of his own merchant-class. Awareness of this, along with her grief for Kaṇṇahi's fate, drives her to seek death by fasting. To remove Kaundi would be to omit one very strong emotional factor from the story. Iḷango makes the story look realistic by blending legend with historical facts. It certainly is a powerful tragedy; but the anticlimax is so long-drawn-out that the tragic intensity vaporises by the time the curtain falls. But the author is here concerned with the introduction of the new cult, the cult of the worship of the chaste woman. This cult, it is true, has its roots in the Sangam period itself and has now been absorbed into Hinduism by identifying Kaṇṇahi with Bhagavathi.1 But, to Iḷango goes the credit of having cultivated it so elaborately as an independent cult in Tamilnad. The religious conditions of Iḷango's time are naturally reflected in his work. Saivism, Vaishṇavism, Jainism and Buddhism are shown by him as co-existing without disharmony. The poet's own strong and unmistakable inclination to Jainism does not make him fling mud on other religions. There is a pronounced didactic element also in the story. The prefatory verse declares that the story is meant to teach three things, namely, justice visiting the tyrant, the glory of chaste womanhood and the relentless nature of destiny. The epic closes also on an ethical note. Few epics could have a more loose structure than Silappadihāram. Hardly one chapter resembles another. The narrative portion proper which has a sustained grandeur of style, is in the ahaval or āśriyam metre. One entire chapter is the ill-fated duet of Mādavi and Kovalan. The chapter on Madavi's dance is filled with technicalities. Lyrics and prose are interspersed to avoid monotony. One important feature of the epic is this prose, the earliest available in Tamil, though it has all the beauties of alliteration, assonance and rhythm that we associate with poetry. Only the line-pattern is absent. Iḷango, at times, indulges in puns and lengthy metaphors, and his similes verge on conceits though the Sangam flavour is still present. His descriptions are too long with wearisome cataloguing of details, but are at times used to advantage in working up the required atmosphere. The rounding up of the story, with the image of Kaṇṇahi in the centre, is worthy of special attention. Almost all the actors except the dead, are summoned to form part of the group-photograph that the poet has arranged, finding therein room for his own history. One real fault we would find in the work is the incredible amount of supernatural element, with over-emphasis on Fate. But that would ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1ILakkiyamaṇimālai, p. 128. |