. And it is not necessary that the utterance be conscious and

systematic. It can be uttered unconsciously, either in a dream, or on behalf of

someone else, or even while mocking at others, which is exertive enough to

ensure liberation!22

21 Adhyatma Ramayanam 3.640-41, 3.673-77,4.737-38.

22 Jndnappdna 341-58.

276
 How could liberation come about so easily and so effortlessly, unless

the aspiring self was truly unblemished, and in that sense, already liberated?

This new self was the real author of the amazing body with its ninety-six

elements, a body which was produced with so much of passion and so much

of care, but only to be rejected as putrid and disgusting. Should we then not

be asking if the rejection of the body was indeed a rejection? Wasn’t it more

the ruse of a new self?

Whatever it really represented, the wretched body was not without

its antithesis in Kerala literatures. In the six centuries between Devan

Cirikuman and Irayimman Tarnbi, poet after poet explored the possibility of

representing the body as the foremost metaphor of beauty. This, needless to

say, was the result of the body being the ultimate form of possession. To

own a body is something which differs fundamentally form owing a house,

possessing a piece of land or acquiring an object of desire. For, unlike these,

the body is not merely a source but also the destination of desire. The

libidinal experience can have its source in an object external to the body, but

the experience itself is sensory and therefore primarily a bodily experience,

which makes the body “the mirror of our being,” as Merleau-Ponty puts it.23

23 Merleau-Ponty 1962: 171.

277
This mirror kept reflecting almost endlessly in the literatures of premodem

Kerala. Thus, if the representation of the body as “a mass of urine, flesh,

shit, bowels and filth” was one face of reality,24 there was also another face,

which made the poet say that if the setting sun and the rising moon - both

red in colour - came together, they can be compared with a woman’s breasts

smeared with saffron.

udayati sasibimbain kantamanticcuvappil

paramiti ravibimbcun cenritastam prayati

ubhayamidamurummikkudukil kunkumardram

kucayugamupamikkam nunamaccisutayam25

The body that we see here is a libidinal refuge, and this body as refuge

stands in striking contrast with the body as refuse discussed above. That the

desire for the body, when reified and transformed into an ethicalized object,

can be a libidinal, aesthetic and semantic force to reckon with is amply borne

out from the literary corpus under examination. The famous ‘Rasakrlda’ in

Cenisseri’s Krsnagdtha serves as an example. A direct relationship is

24 “mutramamsamedhydntra pudgala pindhamakum gatram,” Adhyatma Ramayanam 1.3.

289-90.

25 Ceriyacci 6.

278
established here between libido and the body as its source. The gopikas

(cowherd girls) in Gokulani are drawn towards Krsna merely by his

presence, by the aura of his body, rather than by any conscious act on his

part to sexually arouse them. The girls begin to slowly drink the ambrosial

charm of his lotus-face, which stimulates their sexual desire.

karvarnnantanmukha pankajam tangale

davunna lavanya piyusatte

kankondu kdrikkudiccu tudanhinar

mangamarellaruin mellemelle

komalamdraya kaminimdrmeyyil

kolmayirkondu tudahmdappol26

If libido is as biological as hunger, digestion and the secretion of

adrenaline, the desire for the body is historical. It arises - like state and

private property - at a specific historical juncture. The forms which it takes

is also similarly conditioned, for they are contingent on historically deter­

mined selfhoods. Thus, the romantic self in Cerusseri has enough support

from an erotic self to speak of the fire of desire (kamagni) in the gopikas and

of Krsna’s ambrosial charm which extinguished it and cooled the girls.27

16 Krsnagatha 1.16.89-91.

27 Ibid., 1.16.92-93.

279
And Cerusseri being Cerusseri, we are not told that the girls stripped or

stood naked. We instead have some delightful visuals, like the breast-cloth

tearing apart on its own and the waist-cloth slipping down as the girdle

breaks.28 But the erotic self never asserts like the one in UnnunUisandesam

to talk about “tasting the crimson, pearly lips on and on,”29 let alone paint

unrestrained pictures of lovemaking as in Candrotsavam or Malamanga-

lam’s Kodiyaviraham.

The representation of body as refuge generally took recourse to

similes, metaphors and other figures of speech. Thus, STta’s eyes are lotuses

and her smile, the moonlight.30 Damayanti is one who can be compared to a

piece of fragrant gold!31 Vedavalli’s face resembles the moon.32 Kaunott-

ara’s hair looks like a swarm of bees.33 It is not hard to multiply such

instances. Lotus, bees, moon, gold, resplendence - these were of course

conventional tropes used in poetry for centuries. But there was also another

convention, in which all these tropes figured at the same time to offer a

28 Ibid., 1.16.100-01.

29 “arunamaniva kondukond," UnnunUisandesam 1.1.

30 Ramacaritam 112.1227.

31 “hemamodasamd,” Nalacaritam Attakkatha Day 1. Song 8.

32 Daksaydgam Attakkatha Song 2.

33 Kaunottara 1.7.

280
complete picture of the body. This was the kesadipadam or hair-to-toe

description. This involved sensuous descriptions of each part of the body -

often of a deity - from hair (kesa) to feet (petda). Melpattur’s Narayamyam

ends with a kesadipadam of Krsna. There is the hair with mandara flowers

and a plume of peacock feathers in it; then there are the eyes with brows

resembling the waves in an ocean, and with eyelashes and pupils resembling

the petals of a lotus; then follows the face with lovely nose, emerald-like

cheeks, ears with ornaments and lips resembling rubies, behind which are the

two rows of teeth. The description goes on in this fashion, till we come to the

feet, which is the refuge of those who are released from all bondages.34 The

description of SIta’s body in Punam’s Ramdyanatn Campu is another fine

instance of kesadipadam. The Cellumathastavam, a short poem of thirty-

seven stanzas, is a kesadipadam of Siva. It begins with the waning moon of

Siva’s hair, and goes on to describe his meditation, his matter hair, the skull-

garland, Ganga, the hair again, the lord’s third eyes, his begging trips, the

eyes, nose, ears, dress, the serpent on his throat, his smile, his speech, the

lustre in his face, its grace, the venom in his throat, the neck, the deer in his

34 Narayamyam 100.2-10.

35 Ramayanam Campu 5, Prose 6.

281
hand, the hands, bosom, knees, legs, feet, heels, the big toe and the other

toes. 36

It is possible to identify three distinct approaches to the body as

refuge in Kerala literatures. The first one, mostly found in the acci-centered

Manipravajam texts and the works of Maiamangalam, equates the body and

its libidinal faculty with the self. To be in the world is to be and live a body.

Other shades of the self - if at all the poet acknowledges their existence - are

only incidental and hardly of any consequence for the life-world represented

in these works. Unniyacci’s participation in the astami vela festival at the

Cadaittambiran temple plays hardly any role in the life she otherwise leads.

