நற்றிணை - 3

D01113 - நற்றிணை - 3

The contents, techniques and formal structures of the third group of 10 select poems from நற்றிணை are explained in this lesson. Excellent natural scenes as recorded in a few of these songs are illustrated. How the contents of these poems are organized are also explicated. This lesson also shows how the poets of select poems are named after their good analogies or good expressions as in தேய்புரிப்பழங்கயிற்றினார் or விழிக்கட்பேதைப் பெருங்கண்ணனார்.

The usually soft feelings of love are sometimes hardened by the expressions such as மடல் ஏறுவேன், உயிர் துறப்பேன் etc., Sangam poets bring to the inner eyes the ideas, feelings and talks as evidenced in the ten poems selected from நற்றிணை. A buffalo hates lotus but munches கழுநீர்ப்பூ, which is water-based like lotus and lily. This represents a hero who leaves the heroine to go in search of a prostitute. மாதங்கீரனார் is given the title மடல் பாடிய, because of his poem beginning மடல்மா ஊர்ந்து. This poem is about மடலேறுதல், a sangam tradition, in which the hero rides a horse made of palm fronds and goes round the village declaring his love for the heroine and her refusal to respond.

Poets set the same natural environs for the pleasure as well as for the sufferings of inner life of the lovers. The heroine sometimes feels as if the dews impose their anger on her. Psychologically she looks at the rainy season as her enemy.

Even a horse seems to understand the pace of the hero’s mind and gallops into the sky with such a speed that the chariot is in the portico of the palace in no time. ‘வெய்யை போல முயங்குதி’ - expresses effectively the fact that she could detect the pretence of the hero when he embraces her. The says: “you embrace like one in earnest love.”

The hero is worried as he is not able to meet the heroine. Never-thaless he is so full of her that he sees her, present before him. This is உருவெளித்தோற்றம் (hallucination) உருவெளித் தோற்றக் காட்சி as a dramatic technique is found in Shakespearean plays, and classics like கம்பராமாயணம்.

Hero’s speed and pleasure can be felt in the poem ‘இலையில் பிடவம் ஈர்மலர் அரும்ப’. The torrential rain can be felt in the sounds of words used in நளிகடல் முகந்து செறிதக இருளி. Similarly, the inner core of the poems is brought out in expressions like தீயும் வளியும் விசும்பு பயந்தாங்கு which compares the pain and the pleasure of the hero இலங்குமலை நாடன்.

You will thus gain from this lesson a unique experience of enjoying Tamil literature of the sangam period with pride, awe, wonder and coincidence expressed in literary tradition.