jungle defences of his enemy. Since patience is common to both these akam and puṛam divisions, and since the encampment is situated within the defence jungles which belong to the pasturage type of region, vañci was made to correspond to mullai. The littorals or the maritime tracts of sandy territory lying on the western and eastern sea-board of the then Tamil country, were called neytal, after the flower of an aquatic plant common in the water-logged tanks and lakes of the region. One should not imagine the neytal territory as the small strip of sand along the sea coast. It included all the sandy territory that extends sometimes three, four, five miles into the interior. The maritime region was the background for akam poems dealing with the pining of the heroine in the absence of her lord. While the pasture-lands formed the natural scenic background for the virtuous and patient support of a lover’s sorrow at separation from the beloved, the littorals represented, not any virtuous patience but actual pining and sorrow at separation. The topic of the neytal class of poetry is “pining and its related states”. The pasture-lands represent an attempt at a stoic attitude, but the littorals represent the more human aspect of a lover’s sorrow and grief, irrepressible tears and uncontrollable lament. The differences between the mullai and neytal poetry are not far to seek. The pasture-land poetry takes into account only the rainy season of the year and the hour when day passes into night. But the maritime poetry may have any of the six seasons of the year as its season. Tolkaappiyar makes no mention of any annual season, and the poetry that has come down to us speaks of waves and winds of different season of the year.13 As regards the period of day, Tolkaappiyar uses an equivocal word which might mean either sunrise or sunset.14 But considering the fact that nearly all the poets have described in their poems of this nature only the hour of sunset, com- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13 Lectures on Narrinai (Tm). Neytal by A.BHUVARAGAM PILLAI, p. 55f. 14 T. 954. |