The second approach, a relatively measured one as it were, treats the body as

one of the constituents of the self. But it is not the sole constituent. Nor need

it be the predominant one, which it indeed oftentimes is. The kesadipadam

of SIta in Punam’s campu,37 when placed along side the other representa­

tions of STta in the same text, brings this emotionally vibrant self to light.

The third approach, deployed exclusively for gods, appreciates the body as

something apart from the self. The god is formless, and therefore bodyless.

He - and at times she - produces the body in which dwells, but never loses

36 Celliimathastavam 1-37.

37 Note 35 above.

282
himself into the body or become one with it. The self represented here is one

in the constitution of which the body plays no role at all.

The body, as the above discussion suggests, was a disputed ethical

site, as it were. It was appreciated at times as a refuge of pleasure and bliss,

while at other times it came to be looked down upon as a refuse incapable of

producing anything more than shit, bile, phlegm and urine. The politics of

ethics occupied a fragile space between the two hostile positions. Not all

ethical sites faced a similar dilemma, though. There were some, which

enjoyed universal approval. The figure of the guru was one of them.

The guru is a major presence in most devotional works from Kerala.

Pundanam’s Jnanappana begins by invoking the guru.

gurunathan tunaceyka santatam

tirunamannal navinmeleppolum

piriyadeyirikkanam nammude

narajanmain saphalamakkiduvan38

The human life attains fulfillment only by regularly chanting the sacred

names of god. The poet requests the teacher to constantly help him in

38 Jnanappana Lines 1-4.

283
accomplishing it. In the Harinamakirttanam, we find the poet seeking the

guru's support for reciting the poem, and for securing the consent of the

gods and the brahmanas for chanting it.

harinamakTrttanamiduraceyvadinnu guru-

varufale devagalumarul ceyga bhusurarunn39

The poet shares an intimate relationship with his guru, NUakanthan. The

guru resides in his mind.

anbenamen manasi srmilakantha guru-

vambhoruhaksamiti valttunnu ndnumiha0

The guru appears in the Adhyatma Ramayanam as the one whose

compassion leads to the realization of the supreme.

gurukarunya mitrtti paraman parabrahman41

39 Harinamakirttanam 5.

40 Ibid., 5.

41 Adhyatma Ramayanam 1-156.

284
The gum is the one who awakes the poet to the fact that the story of Rama

constitutes the vedas.

vedamennallo gurunathan tan arul ceydu.42

Eluttaccan tells us that serving the guru is one of the first requirements for

realization.

bhakti kaikkondu gurusevayum ceydu41

One of the distinct attributes of the supreme god - Rama in the present

instance - is that he is also the teacher of the universe.

sakala caracara guruvay maruvTdum

bhagavan tanikkoru guruvay camanmdwn44

Similarly, Siva, who is the supreme god in Niranattu Raman’s

Sivardtrimahat-myam, is also the guru of all that stands or moves.

42 Ibid., 1.50.

43 Ibid., 3.653.

44 Ibid., 1.759-60.

285
 sankaranangaja vairi purari

caracaraguru...45

Raman seeks the blessings of all the gurus and, seers like Vyasa in

composing his work.

bata gurunathanmararividiya

vedavyasadigalumenikki-

nmtisukhamdy nalgTduka varamidi-

nanaya mama patakamidu connaf6

The Payyannur Pattu commences with the worship of the teachers.

gurikkelkku gurudeksana veccu

gurikkelappujippikka41

Invoking the teacher in the beginning is commonly seen in many

performance forms. The Kaduvanurviran Torram is a good example.

navil vannu vasikkanam gurubhutarum devagaf48

45 Sivaratrimahatmyain 1.

46 Ibid., 2.

47 Payyannur Pattu Prologue.

286
The ‘Navavandana’ of the Purakkali begins with the acaryavandana.

Twenty-one teachers, beginning with parabrahma and the five letters (na-

mah-si-va-ya) are invoked here. The teachers include Indra, Mitra, Vasistha,

Valmlki and Vyasa.

vandanamarahhagattu

parabrahma gurupadam hart

aksaramahjiun pinne

siksayil murtti mimnum

kavigal rartdinodu

mannanum devarkonum

mitranum vasisthan tanwn

valmiki vedavyasan

ippadiyekamodu

vimsati gurupadam nan

tappade namiccu rande

taram taram vandanakkay49

48 KaduvanarvTran Torram Invocation 3.

49 Navavandana 1-12.

287
The ‘Cidambaracaritam’, performed during the Purakkali, commences by

invoking the guru, along with Ganesa, Sarasvatl, Krsna, Subrahmanya, Siva,

ParvatT, Brahma and the other gods.

madikaladharanude tirumaganayoru

karimukhanagiya ganapatitanum

madimukhimdrmani bharatidevi

madhumathanan guru vatumukhamudayon

vidhukalasekharanum malamatum

vidhimukhadevagal devanmdrum

caturatanalkuka mama manadaril

earn cidambaracaritamuraippan50

The poet urges “all the beloved teachers” to free his poem from flaws.

tirttarulenam pilagalasesain

istanmaram guruvararellam51

Several works from Kerala present poetry as contingent on the

teacher’s grace. The parrot which recites the story in Kunjan Nambyar’s

Panca-tantram Kilippattu begins by seeking the blessings of “my

50 Cidambaracaritam 1.

51 Ibid., 3.

288
teachers”,52 In the Srikrsnacaritam Manipravalam, it is the support of

Ganesa, Sarasvati and the teacher that Nambyar seeks in the very first

stanza.

ganapati bhagavanumabjayoni

pranayiniydgiya devi vanitdnum

gunanidhi gurundthanwn sadd me

tunayaruliduga kdvyabandhanarttham53

The guru also figures in the beginning of Nambyar’s Sivapuranam along

with Ganesa, Sarasvati, Brahma, Krsna, Siva, ParvatT, LaksmI, Vyasa,

Valmlki and others.

varanavadananum vaniyum viriricanum

karanapurusanam karmugilvarnnan tanum

mdravairiyum devi mamalamagal tanum

varijadhivasayamindiradevi tanum

vyasanutn valmikiyum bhiisurasresthanmarwn

vasavan tanum pinne vanavar kadambavum

sasitavaya gurunathanum mama hrdi

bhasanam ceyditlenam nanida vananhunnen54

52 “ennude gurukkanmar,” Pahcatantram Kilippattu Prologue Line 14.

