ANNE E. MONIUS

LITERARY THEORY AND MORAL VISION IN TAMIL BUDDHIST LITERATURE

U. V¯e. C¯amin¯ataiyar (1855–1942), the scholar largely responsible for the preservation of, and twentieth-century renaissance of interest in, the oldest literary works composed in Tamil, movingly records in his autobiography, En Carittiram, his initial response to the only ¯ examples of Tamil Buddhist literature that have come down to us. Of the Man. ime¯kalai, a perhaps sixth-century narrative that tells of a young courtesan’s journey toward enlightenment, he writes: Again and again I came back to reading the Man. ime¯kalai. Many passages that puzzled and confused me became cleared little by little. The tenets and views of Buddhism appeared clad in words of exquisite simplicity. I read them with enormous pleasure. ˙ ¯ [My friend] Rank ac¯ariyar listened and could not contain his enthusiasm. ‘Oh! Ah! How beautiful! How apt are the words that convey th[ese] [Buddhist] ideas translated into Tamil!’ he would say again and again in rapt attention and high praise.1

Of his reaction to the eleventh-century Buddhist treatise on Tamil ¯ iyam, and its commentary, C¯amin¯ataiyar grammar and poetics, the V¯ıracol ¯ writes: I used to quote verses I had come across in other Tamil works as occasion arose. One of these is a lament of those who were near the Lord Buddha on his entering ¯ iyam: the Parinirv¯an. a. It is quoted as an illustration by the commentator on V¯ıracol ¯

. . . Since we can never more see before us the Saint who destroyed Darkness with Great Enlightenment what shall we do, what shall we do? Since we can never more hear the Dharma expounded by Him with compassion in saintly words what shall we do, what shall we do? . . . ˙ ¯ When I read this poem I could not read on and my tongue faltered. Rank ac¯ariyar, too, was fully overcome by its pathos, and forgot his self [sic] in a feeling of tender sympathy.2

¯ iyam commentary, Such poetic fragments preserved in the V¯ıracol ¯ as well as numerous references scattered throughout a variety of nonBuddhist works in various South Asian languages, indicate that the ¯ iyam represent but a small fraction of a Man. ime¯kalai and the V¯ıracol ¯

Journal of Indian Philosophy 28: 195–223, 2000. c 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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once considerable body of Buddhist literature written in Tamil. We know, for example, that there once existed a Tamil narrative poem known as the ¯ ¯ Pimpicarakatai or “The Story of King Bimbis¯ara,”3 the Cittantattokai or 4 “Collection of Doctrines,” the Kun. .talake¯ci, later classified along with ˙ appiyam ¯ ¯ avyas ¯ or five mahak the Man. ime¯kalai as one of the aimperunk 5 of Tamil literary tradition, and a Tamil glossary to the complete cycle ¯ stories.6 The two examples of Tamil Buddhist literature that of Jataka ¯ iyam – have been little have survived – the Man. ime¯kalai and the V¯ıracol ¯ studied outside the Tamil-speaking region of southern India; what work has been done on each has tended to focus on the Man. ime¯kalai as an ¯ iyam as a instance of zealous Buddhist didacticism7 and on the V¯ıracol ¯ “corrupting” influence on the Tamil language for its overall project of attempting to harmonize Tamil literary theory with Dan. d. in’s discussion ˙ ara. ¯ 8 of Sanskritic alamk Yet the possibilities for interpreting the Man. ime¯kalai and the ¯ iyam certainly extend far beyond “didacticism” and “linguistic V¯ıracol ¯ corruption,” especially if one begins with the assumption that surprisingly few scholars have: that these are not simply odd pieces of Tamil literature and literary theory that happen to be Buddhist, but that each is fundamentally a Buddhist work that happens to be written in Tamil. Taking each seriously as “Buddhist” opens up avenues of interpretation that allow one to see specifically Buddhist applications of classical Tamil literary theory. Both texts, although composed in Tamil, are obviously the product of a multi-lingual literary culture in southern India wherein Tamil was only one of a number of available literary languages. Taken together, both texts further show themselves to be products of very different Tamil-speaking Buddhist communities, separated by at least five centuries and concerned with very different literary and religious matters.9 Yet in terms of the interpretation and reinterpretation of Tamil ¯ iyam (and Sanskrit) literary theory, both the Man. ime¯kalai and the V¯ıracol ¯ reveal similar patterns of innovation. It is this “pattern” of reinterpretation that I will explore in this paper, using as a focal point one of the most poignant stories-within-the-largerstory of the Man. ime¯kalai: the relatively brief but narratively central ¯ couple, K¯ayacan. t.ikai and tale of the loving and doomed vidyadhara K¯an˜canan. As Paula Richman’s study of the Man. ime¯kalai has aptly ¯ ¯ demonstrated,10 the text anticipates an audience thoroughly familiar with the poetic themes and devices explicated in the oldest of Tamil 11 I will argue further that far from merely ¯ grammars, the Tolkappiyam. attempting to make palatable Buddhist ideas to a non-Buddhist audience, as Richman largely assumes, the Man. ime¯kalai specifically attempts to

