The bard achieved a perpetuation of the heroic type by singing the commemoration of heroes fallen in battle to whom commemorative stones were raised with inscriptions recording their names and their prowess, and by singing of the bravery of heroic matrons who rejoiced in the sacrifice of their sons in battle. To a poetess is ascribed one such heroic poem which is illustrative of bardic society: Mine is the duty to give birth and growth;
The father's is the duty to make him wise (sānron);
The smith's is the duty to hand a shapely spear;
The chieftain's is the duty to see to his conduct (in war);
To enter the fray with his glittering sword, kill
The enemies' elephants and then return is my young son's duty. (Puram, 189)4 |
Bardic Situations The bards were such prominent members of early society and were so identified with panegyrics that in subsequent epochs of development, when poets composed panegyrics in praise of kings and chiefs, they did so in a 'bardic convention', as if a bard were praising the hero of the poem, and not as if the poet were directly addressing the patron himself. The ārrupadai (or guide poem) is such a situation where the poet imagines a bard, who has received bounteous gifts for himself and his troupe, encountering a similar band of minstrels in search of a patron. He recounts to them the reception and wealth his troupe received from a particular king or chief and recommends his fellow-bards to betake themselves to the same patron. The following is a short poem composed in a bardic convention by a poet: Minstrel, with little lute of sweetest strain!
Suppliant with words of wisdom full:
Importunate thou askest me to rest and listen to the pleasant sounds of thy tambourine
But hear what I shall say!
The modest homes of Pānan, whose hands are full of gifts, is near the wide city ....
If thither-together with thy songstress, whose hair diffuses fragrance of the 'trumpet-flower', the bright-browed, sweetly smiling-you softly advance, you shall prosper well.
Long may he flourish! (Puram, 48)
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 Puram 400 is another Anthology of Four Hundred Bardic Poems. |