one par excellence. Describing the sudden change in a girl hitherto forlorn but now happy after her tryst with her lover, the poet says:19 Parched was she like waterless waste; ‘tis morning And behold her picturesque like land after rain.
| (Kali; 38, 11-12) |
And another compares a chieftain’s liberality to an unexpected shower of rain that bestows new life to cultivation on the mountains. The cloud is the symbol of beneficence. It gathers the waters of the ocean and sheds them on the land, as kings confer on their subjects the treasures gathered by the strength of their armies. The cloud gives its waters in abundance without reserving anything for itself and without any discrimination regarding the kind of land over which it rains. Likewise do kings and chiefs like Paari and Peekan who imitate its bounty20 Says a poet addressing a king : 21 With a cloud’s liberality you rained precious gifts thus extinguishing my summer heat. |
Another poet in an apostrophe to a dancing maid says: Tender maid, thy ear hath heard of greatness. Thy eye, however, hath seen it not. Shouldst thou yearn to see it, set forth So that the mountain breezes play through Your scented flowing tresses. Thus walk With dainty, plumed-peacock gait to see Aay The chieftain, liberal as the cloud. | (Puram; 133) |
Because water in itself is so precious for life and gives itself to everyone without distinction, liberality came to be signified by water as in the lines: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19 See also Nar; 22, 9-11. 20 Puram; 107; 142; 159; 15-20; 174; 24-28; Cirupaan; 124; Kali 57, 12. 21 Puram; 397, 16-18. |