You are not one that gives or protects those who seek help; but neither are patrons wanting to those in need of succour. Learn then that there are those in want, and that there are those who meet their wants. The mighty elephant that I have tied to your “guarded tree” in the defence outside your castle, is a gift. O chief of the swift horse thus do I return.50
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To spite an enemy king, there was also the custom among victors of making use of the timber of the “guarded trees” of vanquished chiefs or kings, for the wooden part of the drums that were used by their armies in proclaiming their victories.51 Besides these “guarded trees”, the three kings of Tamil Naad, the Ceera, the Cooḷa, the Paaṇṭiya had a flower each as his own emblem, just as the lily, the rose, and other flowers have been taken as emblems of royal houses in the West. The aatti flower was the emblem of the Cooḷas, the Palmyrah flower of the Ceeras, and the margosa flower of the Paaṇṭiyaas. A poet in addressing two of the Cooḷa family who were fighting among themselves for the Cooḷa throne, appeals to them thus with the hope of effecting a reconciliation: You are not one who wears the white garland of the lofty palmy-rah’s flowers (Ceera), nor wear you the dark-branched margosa’s garland (Paantiya). You wear the aatti’s garland; so does he who faces you in battle. If one of you is defeated, it is the House of Coola that is defeated.52
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When a king went to war, he wore garlands made of his royal flowers, as well as of flowers which signified the particular kind of warfare in which his troops and he were en-aged. Garlands of the flowers emblematic of the royal houses were used also to decorate the royal standards. In the graphic account of Paaṇtiyan Neṭuñceḷian visiting the wounded at midnight, it is said that the general who preceded him pointing out the wounded soldiers one by one, carried a halberd around which was wound a garland of margosa flowers.53 Certain episodes which gradually formed part of the folk- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 50Puram; 162. | 51 Patir; 11, 12-14; 17, 5; Akam; 347, 4-5 |
52Puram; 45, 1-5. | 53 Netunalvaatai; 176 f. |
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