It is not unlikely that the form of the tree originally suggested the shape of the open umbrella, which is symbolic of sovereignty. In the panegyric poems, subjects are spoken of as being happy under the protection of the king’s umbrella. Consequently, the shade of the umbrella as much as that of the tree means benignity, kindness, favour, and grace.14 There is one poem which deserves notice because of the manner in which it proves to be a happy exception to the foregoing statements, and combines feeling for both warmth and coolness with a picturesque observation regarding rays of warm sunshine stored within the corolla of a lotus. The poet imagines a lover as speaking of his beloved.15 In the warm season she has the coolness of the sandal-wood of the mystic and inaccessible god-dwelling ranges of the Potiyil hills; in the season of dew she has the mild warmth of the deep recess of the lotus that folds itself at sunset having gathered within its bosom the tender shimmering sunshine. | (Kur; 376) |
The language of Tamil poetry is very sensitive to the physical sensation of pleasure caused by shady trees, and copses and groves. Tamil poets have consequently analysed the different kinds of shade which their landscape provided at different times of the year or at different times of the day. There is the thick umbrageous shade as thick as dense darkness itself; there is the “spotted shade” of the tree that lets sun-flecks in; there is the fine delicate tracery of the leafless tree of the desert which looks as if a net has been cast upon the tree itself. Then there is “the welcome shade”, the “tender shade”, the “thick shade”, the “inadequate shade”, the “cooling shade”.16 In the hilly region, the dense vegetation and large trees cause such cooling shade that entering a forest grove one feels as if entering the cooling waters of a pool. The mullai bowers of the pasture lands and the pergola in front of the houses of the marutam regions and the groves ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 14 Patir; 37, 10; Pari; 3, 74, 75; Porun; 148; Maduraik;168; Nar; 146. 15Kur; 376. 16 Kur; 123; Akam; 379; Porun; 50; Cirupaan; 12; Kur; 232; Kur; 338; Malaipatu; 46, 259 ff, 271. |