commentators have been led to take sunset as the hour of day for the neytal poems. Sivagnana Munivar alone among commentators differs from the traditional view, but his opinion in favour of sunrise as the hour meant by Tolkaappiyar is hardly tenable.15 The Tamil poets had a long sea-board, roughly from Cranganore in the West all down to Cape Comorin, and up again to Madras in the East, as the maritime zone marked out for the landscape of neytal poems. This territory is diversified by innumerable lakes, backwater courses, and sand-logged tanks. Its flora is most peculiar. The water from the sea, and rains tend to multiply the number of temporary lakes in which aquatic plants flourish. Luxuriant copses of mangroves and laurels stand in green relief against the white of the sand-dunes and sea-shores. Where the inlets and creeks abound, the branches of the trees hang over the waters that mirror them. Where salt is made, the land is divided by small ridges and looks like fields in the agricultural region. Hence the salt makers of this region have been called "non-ploughing ploughmen". Great cities and emporia and harbours were situated along these coasts during the period under survey. These shores were empires and the sea-faring peoples, both fishermen and mariners, made outstanding contributions to the trade, wealth and prosperity of the Tamil kingdoms. The commentators do not elucidate the reason why the littoral poetry as well as the poetry of the arable land do not have any single annual season assigned to them. Their explanation is that the emotional reactions denoted by this landscape may also occur in more than one season. For the expression of grief and sorrow, sunset forms an apt background, especially when it sets to the accompaniment of the dirge of the ocean. There is not much of difference between the dusk or evening prescribed for mullai poetry and the sunset prescribed for neytal poetry, except that one is considered as it appears during a definite season of the year in the pasture-lands, and the other as it appears all through the year on the littorals. In puṛam poetry, the littorals are the venue of pitched ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15Lectures on Narrinai, o.c; pp. 56, 57. |