33 Srikrsnacaritam Manipravalam 1.1.

289
In the Syanamtakam, Nambyar says that serving the guru an fetch a place

for us in the abode of the gods.

guruparicaranam kondu labhikkam

suravaramandiravasam polum55

Melpattur transforms everything in the world into a guru from which he has

something to learn. If the god-compassionate makes up his mind, anything

can turn into a source of learning.

tvatkarunye pravrtte ka iva nahi gurur

lokavrtte pi ‘bhiman56

The earth teaches patience, the wind detachment, and the sky-teacher

(gaganaguru) immanence.57 Water teaches purity, fire omnipresence, and

the sun and the moon changelessness behind the shifting hues and shades.58

54 Sivapuranam 1.1-10.

55 Syamantakatn 106-07.

56 NdrdyanTyam 93.3.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid., 93.4.

290
The hunter, the python, the ocean, the fly, the beetle,59 the elephant, the bee,

the deer, the fish, Pirigala the courtesan, the pelican,60 the child, the virgin,

the artisan, the snake,61 the spider, the hornet, and the body which teaches

renouncement by reminding us of its ultimate fate of ending up as filth or

ash are all transformed into teachers. Perhaps the most moving account of

the guru-sisya relationship from Kerala is the story of Melpattur curing his

teacher of paralysis by taking the disease upon himself.

This reverence for the guru is seen in the literatures of Kerala with

increasing frequency between the fifteenth and the eighteenth century. What

we come across is an intimate relationship between the teacher and the

disciple. The teacher is not merely a source of learning. His duties do not

cease as soon as the student is rescued from ignorance (avidya). He remains

with the student all through, and even partakes of the latter’s experience of

liberation. It is not possible to attain liberation without the guru. As

Melpattur puts it, the guru and the sisya form the lower and the upper ones

of the two fire-woods respectively, which rub against each other to produce

59 Ibid., 93.5.

60 Ibid., 93.6.

61 Ibid., 93.7.

61 Ibid., 93.8.

291
the fire of knowledge that destroys the forest of ignorance before finally

subsiding in the brahman.

acaryakhya dharastharanani samanumilacchisyarupottarara-

nyavedhodbhdsitena sphutataraparibodhagnina dahyamane

karmalTvasandnatkrtatanubhuvanabhrantikantarapure

ddhyabhdvena vidhyasikhini ca virate tvanmayf khalvavastha.6i

This cannot be seen as an inherent trait of asceticism in South Asia. Some of

the oldest works on asceticism from the subcontinent present no signs of

such intimacy. In the Prasno-panisad, for instance, the relationship which

Pippalada shares with his six students is highly formal. One may even call it

mercenary. Having learnt the knowledge of brahman, the students pay

tributes to Pippalada - in words and kind - and leave him without cherishing

any emotional bonds. No residues of intimacy are left behind. We never

come across any attempt to establish an enduring bond between the guru and

the sisya.64 This seems to have been the case at least till the early second

millennium CE. In the absence of any serious study, it is difficult to say

when, why and how the practice of configuring the guru-sisya relationships

63 Ndrayarnyam 94.2.

64 We are discussing the relationship involved between the teacher and the aspirant disciple

in ascetic practices and not the formal gurukula education during brahmacarya.

292
in intimate terms gained currency. All that can be said is that it was well

known by the end of the twelfth century when the forebears of the later day

VTrasaivas began to represent themselves as being protected by the eight­

fold armours (astavarana) beginning with the guru.65 As far as this writer

can trace, the earliest expression of the new chemistry between the teacher

and the student goes back to the Mantrayana school of Buddhism in Tibet.

The story of Naropa’s (ca. 1016-1100) passionate engagement with his guru

Tildpa (ca. 988-1069) seems to embody the first known instance of its kind.

Naropa’s patience and conviction about the infallibility of Tilopa makes him

endure a number of recurring ordeals which the latter expects him to

transcend. Naropa, nevertheless, remains unshakable in his reverence for his

guru. As intense as this was the relationship which Milarepa shared with

his teacher Mar-pa, who was the greatest of Naropa’s students.67 This new

ideal seems to have soon found its way into Nepal from where it was carried

to the north Indian plains perhaps by the natha (kanphata or barapanthi)

yogis. Gorakhnath (Goraksa), to whom the founding of the natha tradition of

65 The eight armours are guru, linga, jahgama, pddddaka, prasada, vibhuti, rudraksa and

mantra. For a discussion, see Nandimath 2001: 326-32.

66 On Naropa, see Guenther 1995.

67 On Milarepa, see Evans-Wentz 1950.

293
asceticism is attributed, is said to have shared a close relationship with his

guru Matsyendra.68

The position which guru enjoyed in the literary corpus under

examination was ethically far-reaching, if not decisive. What it involved was

a displacement of agency (kartrtvam) and action (kriya). The self freed itself

from the burden of agency and action by investing them in the guru, who,

though real, functioned as an abstract figure-head as far as the dynamics of

this displacement were concerned. What remained was the act - without the

intentional component - and the result, both of them designated as karma.

But the karma question became less and less troubling over the centuries,

particularly after the fifteenth century, when many new techniques - like

listening to the Ramayanam or the story of Nala, or the chanting of god’s

name even unconsciously - were invented to secure liberation. The figure of

the guru and its avowed relationship with the self enabled the transformation

of agency and action - which were functionally real though conceptualized

as having been displaced - into a ritualistic, recursive, and therefore non­

existent form, making the seifs powers of volition ethically redundant. The

displacement of agency and action - which was more of a deferral than

displacement - had a historically significant outcome. It released the self

68 Briggs 2007: 229-34.

294
from the question of responsibility. The self engaged in duty (also called

karma), but without being responsible or answerable to anyone. It produced

knowledge and beauty, wielded authority, created wealth and longed for the

realization of brahman, all for their own sake and not because the self

nurtured a sense of responsibility. It should therefore not be surprising that

no Indian language had an equivalent for the word “responsibility” in its

vocabulary, till words like uttaravadittvam, cumatala, zimmedari, javabdari,

honegarike and so on were coined or appropriated in the colonial period to

signify it.

Invoking the guru was one way of transcending responsibility. There

were perhaps many other ways of doing it. One of them is of particular

interest to us. This was lila (Skt. Ida), or the concept of a cosmit play as

constituting the universe.

Lila was a worldview, or more appropriately, an ontology of the

world.69 It described the world as a play of the supreme self or brahman,

69 Ontology, inasmuch as it is concerned with the question of being, offers a synchronic

description of the world, in which the diachronic, narrative elements are only different

shades of, and metaphors for, the recursive, constant synchrony. Worldview on the other

hand is one in which this relationship is inversed. It is diachronic - with its own narrative

295
variously identified as Rama, Krsna, Siva, Visnu etc. Whether or not this

supreme self was endowed with essential attributes (guna) was of course a

theological question often debated.70 But its ability to orchestrate the cosmic

play, either consciously or through the mediation of sakti or maya, was

widely accepted after the twelfth century, and more avowedly after the

fifteenth century. The visible and the invisible worlds which constitute the

universe were the unfurling of this play. The world did not exist as anything

other than the play. Thus, the supreme self was the cause of the world, either

because it created the world or because it formed the ultimate truth which

reflected in the form of the manifest world, like the city reflecting in the

mirror, due to maya.71

This description of the world goes back to the Sanskrit Bhagavata,

which was already compiled by the eighth century and which in its present

form is not later than the tenth century. The narrative mode of describing the

world in the Bhagavata received a measure of theological rigour in the hands

of Ramanuja (ca. 1017-ca. 1137), who made lila an essential component of

structures beginning with things like “In the beginning” and ending with the Judgement

Day, etc - which subsumes the synchronic element.