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expand Tamil literary theory by ethicizing it, by imbuing the poetics ¯ ˙ and the classical Cankam poetic corpus with a of the Tolkappiyam particularly Buddhist moral vision. Such a pattern of imbuing the literary with the moral, I will further suggest, is replicated in different ¯ iyam. historical circumstances [half a millennium later] in the V¯ıracol ¯ The Man. ime¯kalai is a long poetic narrative of 4,758 lines arranged in thirty chapters.12 As the story of a young girl, Man. im¯ekalai, the daughter of a courtesan, who gradually turns away from her hereditary occupation to become a Buddhist renunciant, even a superficial reading of an English summation of the text13 highlights several striking characteristics: the intricate interweaving of sixteen kil. aikkatai or “branch stories” into the main narrative;14 the seemingly abrupt shift from poetic narrative to philosophical discourse in the twenty-seventh, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth chapters; the persistent emphasis placed upon the power of karma in determining every aspect of one’s life; the recurring theme of the importance of womanly virtue of karpu15 to the maintenance of ¯ social and cosmic order; and the expressions of profound devotion to the Buddha that pervade the entire text. About the author of the Man. ime¯kalai virtually nothing is known. The ˙ u patikam or preface to the text simply names the author as val. ankel ¯ ¯ van ¯. ikan cattan ¯ (line 96), or “C¯attan, the wealthy grain merchant,” kula ¯ ¯ ¯ and adds that C¯attan, or C¯attan¯ar as he is usually referred to by Tamil ¯ ¯ scholars,16 first told the story of Man. im¯ekalai’s renunciation “with the ˙ o ¯ (lines 95–98). aid of eloquent Tamil” at the request of the king, Il.ank Equally problematic is the dating of the Man. ime¯kalai; C¯attana¯r and his ¯ text have been assigned dates ranging from the second century C.E.17 to the tenth.18 Certainly the Man. ime¯kalai is later than the Tirukkural. , ¯ that enduringly popular Tamil work dealing with the themes of aram ¯ ¯ (dharma or virtue), porul. (artha or wealth and power), and kamam ¯ or desire); C¯attan¯ar quotes verse fifty-five of the Kural. at xxii. (kama ¯ ¯ 59–61 and refers to its author as poyyil pulavan, “the poet without ¯ falsehood.” Based upon the linguistic and stylistic analysis presented by Kandaswamy,19 a fifth- or sixth-century date for the text, placing it somewhat earlier than, or roughly contemporaneous with, the earliest ´ bhakti poets, seems reasonable. of the Saiva The thirty chapters of the narrative trace the fortunes of a young woman known as Man. im¯ekalai, the daughter of the beautiful courtesan, M¯atavi, by her relationship with a young merchant, Ko¯valan. The story ¯ of M¯atavi’s and Ko¯valan’s relationship is elaborated upon in an earlier ¯ ¯ narrative known as the Cilappatikaram; the Man. ime¯kalai quite obviously anticipates an audience that knows that story well and is ready to hear a

