CHAPTER SIX

THE FIVE-FOLD DIVISION

The Five Regions

The poetic interpretation of Nature in akam poetry and to a certain extent in puṛam poetry, was determined by geographical and climatic conditions prevalent in the Tamil land.¹ It would be worth attempting to trace the historical origin of this poetic convention. But before presenting the explanation, it is necessary to state the convention in full together with the remarks of the commentators.²

The Tamils, as we have indicated before, at the time of Tolkaappiyar, had already divided the landscape of South India and consequently of the world, into five types. The mountains, hills, and hilly tracts such as those covered by the Paḷani hills, the Nilgiris, and the Western Ghats, they termed Kuṛiñci after the name of a flower (strobilanthus kunthianus) which was one of the most significant of the flora of the region, blooming as the plant did only once in every period of twelve years. Since the plant was to be found only in the hills, and since

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   ¹ Cfr. G. GROSE-HODGE, Roman Panorama, Cambridge, 1946, p. 13: “Geographical environment has a profound influence on racial characteristics. History is governed if not determined, by Geography.”

   ² Tolkaappiyar has stated clearly the rules governing the use that poets are to make of Nature as the background of poetry; and the conditions governing the dramatic situations which they are to imagine. By the time the commentaries that have reached us were compiled, the historical origins of his literary legislation seem to have been for gotten since several centuries had intervened between the period of Tolkaappiyar and the period of the commentators. Hence their explanations, especially those of Naccinarkiniyar, which aim at showing the congruity of prescribing a certain kind of landscape and a certain season for a certain type of poem, or to show the propriety of certain other rules, are not in every case convincing. They are, however, not to be neglected in any attempt to explain the rationale of Tamil poetic conventions.