CHAPTER EIGHT

NATURE POETRY COMPARED

Sanskrit Poetry

A comparative study of Nature poetry in Tamil with English or European poetry, or even with Sanskrit poetry, cannot but take into account as a fundamental consideration, geographical nature as obtaining in the country where the poetry originated. In Europe, the writer has observed, even Nature has a certain aspect of sobriety and restraint. Her mountains are high and do inspire awe but they seem to soar even into dizzy heights according to an ordered plan and they seem to have been tamed by men; but the mountains of Southern India are covered with wild verdure and their physiognomy changes continually. European sunsets and sunrises are rosy or even blood-red, but the shade is always a suffused restrained red as seen in Fra Angelico's paintings or Turner's landscapes; but for prodigality of colour there is no sunset that can vie with a tropical sunset. In Europe, the landscape is sober; roses seem to bloom as they are told, not only in Germany but also in other European countries. Look at a landscape of Corot or the small patches of scenery that Raphael depicts in his earlier Madonnas and you find they have a calmness and an orderliness Tamil Naad landscapes do not possess. Here Nature's prodigality is seen in abundance, in luxuriance and in profusion. The trees, the flowers, the sunsets are a mass of colour. One poet compares the variety of flowers on Tirupparan-kunṛam to the colours of the eastern sky at sunrise. Everywhere there is profusion, riotous colour, abundance of life, and the reflection of Nature is seen in civilization, in poetry, and in the flamboyant saris women wear.

Since Nature is decorative and ornate in South India, South Indian art too, whether music or literature, architecture or painting, is embellished, meticulously adorned and analyzed to the last detail. The temples of South India furnish some