70 This refers to the saguna-nirguna debate.

71 The simile is from the popular Daksinamiirtti Stotrain 1 (“visvain darpana drsyamdna

nagari tulyam”).

296
his system. By the fifteenth century, this preserve of the visistadvaita was

appropriated by numerous schools of asceticism old and new, including

Saiva and Siddha traditions of tantrik origins. Its popularization in northern

India was due to the initiatives of Vaisnava schools of devotionalism,

particularly the ones associated with Vallabha and Caitanya. Thus, by the

early fifteenth century, it became possible for a poet like Kumaravyasa to

declare in his Kannada work Karnatabharatakathamanjari that the world

was a mere thread of lila,12 and that it was protected as lila by Visnu.73 This,

even when the structure of the narrative did not warrant it.

The importance which literary Kerala gave to lila becomes clear

from a mere count of the number of times the word occurs in leading

devotional texts. This will be an interesting exercise, because lila is, unlike

words like nan (“I”) and ni (“you”), not an expression widely found in

narrative texts or everyday conversations. As a common noun, its use is

restricted to specific events or situations. We cannot therefore turn a blind

eye to the fact that lila and its equivalents figure in the 112 verses of

Vilvamarigalam’s Srikrsnakarnnamrtam seventy times. Lila occurs at

72 “lilamatrasutra,” Karnatabharatakathamanjari 1.2.16.

73 Ibid., 3.7.22.

297
fourteen places74 and capalam eighteen times.75 We find vilasa on eleven

occasions76 and keif ten times.77 Four instances of vijrmbha,7* three of

ranjita, two each of vindda, krfda and utsava, and one each of
QA Of O/ on

ullcisa, lasya, rati and mudita make up the seventy. Equally

important, if less arresting, is the appearance of lila alone in Cerusseri’s

Krsnagatha on ninety-seven occasions, which means that it figures at least

two times on an average in each of its forty-seven cantos.88

74 SrTkrsnakarnnamrtain 1,12, 21, 34, 35,45,46,47,49, 51, 55, 81,106 and 110.

75 Ibid., 20, 31, 32, 35 (2 times), 40, 46 (2 times), 61, 65 (2 times), 74 (2 times), 101 (2

times), 105, 106 and 109.

76 Ibid., 4 (2 times), 27, 32, 47, 57, 66, 73, 79, 86 and 102.

77 Ibid., 20, 26, 38, 39, 60, 74, 78, 79, 80 and 103.

78Ibid., 6, 7, 96 and 111.

19 Ibid., 8, 10,91.

80 Ibid., 15 and 58.

*' Ibid., 15 and 21.

82 Ibid., 42 and 69.

83 Ibid., 9.

84 Ibid., 22.

85 Ibid., 51.

86 Ibid., 73.

87 The poet, Vilvamangalarn, had the personal name - or penname - Lilasukha.

88 Krsnagatha 1.1.19, 1.1.25, 1.1.357, 1.2.67, 1.2.123, 1.2.127, 1.3.32, 1.3.193, 1.3.473,

1.4.1, 1.4.27, 1.4.88, 1.4.99, 1.4.153, 1.4.176, 1.4.181 (2 times), 1.4.199, 1.4.216, 1.5.130,

298
 This spectre was not without its impacts on the narrative. In

Eluttaecan’s Adhyatma Ramdyanam, Rama makes STta vanish into fire, and

installs a fake STta (mayasfta) in her place, just before Ravana arrives to take

her away.

ravanavicestitamarinnu raghunathan

deviyodarulceydanekante kante kef nt

raksondyakan ninnekkondupovadinippdl

bhiksurupena varumandike janakaje

niyoru karywn venamadinu madiyade

mayasTtayepparmasalayil nirtudanam

vahnimandhalattihgal marannu vasikka nf

1.6.5, 1.6.22, 1.7.12, 1.7.33, 1.8.18, 1.10.14, 1.10.41, 1.10.106, 1.12.2, 1.15.6, 1.15.128,

1.15.181, 1.15.714, 1.16.167, 1.16.181, 1.16.189, 1.16.233, 1.16.244, 1.16.301, 1.16.320,

1,16.326, 1.16.358, 1.16.399, 1.16.414, 1.16.452, 1.16.541, 1.16.579, 1.16.608, 1.18.17,

1.18.41, 1.18.131, 2.19. 114, 2.19.138, 2.19.146, 2.19.200, 2.19.218, 2.19.220, 2.19.230,

2.19.243, 2.19.305, 2.22.10, 2.24.1, 2.24.577, 2.24.585, 2.24.598, 2.26.30, 2.26.191,

2.27.39, 2.28.8, 2.29.14, 2.32.93, 2.34.27, 2.35.66, 2.36.149, 2.39.46, 2.39.48, 2.39.62,

2.39.148, 2.39.173, 2.39.253, 2.39.265, 2.42.94, 2.42.152, 2.42.349, 2.44.2, 2.45.8,

2.45.13, 2.46.9, 2.47.190, 2.47.559, 2.47.563, 2.47.706, 2.47.776, 2.47.793, 2.47.805 and

2.47.810. Besides, Ifla appears as suffix of prefix in the names of five gopikas: LTlavati

(1.16.286), SangTtallla (1.16.291), Anandallla (1.16.292), Pankajallla (1.16.299) and KTla-

lallla or AlolaMa (1.16.306).

299
 dhanye ravanavadham kalwnukuduvdlam

asrayasankalordndirunnidenain jaga-

dasrayctbhute site dharmmaraksarttham priye

ramaccmdrokti kettu janakTdevitdmim

komalagatriyaya mdydsltaye tattra

parnnasdlayilakki vahnimandhalattihgal

cennirunnidu mahavisnumayayumappol89

The result is that the great battle of Lanka is fought and Ravana killed not

because Rama nurtured any grievance against the demon. There should be

no grievance at the loss of a fake entity. The battle is enacted only as an

unfurling of Rama’s lila, for aren’t the brothers Rama and Laksmana here on

earth to play their //7a, to create, preserve and destroy, to protect the devout

and to release the earth from its burden, as Hanuman realized in his very first

meeting with the borthers?

nunam pradhanapurusanmar mayaya

manusakarena sancarikkunnidu

lilaya bhubharanasanarttheun pari-

palanattinnu bhaktanam mahltale

vannu rdjanyavesena pirannoru

punyapurusanmdr purnnagunavanmar

89 Adhydtma Rdmdyanani 1.3.1263-76.

300
 karttum jagatsthitisainharasargganna-

ludyatau IJlaya nitya svatantranmar90

Ravana is very much aware of the fate which awaits him if he kidnaps Sita.