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specifically Buddhist re-interpretation of some of its major themes (more on this below). The Man. ime¯kalai opens with the news that M¯atavi, the most beautiful of courtesans, will not be dancing in the Indra festival soon to come; she, along with her even more beautiful daughter of about twelve, have entered a Buddhist monastic establishment. Man. im¯ekalai, while weaving garlands there in the monastery, overhears her mother tell the story of her father Ko¯valan’s tragic fate: how he was unjustly ¯ killed by the king of Maturai, and how his virtuous and ever-faithful wife, Kan. n. aki, tore off her breast in a rage, hurled it at the city, and sent Maturai up in flames. Man. im¯ekalai weeps at the story, and her tears defile the garland she is weaving. Her mother sends her out to a flower garden associated with the Buddha in order to gather fresh blossoms, and there she is spotted by the lusty young prince, Utayakumaran, who ¯ vows that he will have her, despite her new renunciatory path. There begins the true course of the main narrative. Man. im¯ekalai is pursued by the prince, torn between her own attraction to him and her increasing inclination to follow the Buddha’s path of dharma. She is befriended by a goddess who is her namesake, whisked off to a magical island, given a miraculous bowl that never empties if used to feed the poor and hungry, and sets about putting the bowl to use in the streets of her hometown, Puk¯ar or K¯avirippu¯mpat.t.inam. There, at ¯ ¯ woman, the end of chapter fifteen, Man. im¯ekalai meets the vidyadhara K¯ayacan. t.ikai, who suffers an insatiable hunger due to an ascetic’s powerful curse; at the beginning of chapter seventeen, Man. im¯ekalai cures that hunger, and we hear the sad story of K¯ayacan. t.ikai and her husband, K¯an˜canan, to whom we shall return shortly. Utayakumaran, ¯ ¯ ¯ the prince, appears once again in hot pursuit of his new love interest, and Man. im¯ekalai assumes the form (through a mantra attained along the way) of the emaciated K¯ayacan. t.ikai, thinking that the prince will be repulsed by the sight of a haggard old woman. He suspects a ruse, however, and insists on speaking to her. K¯an˜canan comes looking ¯ ¯ for his wife just then, and kills Utayakumaran when he mistakenly ¯ (yet understandably) thinks that the impudent fellow is inappropriately speaking to his wife. Man. im¯ekalai is thrown into prison for her part in the event, but is eventually released and teaches both king and queen to rule more compassionately in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha. She then makes her way to the western city of Van˜ci to learn non-Buddhist doctrines; Puk¯ar is, in the meantime, utterly destroyed by a tidal wave. Man. im¯ekalai then meets her mother and her teacher, one Aravan. an or “protector of dharma,” in K¯an˜c¯ıpuram, where Aravan. an ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ teaches her the dharma in two dense philosophical chapters. In the

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final two lines of the text, Man. im¯ekalai, “having heard the dharma and having taken up ascetic practice, made a vow to eradicate (the karmic effects of her) births.”20 As mentioned above, interspersed among the many events of the main ¯ , narrative are sixteen major “branch stories,” from the tale of Aputtiran ¯ literally the “son of a cow,” former possessor of the miraculous almsbowl and presently king of C¯avakam (Java?), to the story of C¯atuvan who ¯ lands on the shores of an island inhabited by wild N¯agas and convinces them all of the superiority of basic Buddhist teachings. As Richman’s analysis of several of the most important branch stories has shown, C¯attana¯r is well versed in the basic literary theories outlined in the ¯ ¯ and embodied in the poetic anthologies of the so-called Tolkappiyam ˙ or classical age:21 themes of love (akam or “inner”) and war “Cankam” (puram or “outer”) and landscape (tin. ai). Yet, as I have suggested above, ¯ ¯ themes extends far the use and reinterpretation of those Tolkappiyam beyond those “basic Buddhist concepts” discussed by Richman, such as anicca or impermanence and the ideal of female renunciation.22 The Man. ime¯kalai essentially imbues the themes of love, war, and landscape with a decidedly Buddhist moral vision; literary theory, in the literary practices of the Man. ime¯kalai, becomes Buddhist moral theory as well. The “ethics” of the Man. ime¯kalai, and its “ethicizing” project, are apparent at many levels in the text. The basic organizing theme of the main narrative, for example, is encapsulated in the term e¯tunikalcci, liter¯ ally the appearance or manifestation (nikalcci) of the hetu (Tamil e¯tu) or ¯ beneficial root causes or conditions necessary to enlightenment, in this case, the enlightenment of the central character, Man. im¯ekalai.23 Like so many narratives concerning the lives of the Buddha and his followers, ˙ ¯ ala, the murderous robber converted to the from the tale of Angulim Buddhist dharma by the Buddha himself,24 to the story of Mat.t.hakun. d. ali ¯ whose “abundant beneficial root conditions” (ussannakusalamula) render him “ready to receive the teaching” (veneyyabandhava),”25 the Man. ime¯kalai tells the story of its central character’s karmic “ripening,” of Man. ime¯kalai’s growing readiness to hear and truly understand the teachings of the Buddha. This persistent motif of the maturation of beneficial conditions (Tamil nalle¯tu) – defined in Therav¯ada literature as alobha (non-attachment), adosa (lack of enmity), and amoha (lack of delusion)26 – not only structures the main narrative, but also serves to tie together in a thematically significant way both the narrative and philosophical portions of the text. The theme of e¯tunikalcci, in other words, ¯ provides an essentially moral framework through which the narrative unfolds. The audience sees the manifestation of the e¯tu or hetu of alobha,

