adjoining the sea-shore, are frequently mentioned by the poets as the meeting places of lovers or of social festivities. Epithets expressive of refreshing shade and coolness occur wherever possible and with a frequency that denotes how welcome the shade was to people in the torrid zone. Even eyes of women are invariably compared to flowers or petals, especially of aquatic plants:

What is to be noted regarding the use of this epithet (ta–) signifying coolness is that it is not only prefixed to everything pleasant and welcome as in the expression “the cloud of refreshing sound,” but has been transferred even to what is dear and what claims loyalty such as language and country, as in the expression taṇṭamil.¹⁷

If drops of gentle rain that beat on the face are said to be one of the finest sensations of pleasure from Nature that one derives anywhere in the world, the sensation is certainly greater in the tropics. It is to this sensation which climate accentuates that one would like to attribute the many delicate references which Cankam poetry has to drizzling rain, to gentle raindrops, to the welcome patter of the rain on the roofs, to the spray from raindrops and even to the pearl-like drops of water resulting from the spray of the waves that break upon the shore.¹⁸

   It is again only in a climate such as that of India that the cloud would assume an importance and a significance that Shelley never contemplated, and rain would be the harbinger of new life. The sound of thunder before rain, the sight of rainclouds, the water-spout, the gentle drizzle as well as the torrential showers, are mentioned or described with the enthusiasm and pleasure that is understandable in people almost entirely dependent on the rain for prosperity. Not without justification did the Tamils name the raincloud e!ili,the beautiful

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¹⁷  Patir; 63, 9.

¹⁸  Kur; 5.