But then, he is only all-too-eager to meet his end in the hands of no less a

person than Rama, the cause of the universe.

srTndrdyanasvdmi paraman paramatma-

tanaravindddbhavan tannodu satyam ceydu

marttyandy pirannennekkolluvan bhaviccadu

satyasankalppanaya bhagavan tanengild

pinneyavvannamallennakkuvandidredd91

The demon-sage Marlca is also keen on appearing before Rama as a deer, so

that the death caused by the latter’s arrow will ensure a place for him in

heaven.

ennadukettu vicariccidu maricanum

nannalla dustay udhamerru niryanam vannal

cennudan narakattil vinudan kidakkanam

punyasancayamkondu muktandyvarumallo

ramasayakamerru mariccalennu cinti-

90 Ibid., 1.4.65-72.

91 Ibid., 1.3.1227-31.

301
 ccamodam pundu purappettalumennu connan92

Far more interesting is Kamsa’s behaviour in the Bhagavatam Kilippdttu

attributed to Eiuttaccan. Here, Kamsa learns about his previous birth as

Kalanemi, the demon, and his death at the hands of Narayana. He also

realizes that his present birth is destined to encounter the bliss of being killed

by Krsna. He is not patient enough to wait for the great moment. He wants to

hasten the encounter, and this is possible only by harassing the virtuous ones

and multiplying the weight of his sins!

munnam nan kdlanemiyennoru daiteyana-

kunnadu ndrayananannenne vadhiccadum

innippol bhojendrandy vannulanayorenne

konmduvadinnakhilesvaranivideyum

pannagasanadhvajan tdnoru manusyanay

vannavadariccidumennu kefkkayum ceydu

tantiruvadiyenne konnaruliyal sarvva

bandhavumolimu kaivalyavum prapiccidatn

bandhavumadinnu ndnippole sadhukkafe

ssantatam dvesikkile vannanubhaviccTdu93

92 Ibid., 1.3.2141-46.

93 Bhagavatam Kilippdttu 10.1.375-84.

302
 Cosmic play was not the only sense in which Ilia was used. Being a
h
description of the world, it was also possible to deploy it for other purposed.

The lovemaking sport of the accis was frequently identified as Ilia.

Expressions like “the play of the breasts” (kucallld) and “the play of the

face” (mukhalTla) occur in the Ceriyacci.94 The lover in Uimumllsandesam

recalls the heroine’s tender breasts which he ones hurt playfully95 The

charms of Kaunottara’s body are arresting, while her kiss is like Ulatila-

kam, a playful vermillion mark on the forehead. LUatilakam, as we know,

was the title of a text on poetics, concerned almost exclusively with the

accis.

Deception (vahcana) was another trope in which the logic of lila

found its place. The anecdote of Siva, Parvati and Gariga with which we

commenced the previous chapter (on mimesis) is an instance of Ilia as

deception. Krsnadevaraya’s Telugu Amuktamdlyada begins with a similar

reference to deception. Here, Hari (Visnu) courts the earth-goddess Bhudevi,

94 Ceriyacci 8 and 27 respectively.

95 “lilaya plditam te nunnam munnain mukultamilain kortka,’’ UnnunUTsandesam 2.97.

96 “lUacetdramyahgi,” Kaunottara 1.14.

97 Ibid., 1.9.

303
but his wife Laksmi is not aware of it, thanks to Ananta, the great serpent,
qo
who shields it from her with his mighty hoods.

Describing the world as a cosmic play served two diametrically

opposite ends in Kerala during the period under discussion - complacency

and enterprise. The inaction which Pundanam prescribes in the Jnanappana

presents the past, present and future as a great drama of Krsna, in the

composition of which human beings play no part whatsoever. They only act

out the roles assigned them in a ritualistic, recursive manner. The future is

already known. Its trajectories have already been demarcated. The play will

open up itself in the fullness of time, like the morning lotus. Human

intervention is never destined to influence the will-power (icchasakti),

knowledge-power (jnanasakti) and action-power (kriyasakti) of the supreme

self which composes and directs this play. It is the fate of human beings to

remain complacent. Ramapurattu Variyar’s Kucelavrttam Vanjippattu is

another text which affiliates itself with the logic of complacency. Kucela,

Krsna’s school-mate in SandTpani’s asrama, is living a life of abject poverty.

His wife insists him to meet Krsna, who she believes will give enough gifts

to overcome their miseries. Kucela is reluctant. But he undertakes the

journey, carrying a handful of beaten rice - for he can afford nothing else -

98 Amuktamalyada 1.2.

304
to offer Krsna. He meets Krsna, but cannot make up his mind to make the

request or present the wretched gift he brought for him. Krsna however

discovers the beaten rice and eats it gladly. Kucela returns home empty

handed, only to find that his miserable little hut has been transformed into a

palace full of riches. The moral of the story is simple. Do not covet anything.

Be complacent. Things will happen on their own. For isn’t the great lord

who protects the three worlds aware of your plights?

\

Krsna, however, had something else to tell Aijuna in Ayyanappilla

Asan’s Bharatam Pattu. Here, Aijuna is reluctant to fight his kinsmen for

the sake of a piece of land. He wonders if the throne of Hastinapura is so

precious as to necessitate manslaughter on such a huge scale. Krsna consoles

him. I am the world, he says. I am birth, I and death, I am all that stands and

moves. Everything rests in me. Its not you who kills, nor is it they who die.

In the great cosmic drama, I am victory and I, defeat, I am the slayer and I,

the slain.

mannavanodura ceydu mukundan

vasavatanaya nfyudukejini

innakhilavumekapporujadu nan

iranam jananamirandum nane

ninna cardcaramddigalum nan

305
 nikhilavumengalamamnadumari ni

onninume khedikkadiri til

urrujayippadumavajayavwn nan

nanniyodehgaladakkamasesam

none kolvadukum cavadugutn."

Enterprise, then, is not an outcome of human volition. It is the will of the

supreme self which engages in its ceaseless lila.

Niranattu Raman shared this view. In his SivaratrTmahatmyam, he

told the story of Sukumaran, a brahmana youth given to a live of sensual

pleasures. He lives in the Kunjara country on the bainks of the Sindhu. His

days are spent mostly in making love with the women of the country. Unable

to put up with the thirst which their wives nurture for Sukumaran, the

husbands meet the king and the young man is exiled from the country.

Sukumaran takes a candala woman, with whom he lives a vicious life full of

lovemaking, and consumption of wine and meat, including the meat of cows

and human flesh, particularly the flesh of sages and brahmanas. In the course

of time, the candala woman delivers five children, all of them girls, who

grow up into beautiful women, only to commence a life of lovemaking with

their father. One fine day, when he is travelling, Sukumaran comes across a

99 Bharatam Pattu 6.2.2.

306
crowd, which he soon realizes is the procession of Siva on the Sivaratri

festival day. He looks at the image of Sivalihga for a moment, prays to it,

and resumes his journey. And he goes back to his old ways. But that single

moment on the Sivaratri day, when he stood praying, changed his destiny.