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for example, in Man. im¯ekalai’s benevolent use of the miraculous begging bowl to feed the hungry, as well as in her eventual severing of emotional ties to the strapping young prince, Utayakumaran. In Man. im¯ekalai’s ¯ compassionate conversion of the queen, Utayakumaran’s mother, who ¯ three times tries to have the young girl killed while in the royal prison, we witness the dawning of Man. im¯ekalai’s adosa. In the final two chapters of the text, with the detailed philosophical instruction on the nature of both Buddhist logic and the dharma – in particular, the doctrine ¯ –, Man. im¯ekalai of interdependent origination or pat. iccasamuppada manifests her qualities of amoha, positively interpreted not merely as “lack of delusion” but as knowledge leading to enlightenment. The Man. ime¯kalai’s project of imbuing Tamil literary models with Buddhist moral ideals is also apparent in the many ways in which the text reworks – and, I would argue, actually refutes – the themes ¯ While of its supposed “twin” or “sister” epic, the Cilappatikaram. both texts share a variety of characters and settings – it is hearing the tragic story of Ko¯valan and Kan. n. aki, for example, that first creates the ¯ need for Man. im¯ekalai to leave the protection of her mother to gather fresh flowers – the Man. ime¯kalai at many points specifically rejects ¯ ¯ vinai or “fate”27 in favor notion of karma as ul the Cilappatikaram’s ¯ ¯ of a more complex notion of vinai in the context of interdependent ¯ ¯ origination or pat. iccasamuppada; such a redefining of karma necessarily entails an ethic of compassion in the vision of the Buddhist text (more ¯ is the on this below). Particularly at odds with the Cilappatikaram Man. ime¯kalai’s insistence that the doctrine of vinai or karma does not ¯ ¯ ¯ vinai, ul relieve one of personal responsibility. In the Cilappatikaram, ¯ ¯ ¯ somewhat more akin perhaps to the Aj¯ıvika notion of niyati or “fate,”28 seems to neutralize any moral or ethical responsibility. At xiii. 94–95, for example, Ko¯valan, awaiting his faithful wife Kan. n. aki on the outskirts ¯ of Maturai, receives a note from his jilted mistress, M¯atavi; he suddenly realizes that all that has happened is due to his bad karma, and his ˙ 29 Characters are “trapped burden of guilt is thus lifted (tal. arcci n¯ınki). 30 in the net of bad karma” or declare themselves “slaves” of karma.31 The Man. ime¯kalai, in sharp contrast, repeatedly stresses the need to be karmically aware in order to understand one’s multiple relationships to ¯ other beings. While karma, both good and bad, in the Cilappatikaram is the driving force of tremendous power that ultimately generates the emergence of the great goddess, Kan. n. aki, karma in the Man. ime¯kalai is a vehicle of suffering against which human values of love and care must continually be tested.

