A note on Poets in the Akananuru

[Jean-Luc Chevillard]

Dear S. Palaniappan,

once could also see it the other way round
and say that the group of poems under consideration
is what remains of a bigger structure
which may have contained Verse linked by Prose,
like what we have in the பாரத வெண்பா [pārata veṇpā],
உத்தியோக, வீடும, துரோண பருவங்கள் [uttiyōka, vīṭuma, turōṇa paruvaṅkaḷ]
as it was printed in 1925,
[patippāciriyaṉ: paṇṭita a. kōpālaiyaṉ].


Another possibility is to say
that the group of poems alludes, in a learned way, to local popular 
performances.

Think of what Gananath Obeyesekere writes on pp.605-606
in his 1984 book /The Cult of the Goddess Pattini/
(The University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-61602-9)

He writes
<QUOTE>
It seems apparent to me that most South Indian scholars are wrong when 
they assume that the ritual texts derive from the /Cilappatikāram/; the 
contrary is truer, that the /Cilappatikāram/ is a well-crafted work of 
art that uses material from a preexistent and coexistent ritual 
tradition. (p.605)
[...]
I agree with South Indian scholars like Dikshitar who state that Cāttaṉ 
narrated the events he actually saw (Dikshitar 1939, p.71), except that 
I think Cāttaṉ saw not a natural event but a ritual drama.! (p.606)
<QUOTE>

Regards

-- Jean-Luc Chevillard (Paris)

Le 4/18/2010 9:16 PM, Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan a écrit :
> [....]
> Although Puṟanāṉūṟu is an anthology of individual poems, as is well known, it includes what could be considered some series of poems from which one could construct stories of tragedies, the best being the story of Pāri and Kapilar in my opinion.
>