Silappatikaram

Silappatikaram   is one of the five Great Epics according to later Tamil literary tradition, the others being Manimegalai, Civaka Cintamani, Valayapathi and Kundalakesi. The poet prince Ilango Adigal, popularly believed to have been a Jain monk, is credited with this work. He is reputed to be the brother of Senguttuvan from Chera dynasty. As a literary work, it is held in high regard by the Tamils. The nature of the book is narrative and has a moralistic undertone. It contains three chapters and a total of 5270 lines of poetry. The epic revolves around Kannagi, who having lost her husband to a miscarriage of justice at the court of the Pandya king, wreaks her revenge on his kingdom.

Silappatikaram has been dated to likely belong to the beginning of Common era,  although the author might have built upon a pre-existing folklore to spin this tale. The story involves the three Tamil kingdoms of the ancient era, the Chola, the Pandya and the Chera. Silappatikaram has many references to historical events and personalities, although it has not been accepted as a reliable source of history by many historians because of the inclusion of many exaggerated events and achievements to the ancient Tamil kings.

Regarded as one of the great achievements of Tamil genius, the Silappatikaram is a poetic rendition with details of Tamil culture; its varied religions; its town plans and city types; the mingling of Greek, Arab, and Tamil peoples; and the arts of dance and music. 

Historical and social setting
The story of Silappatikaram is set during the first few centuries of CE and narrates the events in the three Tamil kingdoms: Chera, Chola, and Pandya. It also mentions the Ilankai king Gajabahu and the Chera Senguttuvan. It confirms that the northern kingdoms of Chedi, Uttarakosala, and Vajra were known to the Tamil people of the time. The epic also vividly describes the Tamil society of the period, its cities, the people's religious and folk traditions and their gods.

At the end of the Sangam epoch (second – third centuries CE), the Tamil country was in political confusion. The older order of the three Tamil dynasties was replaced by the invasion of the Kalabhras. These new kings and others encouraged the religions of Buddhism and Jainism. Ilango Adigal, the author of Silappatikaram, probably lived in this period and was one of the vast number of Jain and Buddhist authors in Tamil poetry. These authors, perhaps influenced by their monastic faiths, wrote books based on moralistic values to illustrate the futility of secular pleasures. These poets freely borrowed from Sanskrit literature, which had numerous books of didactic nature, as well as narrative plays by Bhāsa and Kalidasa. These authors went beyond the nature of Sangam poems, which contain descriptions of human emotions and feelings in an abstract fashion, and employed fictional characters in a well conceived narrative incorporating personal and social ramifications. Tamil epics were thus invented by these poets.

The Author

The author of Silappatikaram was Ilango Adigal (lit. Prince- Ascetic). He is reputed to be the brother of Chera king Senguttuvan, although there is no evidence in the Sangam poetries that the famous king had a brother. There are also claims that Ilango Adigal was a contemporary of Sattanar, the author of Manimekalai.  The prologues of each of these books tell us that each were read out to the author of the other [Silappatikaram, pathigam 90]. From comparative studies between Silappatikaram and certain Sanskrit Buddhist and Jain works such as Nyayaprakasa, the date of Silappatikaramhas been determined to be around the fifth and the sixth centuries CE. 

The Epic

In the pathigam, the prologue to the book, Ilango Adigal gives the reader the gist of the book with the précis of the story. He also lays the objectives of the book:

 The truth in itself will punish even the king should he err 

 A women with high moral and intellect will be respected by all. 

 one has to pay for his acts)(past and present acts of one will certainly yield their results on him 

 

That virtue itself is the executioner of those who err in politics

That the great will ever praise a chaste woman of great virtue

That fate will inevitably follow and give the fruits of ones past actions

 Because the anklet was the basis for these truths 

Here do we create an epic song

Main charactersStory

Silappatikaram literally translated to the story of anklet that depicts the life of Kannagi, a chaste woman who lead a peaceful life with Kovalan in Puhar (Poompuhar), then the capital of Cholas. Her life later went astray by the association of Kovalan with an unchaste woman Madhavi. The duo started resurrecting their life in Madurai, the capital of Pandyas. Kovalan went on to sell the anklet of Kannagi to start a business, but was beheaded having been held guilty of stealing it from the queen. Kannagi went on to prove the innocence of her husband and was believed to have burnt the entire city of Madurai by her chastity. Apart from the story, it is a vast treasure of information of music and dance, both classical and folk. 

