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- an Introduction
This
lesson is concerned with the poems relating to two types of love
as one-sided love called kaikkilai and inharmonious love called
Perunthinai. Both are called lust in Tamil. Each situation is defined.
traced in tradition and described as convention. quoting from the
two kings of Sangam literature called Agam and Puram.
Of the six central units, three are devoted to Kaikilai and the other to Perunthinai.
Kaikkilai is one-sided love on the part of the male or the female character. The Tamil grammatical work Tholkappiam defines this situation. Very few poems on this aspect are available in Sangam literature as one poem in Kurunthokai, two in Nattinai, four in Kalithokai, the eleventh poem in Paripadal and three in Puranaanooru.
The five landscapes of Kurunchi, Mullai, Marutham, Neithal and Palai generally symbolic of true love provide for the one-sided love of Kaikkilai also. The literature dealing with the inner or family life called Agam takes up kaikkilai as in Kurunthokai, Nattinai and Kalithokai refers to Perunthinai.
On learning this lesson you will be able to appreciate the landscape related themes of poems in intrinsic literature called Aga Illakkiam in the five regions of Kurunchi, Marutham, Mullai, Neithal and Paalai. Even extrinsic literature called Pura Illakkiam mentions intrinsic aspects like Kaikkilai and Perunthinai. All these seven aspects of Tamil life thus make up the atmosphere for creative literature in the form of what is called Thinai. The thematic aspects of place and general as well as specific time, the characters in Tamil life in terms of Gods, human beings, animals and birds, trees and flowers, musical rhythms, and instruments and jobs undertaken in different regions highlight the relationship between life and literature in terms of even minute details.