Dancers: viRali, basavi, devadasi

[N. Ganesan]

In the thread on viRaliyar dancing women of
the sangam literature, I quoted Prof. Dr. J.V. Chelliah
who made a detailed study and translation of
pattu-paaTTu (10 songs) of sangam literature.
"The songstress seems to have been quite naked, as otherwise
her whole body could not have been described."
(J. V. Chelliah, Pattupattu, SISS society, Madras, 1962, p. 55).
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0102&L=indology&P=R1709

Dr. V. J. Roebuck:
>Perhaps they were wearing diaphanous cotton garments, as we see in
>sculptures at Amaravati and elsewhere?

Though it's possible that they were wearing thin garments,
the poem does not explicitly mention cotton or garments.
In this highly polished poem, more likely is the mekalaa
girdle. Comparable is the Indian sculpture of dancers,
yakshis, ... where they are well adorned with jewelry,
yet their private parts are fully revealed.

Let us take an example where the words, 'alkul' or 'mulai'
is mentoned:

      izai aNi polinta Entu kOTTu alkul
      maTavaral uN kaN vAL nutal viRali

                                             - puRa. 89:1-2


   "Woman of the caste of bards! With your shining forehead
    and your eyes darkened by collyrium, with your simple
    simple manners and your sloping mons glowing with a
    string of pearls, ..." (p. 64, Hart-Heifetz translation
    of puRam, Columbia UP, 1999).

Professional experts like commentators and translators commonly
translate 'alkul' as mons pubis or Venus' mound. For instance,
"This seems to refer to the process of having attained
puberty, which was accompanied by aNaGku, the dangerous and
mysterious power, taking seat in the woman's in the woman's
breasts, and by the light-colored spots, termed cuNaGku
(cf. DED 2188 (a) yellow spreading spots on the body of
women, regarded as beautiful), appearing on the alkul
(Mons Veneris) and the breasts - the two parts of the
female body which obviously belong to the most exciting
erotogenic zones." (K.V.Zvelebil, The nature of Sacred
power in old Tamil texts, Archive Orientalni, 1979).

Few centuries after the sangam epoch, let me give
a translation of a poem where viRali dancer and the
heroine engage in suggestive, but inexplicit talks.
The prabandham is caGkara rAcEntira cOzan2 ulA:

  viRali dancer:
  "Is your waist not a serpent
   with its jewel that dispels the dark?"

  arivai:
  "O viRali, if this were so,
   would it let its jewels slip away
   when I bow to our king
     in this street covered with jewels?"

[Devadasi dancers go by the title,
cULai/sULe 'light, lustre, jewel' (cf. cULAmaNi/cUDAmaNi)
and maNikam 'ruby'.]

  viRali dancer:
  "Are those full breasts the hill of Agastya,
    who played at swallowing the roaring sea?

  arivai:
  "If that were so, would the sandal upon them
   burn and peel away
   when the south wind blows?"

(Couplets: 277-280, Translation by D. Shulman).

South wind is malayamArutam from malaya/potiyil.
UVS Ayyar writes Potiyil is Potalaka of Buddhists
in his puRanAn2URu edition.

For the early viRali dancers and their connexion to
devadasi institutions, Saskia Kersenboom,
S.C. Kersenboom-Story, "ViRali - Possible sources of the
Devadasi tradition in the Tamil bardic period",
J. of Tamil studies, No. 19, June 1981, p. 19-41.

Rajaraja Cholan I, convened 400 best dancers from his
kingdom and they were attached to his temple in Tanjore
around 1000 CE. All their names are recrded on that
temple's walls. Note that all their names start as
"nakkan2" (< Skt. nagna 'naked'), not a single devadasi
without nakkan2 in her name!

Regards,
N. Ganesan

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