Structure of Silappatikaram

Silappatikaram contains three chapters:

• Puharkkandam ( Puhar chapter), which deals with the events in the Chola city of Puhar, where Kannagi and Kovalan start their married life and Kovalan leaves his wife for the courtesan Madavi. This contains 10 cantos or divisions.
• Maduraikkandam (  Madurai chapter), is situated in Madurai in the Pandya kingdom where Kovalan loses his life, incorrectly blamed for the theft of the queen's anklet. This contains 13 cantos.
• Vanchikkandam (  Vanchi chapter), is situated in the Chera country where Kannagi ascends to the heavens. This contains 7 cantos, and each of them is made of several sub-divisions called kaathais (narrative sections of the chapters).

Literary value

The Silappatikaram, apart from being the first known epic poem in Tamil, is also important for its literary innovations. It introduces the intermingling of poetry with prose, a form not seen in previous Tamil works. It features an unusual praise of the Sun, the Moon, the river Kaveri and the city of Poompuhar at its beginning, the contemporary tradition being to praise a deity. It is also considered to be a predecessor of the Nigandu lexicographic tradition. It has 30 referred as monologues sung by any character in the story or by an outsider as his own monologue often quoting the dialogues he has known or witnessed.  It has 25 cantos composed in akaval meter, used in most poems in Sangam literature. The alternative for this meter is called aicirucappu (verse of teachers) associted with verse composed in learned circles . Akaval is a derived form of verb akavu indicating to call or beckon. Silappatikaram is also credited to bring folk songs to literary genre, a proof of the claim that folk songs institutionalised literary culture with the best maintained cultures root back to folk origin. 

Publishing in modern times
Criticism and Comparison

U. V. Swaminatha Iyer (1855-1942 CE) resurrected the first three epics from appalling neglect and wanton destruction of centuries.  He reprinted these literature present in the palm leaf form to paper books. Ramaswami Mudaliar, a Tamil scholar first gave him the palm leaves of Civaka Cintamani to study.  Being the first time, Swaminatha Iyer had to face lot of difficulties in terms of interpreting, finding the missing leaves, textual errors and unfamiliar terms.  He set for tiring journeys to remote villages in search of the missing manuscripts. After years of toil, he published Civaka Cintamani in book form in 1887 CE followed by Silapadikaram in 1892 CE andManimekalai in 1898 CE.  Along with the text, he added lot of commentary and explanatory notes of terms, textual variations and approaches explaining the context. 

"After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism" observes Ilangovadigal in Silappadikaram. The postscript invites readers to review the work. Like other epic works, it is criticised of having unfamiliar and a difficult poem to understand.  To some critics, Manimegalai is more interesting than Silappadikaram, but it terms of literary evaluation, it seems inferior. There are effusions in Silappadikaram in the form of a song or a dance, which does not go well with western audience as they are assessed to be inspired on the spur of the moment.  According to Calcutta review, the three epic works on a whole have no plot and no characterization to qualify for a epic genre. 

However, a possible cause for this reaction in the west might be due to the unfamiliar prominence of a female character in the epic, which is unknown in epic cycles of Greek and other European sources. In addition, the idea of chastity as exemplified in the epic is difficult to understand outside the context of Tamil and Indian cultural norms. Modern scholars have a more favourable view of the poem and consider it to be the foremost epic in Tamil literature as well as the first to envision a united Tamil conciousness through the depiction on the three major countries occupied by the Tamil people as one nation united in worship of the goddess of chastity (Kannagi).

Popular culture

There have been multiple movies based on the story of Silappathikaram and the most famous is the portrayal of Kannagi by actress Kannamba in the 1942 movie Kannagi. P.U.Chinnappa played the lead as Kovalan. The movie faithfully follows the story of Silappathikaram and was a hit when it was released. The movie Poompuhar, penned by M. Karunanidhi is also based on Silapathikaram.There are multiple dance dramas as well by some of the great exponents of Bharatanatyam in Tamil as most of the verses of Silappathikaram can be set to music.