Upon his death, the servants of Yama, the god of death, arrive to take him to

hell, but Siva sends his gams who drive them away and take Sukumaran to

Kailasa, the abode of Siva! The world, as the poet Niranattu Raman saw it,

was a play in which any act of enterprise was ultimately the realization of

the supreme self’s will. The human self was not to be burdened with

responsibilities for its acts.

Both these tendencies - complacency and enterprise - were inherent

in the Sanskrit Bhagavata. The story of Kucela was in fact drawn from it.

And Sukumaran had his counterpart in Ajamila in the Bhagavata. Kerala

literatures explored the possibilities of both tendencies to the proverbial nth

core, to articulate the forms of ethics - of rights and wrongs - which the

historically entrenched selfhoods sought to produce, underwrite and nurture.

We must end this account of ethics here, although much more

remains to be said. It is true that our discussion has been terse and abysmally

inadequate. What should have ideally been a monograph each - or at least a

chapter each - on the body, the guru and lila has been reduced to a near

307
caricature. But our concern has not been with the body, the guru and Ilia per

se, but on their presence in the texts as modalities through which different

ethical positions were brought into effect and reinforced over the centuries.

We have discussed their role in determining the limits and expressions of

ethical life in Kerala since the early thirteenth century, and more decisively

after the fifteenth century. Of the three, the body alone survives to this day in

literary practices as a locus for articulating ethics. The formless body in

Ramakanta Rath’s Oriya poem Sri Radha100 and the body full of flesh and

sex in T.D. Ramakrishnan’s recent novel in Malayalam, Frdnsis Ittikkdra101

and Charu Nivedita’s Tamil novel Rasalila,102 are the ones which come to

mind immediately. The guru and lila have vanished. Among the last great

expressions of guru as a constituent of ethics were P. Kunhiraman Nair’s

poem “Kaliyacchan”103 and O.V. Vijayan’s novel Gurusdgaram,m both in

Malayalam. And the last earnest attempt to invoke lila as an ontology of the

100 Rath, Ramakanta. 1996. Sri Radha. Translated by the poet. New Delhi: Har-Anand

Publications.

101 Ramakrishnan, T.D. 2009. Fransis Ittikkdra. Kottayam: D.C. Books.

102 Charu Nivedita. 2006. Rasalila. Chennai: Uyirmmai Padippagam.

103 Kunhiraman Nair, P. 2009 [1954], “Kaliyacchan” in idem, Kaliyacchan. Kottayam:

D.C. Books.

104 O.V. Vijayan. 2005 [1987]. Gurusagaram. Kottayam: D.C. Books.

308
world was in Kuvempu’s Kannada play, Smasanakuruksetram, in which the

battle of Kuruksetra and the ensuing age of Kali figured as litas of Krsna.

Is the decline of the guru and lila related to the genesis of an

individuated, finished-product kind of self informed by the logic of the

commodity, a self which can appreciate its distance from the other only in

absolute and not relative terms, a distance where no overlaps between the

self and the other are possible, a distance which necessitates the forging of

relationships in the language of responsibility? It is a compelling question.

But the present status of our knowledge does not permit us to answer this

question.

309
 Chapter 7
Conclusion:
The Impasse of Theory

Literary practices appeared in Kerala nearly two thousand years ago

with the Tamil Ettutogai corpus in general and the Padirruppattu anthology

in particular. These works underwrote, inter alias, the ethics of heroism,

desire, loyalty and fidelity. Literature was informed by an aesthetic which

had its own notions of orality, writing and semantics. Settled life and

agriculture had already^ gained roots by them, but land management and

conscious production of surplus were still unknown. The state remained

many leagues away in time. Political life was organized around numerous

chieftaincies sustained by lineage ties, gift-making and raids of plunder. The

Colas of Puhar, Ceras of Vanji and Pandyas of Kudal (Madurai) wielded

considerable influence and were known as ‘the three rulers’ (muvendar).

Control and subordination were not determined by any clear sense of

hierarchy. Notions of territory had already developed, but they remained

general and universal. Land and the prosperity it brought forth was all that

310
mattered; the idea of possession and management of land - precipitated by

ownership or superior rights - was absent. It was perhaps not possible at this

early stage to generate a sense of territoriality based on a fascination for

specific localities and regions, for such a fascination was contingent not only

on the existence of private property in land but also on the presence of

regional and locality polities which practiced land management as one of the

vital concomitants of the political economy. Expansion of agriculture seems

to have been under way by the mid first millennium CE. By the fifth century,

it had become possible to refer specifically to Aparanta as a piece of land

reclaimed from the sea by Parasurama. This legend was until then directed

towards Surparaka (Sopara) in Gujarat. It was now being extended to other

parts of the west coast as well. Things had substantially changed by the

seventh century when Kerala came to be represented as a distinct territory

perhaps for the first time. The influence of the Sanskrit kavya-nataka and

itihasa-purana traditions were also felt by this time. Production within

Kerala of literary works affiliated to the kavya-nataka tradition commenced

in the early ninth century, perhaps with the now lost Unmadavasavadatta of

Saktibhadra. This was more-or-less coeval with the establishment of the

Perumaj state of Mahodayapuram. The Perumaj rulers did not patronize

Saktibhadra, though. (We do not know if he lived before the establishment of

the Perumaj state.) Nor did any of them, save Rama Rajasekhara (r. ca. 825-

844?) and Sthanuravi Kulasekhara (r. 844-ca. 883), encourage literature.

311
Rajasekhara and Kulasekhara extended this patronage to Vasudeva, who

wrote Tripuradahanam, Saurikatha and Yudhisthiravijayam in Sanskrit. Kul­

asekhara was himself an accomplished writer. He legislated a new practice of

temple-theatre in Kerala is also said to have commissioned the Vyangya-

vyakhya, a state-manual. The ninth century marked a new beginning.

Far more entrenched and consequential was the next phase of literary

practices which commenced in the early thirteenth century, nearly a century

after the fall of the Perumal state. It witnessed a number of experiments in

genre, theme, form, content, meters and modalities of circulation and

transmission. The mixed language-form of Manipravalam gained wide

popularity. Genres like campu, pattu, gatha, kilipattu, vanjippdttu and hatns-

appattu were deployed in poetry. Stories of Rama, Krsna, Nala, Damayanti,

Kucela, Siva, Parvati, the Pandavas, the kdvya-nataka and itihasa-purana

traditions were the most popular. Legends about the Parthasarathi temple of

Aranmula, Purrmatraylsan temple of Trippunittura, Vadakkunnathan temple

of Trssur and the Rajarajesvara temple of Peruncellur also captured the

Kerala poet’s imagination. Men from Kerala like Ramavarma, Udayavarma

and Mandappan, and women like NTlakesi, Unnunili, Medinl Vennilavu,

Ceriycci, Ilayacci, Uttaracandrika, KaunSttara, Unniyacci, Unniccirudevi and

Unniyadi inspired poetry. The Tamil bhakti texts and Kamban’s Ramdva-

312
taram were known in Kerala. Ilarigo Adigal’s Cilappadigaram might have

also been popular. Kalidasa and Mayura were widely read and admired. The

plays of Bhasa, Mahendravarman and Harsa remained choice items in the

Kerala state for centuries. Few poets could resist the influence of Ramayana,

Mahabharata and the Bhagavata, Sivapuranam and Skandapuranam were

the other favourites. Sanskrit works written in Kerala, like Sukasandesa,

produced commentaries, as did non-Kerala works like Mayura’s Surya-

sataka, Kalidasa’s Meghaduta, Mahendravarman’s Bhagavadajjuka, Rajase-

khara’s Karpuramanjari and other works like Bhagavata and Tripuropanisat.

Never once was commentary written for a Malayalam or a Manipravalam

work, though. After the sixteenth century new performance genres like

kathakali emerged while older ones like ottam-tullal crystallized into distinct

art-forms. The tradition of performing Sanskrit drama in the temple theatre

metamorphosed into a genre called Kudiyattam. Kottayattu Tamburan,

Unnayi Variyar, Kunjan Nambyar and others wrote texts meant specifically

for the new performance genres. State-manuals like attaprakaram and

kramadipika were brought into use. Poetics was also a subject of keen

interest. While Ulatilakam and Kavyollasa was the only independent texts an

poetics composed in Kerala, the works of Bharata, Bhamaha, Dandin, Kun-

taka, Anandavardhana, Abhinavagupta, Ksemendra, Ruyyaka, Udbhata and

others were widely read. Some of them, like Abhinavagupta’s Locana and

313
Mankhuka’s Alankarasarasarvasva were also commented upon. Samudra-

bandha’s commentary on Mankhuka shows his intimate familiarity with

similar works produce elsewhere, like the EkavalT written in the late

thirteenth century by Vidyadhara in Kalinga, and the PrataprarudrTya produ­

ced in the early fourteenth century by Vidyanatha in Andhra. Literatures were

written, read, recited taught, sung, memorized, criticized, commented upon,

performed and made over to posterity in numerous ways. Many texts,

particularly those associated with performance forms like teyyam, torram and

padayani were never committed to writing. They were periodically enacted

in the sacred groves. Literatures entered a stunning array of spaces: the royal

courts, temples, scared groves performance stages, hubs of urban hospitality,

scholarly rendezvous, the household, personal libraries, centers of learning,

kitchen, courtyards, the paddy-field and the ferry. It was as if life itself

unfurled as a great aesthetic enterprise.

An unavoidable question confronts us here: Why were these literatures

produced? What inspired the composition of literary works over such long

periods of time? The texts and oral traditions offer us a wide range of

answers, but only in relation to individual texts and not with respect to

entrenched practices extending over great historical ages. The Vaisikatantram

was a guide providing instructions to a young girl in the art of lovemaking.

The accfcaritams were commissioned by the hospitality industry to entertain

314
its clients. Niranattu Raman wrote the Ramayanarn to absolve himself of sin.

Clraman’s Ramacaritam was written for “the little people of the world”.

Ramapurattu Variyar’s Kucelavrttam Vanjippatfu was meant to be sung

while rowing a boat. Melpattur composed the Narayamyam to cure himself

of paralysis. Samudrabandha’s Alankarasarasarvasvavyakhya was aimed at

establishing the fame of its patron Ravivarma Sangramadhlra. Unnayi

Variyar’s Nalacaritam Attakkatha was written for the kathakali stage. And

the anonymous Anantapuravarnnanam cherished the desire of becoming a

flower dedicated to Pundarikaksa, the presiding deity of Tiruvanantapurarn.

Such were the “dynamics of creation” involved in the making of individual

texts.

It is clear that left to themselves, these avowed purposes share few

things in common. They instead awake us to the plurality of spaces,

temporalities, agencies and subjectivities which went into the making of

literature, a plurality which the capitalist world of writing-centered,

commodity-centered literature fails to take cognizance of. Plurality is no

reason, though, to make a case for a fragmented, disconnected, irreconcilable

or existing-for-itself order of things. Our study has shown that the plurality of

texts, practices, patronage and modes of circulation and reproduction did not

prevent them from sharing a common kernel. How, after all, can the plurality

of selfhoods and ethics precipitate practices that are not also plural?

315
Literature was constitutive of ethical authority - the authority to legislate

rights and wrongs, to produce the normative, to nurture it, transmit it and

bequeath it on to posterity. The accTcaritam was not merely meant to

entertain urban clients seeking hospitality. It involved a stunning display of

selfhood through a wide range of mimetic devices, and an articulation of

rights and wrongs by this selfhood as far as beauty, love and piety were

concerned. The Kecelavrttam Vanjippattu was not just another boat-song. It

claimed a literary status and was dedicated to its patron Marttandavarma. The

poet Ramapurattu Variyar borrowed a widely popular rags-to-riches story

from the Bhagavata and crafted it into a low-mimetic song which underwrote

the ethics of devotion, submission and complacency. The world, as the

Ramapurattu Variyar saw it, was a //7a, a play of Krsna. There was nothing

on earth or in the other worlds which had an ontological status distinct from

this unceasing cosmic play. In other words, action, inaction, enterprise and

complacency were all predetermined. There was no need, therefore, for the

larger multitude to act or embark on an enterprise because, it was impossible

to change or manipulate what was already destined to happen. Niranattu

Raman an the other hand invoked lila to endorse a diametrically opposite

ethic. The world was a lila, a play of the god, which meant that his prota­

gonist Sukumaran in the Sivaratri Mahatmyam had no misgivings about

anything in the world, including the sensuous pleasures of life involving

alcohol and adultery. He has no qualms in taking a candala woman for a

316
mistress or in making love with the daughters he sired through her. After all,

it was a play scripted in advance for which it was not possible to hold

Sukumaran guilty or responsible. Anything was permissible in Niranattu

Raman’s world.

We must now return to the question with which we began. Can we

theorize literature? Our investigation into the literary practices in Kerala has

shown that literatures emerge in the context of a territory, that the selfhoods

involved in them find expression through, among other things, a riot of

mimesis, and that these selfhoods produce the normative, the rights and

wrongs of the milieu, thereby constituting themselves into ethical authorities,

which often times - but certainly not always - are also political authorities.

This position raises a few uneasy questions. Are literatures inevitable - or

even necessary in the first place - for selfhoods to find expression or for the

constitution of ethical authority? Is literature the only - or at least the most

important - form of power which produces the normative and thereby

constitutes ethical authority? Did Valmlki have no other option other than

compose poetry to express his grief and resentment over the killing of the

crane? Is it not true that the praxis of ethics is as - or even more - effectively

accomplished through the temple, through pedagogy, through charity, law or

exemplary action? Surely, Gandhi’s exemplary life has had a greater

influence on the world than Tagore’s poetry. This is true not only of the

317
ethical dimensions involved in the production of literature, but also of the

avowed purposes behind the creation of individual texts. We know that

taking recourse to a text is a bad way of learning how to make love, and that

there are other time-tested remedies for paralysis them composing poetry.

What this indicates is that literature as a form of power is not unique,

singular or self-contained, and possesses no attributes that are missing in part

or in full in other forms of power. The emergence of ethical- and political-

authority is contingent not in literature per se, but on power. Literature is

only one of the many forms which power assumes. It is not an indispensable

form either. Nothing of what it accomplishes is truly distinct or irreplaceable.

It tells us expressly or tangentially what is right and what is wrong, but so

does law. It asserts the wonder-producing faculties of the self through a rich

pageant of mimesis, but so does dance. It exemplifies the normative, but

never as forcefully as pedagogy or exemplary action. It is also open to n-

hundred hermeneutic possibilities, but so is the Old Testament. Clearly then,

we cannot understand literatures in a way that is not at the same time an

understanding of temples or law or dance or pedagogy or exemplary action.

A theory of literature cannot be prevented from duplicating itself into a

theory of other forms of power, the difference being only one of details. If it

was literature’s forte to make ideology visible - as Althusser and his

associates believed - there is no reason why the same cannot be said of Ben

318
Hur, The Sound of Music and Ikiru. And if we swear by the “defamiliar­

ization” theory, we must be equipped enough to argue why it cannot be an

explanation for rituals or story-telling. The conclusion is obvious: a theory of

literature is simply impossible. It is a compelling conclusion because it is

made at the end of a methodical study of literary practices spanning over

several centuries and not from the “reading” of a text or two scribbled by

Balzac, Joyce and Baudelaire. Attempts to theorize literature are not bound to

succeed. Stanley Fish held that “even when they succeed (as they cannot help

but do), it will be in the narrow sense of having been faithful to their constra­

ining beginnings.”1 Cerusseri, Eiuttaccan and Kufijan Nambyar tell us that

the words in parenthesis need not be taken seriously.

This conclusion, and the premises upon which it is based, are of

consequences not only for the study of literatures, but also for the larger

hermeneutic concerns of the human sciences. They urge us to reconsider

many of the shibboleths which human sciences have accepted almost

uncritically in the twentieth century. That there is something called “culture”

which can measure the weight of Oresteia in ancient Greece and female

infanticide in modem Tamilnadu on the same balance is one such shibboleth.

1 Fish 1980: 110.

319
That archery can be understood without taking the archer and the arrow into

account is another. The craze for theory is no different.

It is more-or-less an accepted maxim today that theorizing is the only

way of producing valid knowledge about the human world. The validity of

the maxim itself has never been tested. It is assumed for no sustainable

reasons that the production of knowledge is contingent upon the production

of theory. We are told that a theory enables us to “decide whether or not

some newly discovered entity belongs to its domain” and to assign domains

through arbitration when such decision-making involves a conflict.2

“Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’.”3 Well? Theory,

then, is all about segregation, placing objects of inquiry in distinct, unique

and well-demarcated domains, where there are no possibilities of overlaps,

exchanges, similarities or spillovers of any kind. Ensuring sheer distinction

and difference is what this truncated approach to theory is aimed at. The urge

to theorize every object of inquiry is in fact driven by the urge to invest

everything under the sun with distinct and unalterable demeanors of its own.

Such an approach cannot but be truncated, which paradoxically enough, is ill-

at-east with what “culture” is believed to be representing. Should we then not

ask whether the ubiquitous category of “culture” stands for that universal

2 Balagangadhara 2005: 246.

3 Popper 2002: 37.

320
urge to particularize, the urge to differentiate, to break up and dismantle, and

to assign to every object its own space or domain where they will be

condemned forever to live a life of morbid self-assertion, nurturing

indifference - if not hatred - for the rest of the world?

The essentialism which functions behind the theory-bug is not free

from the effects of reification. It has its parallels in the unique-in-itself logic

of the commodity, and is clearly a classic instance of reification. More

dangerously, it is also in reified harmony with the rhetoric of ethnicity, caste,

religion, separatism, hatred-nationalism, fundamentalism and clash of

civilizations, which are all governed by the same logic of uniqueness and

ontological difference from the rest. What we see here is the infamous we-

cannot-live-together mentality in a thoroughly reified and therefore

unconscious form, reminding us of Octavio Paz’s Mexican who “shuts

himself off from the world: from life and from death.”4

We are not suggesting that difference is evil or that there are no

differences in the world. The existence of difference is what necessitates

theory in the first place. But the belief that theory alone can make knowledge

possible results in either affirming difference where they may not really exist,

4 Paz 1961:64.

321
or in abrogating the presence or possibility of similarities, exchanges,

interfaces and overlaps between different objects. A theory of the market, as

different from a theory of language or of asceticism is understandable. But a

theory of the market, distinct from a theory of money, commodity, trade and

inflation can only offer a tunnel-vision of the market. So also with literature,

when it is removed from others forms of power.

The moral of this study is that the production of knowledge -

knowledge about literature in the present instance - is not at the mercy of

theory. Theorizing as an academic enterprise has its palpable limits. Its

possibilities are not endless or extendable to every object of inquiry. At the

same time, these limits by no means exhaust the possibility of generating

valid knowledge about the human world. Inquiries that do not culminate in a

theory can be as fruitful, or even more meaningful than the ones which do.

The desire to theorize everything is not found to be issuing from an

examination of the possibility or otherwise of theorizing. It is an a priori

position, governed by the processes of reification in the capitalist world of

generalized commodity production. Its logic of uniqueness, distinction and

difference is also the one which informs the marketing of cars, cell-phone,

chocolates and condoms on the one hand, and the passions working behind

the rhetoric of ethnicities, hatreds and clash of civilizations an the other.

322
 Marx theorized j^he Capital. Saussure and Freud produced theories of

language and the unconscious respectively, no matter how unconvincing they

were. Not all objects of inquiry enjoy similar advantages. Literature certainly

does not. This is what the non-Balzacian, non-Joycean world of Kerala

literatures underlines. As a form of power, literature can at best figure

prominently in a theory of power without the benefit of doubt of being an

entity-in-itself. Unlike Saktibhadra’s Ascaryacudamani, which was oil

extracted from sand, theory is an oil which the sands of literature will never

generate. Our focus must therefore be on a theory of power rather than a

theory of literature. But thetri, is a theory of power possible? It is too early to

323
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