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¯ (Tamil vin˜caiyan) Turning now to the specific story of the vidyadhara ¯ couple and its Buddhist interpretation of classical literary theory, I choose this particular narrative-within-the-larger-narrative to focus my argument, among the many possible choices, for a number of reasons. First, the tragic scenes of the devoted husband and wife, K¯ayacan. t.ikai and K¯an˜canan, are easily among the most poignant in a text full of ¯ ¯ stories evoking grief and suffering. Secondly, although brief, the story of K¯ayacan. t.ikai and K¯an˜canan is absolutely central to the unfolding of ¯ ¯ the main narrative, for their presence is crucial to the central dramatic event of the main plot: the violent death of Man. im¯ekalai’s suitor, Prince Utayakumaran. In addition, the story itself is rather strangely ¯ inconclusive, as will become evident below; there is no happy ending, no immediately evident “moral” to the story, although I will argue that the ultimate aim of the story is to convey an eminently moral, and particularly Buddhist, message. Finally, this particular sub-story presents one of the most obvious places where the literary theory of ¯. u (literally “arising from the body”), a Tamil interpretation of meyppat the Sanskrit rasa, is applied in a specifically Buddhist moral context. ¯ couple is introduced more or less in The story of the vidyadhara the middle of the Man. ime¯kalai’s main narrative; at the end of chapter fifteen (lines 75–86), just after Man. im¯ekalai has learned the history of the miraculous almsbowl she now possesses, K¯ayacan. t.ikai, emaciated, bearing an insatiable hunger due to an ascetic’s curse, suddenly appears on the scene, ready to tell the young Man. im¯ekalai where she should go to collect her first alms. As with most subplots in the text as a whole, K¯ayacan. t.ikai does not reveal her full life story until several scenes later, in chapter seventeen. There we learn that K¯ayacan. t.ikai has been cursed by a sage to suffer this insatiable hunger for twelve long years because she once inadvertently stepped on the ascetic’s piece of fruit (xvii. 21–46). K¯an˜canan, her distraught husband, offers her the choicest ¯ ¯ foods to appease her hunger, but to no avail (xvii. 58–59). He sends his wife to Puk¯ar and faithfully visits her there each year during the Indra festival (xvii. 60–70); but, as K¯ayacan. t.ikai explains to Man. im¯ekalai, he leaves alone, broken-hearted, each year (xvii. 71–72). Unbeknownst to her husband, K¯ayacan. t.ikai’s hunger is alleviated by Man. im¯ekalai’s miraculous almsbowl, and she leaves to return home to her husband’s city in the north (xvii. 73–74). K¯an˜canan, in the meantime, arrives on ¯ ¯ his annual visit to Puk¯ar, searches everywhere for his wife, and flies into a jealous rage when he witnesses Man. im¯ekalai, now disguised – via the power of her mantra – as K¯ayacan. t.ikai in order to avoid the amorous advances of the prince, speaking intimately with Utayakumaran. Utterly ¯

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distraught, K¯an˜canan stalks Utayakumaran and cuts down the prince ¯ ¯ ¯ with his sword. Attempting to seize Man. im¯ekalai (who is still disguised as K¯ayacan. t.ikai), K¯an˜canan is stopped by a mysterious painting on a ¯ ¯ temple pillar that predicts the future and told that the woman in his arms is, in fact, Man. im¯ekalai. He further learns that his true wife has been consumed by a great divine being guarding the “Vindhya hills” while en route home (xx. 114–121).32 K¯an˜canan at this point simply ¯ ¯ departs, presumably to suffer the agony of his wife’s demise. Crucial to understanding the import of this subnarrative is the ¯ particular presentation of a type of porul. or poetic content Tolkappiyam’s that is seldom addressed in any serious way by scholars of Tamil liter¯. u, often dismissed as a “later” addition to the ature, namely meyppat ¯ under the noxious – or, at the very least, corrupting – influTolkappiyam ¯. u, literally ence of Sanskrit rasa theory.33 While the notion of meyppat “arising from the body,” is no doubt indebted to Sanskrit dramatic theory, ¯ devotes the sixth chapter of its treatment of porul. or the Tolkappiyam ¯. u.34 No poetic content to a twenty-seven-verse discussion of the meyppat matter what the extent of modern Tamil scholars’ efforts at downplaying Sanskrit “influence” on anything South Indian may be, certainly the Man. ime¯kalai itself exhibits no such hesitation in incorporating themes and ideas beyond and strictly “Tamil.” From various signs embedded in the text of the Man. ime¯kalai, it is possible to discern an expectation of an audience well-versed in the literature and poetic theories of languages other than Tamil. There are numerous allusions in the Tamil text, for example, to stories found primarily in Sanskrit or P¯ali sources: a brief ¯ arata ¯ (iii. reference to Arjuna’s masquerade as a eunuch in the Mahabh 35 146–147); several suggestions of tales of Indra, his heavenly city, and his host of consorts (at xxiv. 7–18 and xxv. 201–204, for example); a condensed rendering of the battle between two N¯agas and the Buddha over the Buddha’s lotus seat (vii. 54–60).36 Certainly phrases such as “(like) the sun, with its full rays, swallowed in cool mist” (tan. pan. i ˙ ˙ cenkatir man. .tilam) (xii. 63) are not indigenous to the classical vilunkiya ¯ Tamil stock of poetic images. In similar fashion, the technical philosophical vocabulary found in chapters twenty-seven (on non-Buddhist teachings) and twenty-nine (on Buddhist logic), including many direct ¯ acam ¯. ap ¯ (xxvii. Tamil transliterations of Sanskrit words such as piraman ¯ abh ¯ asa ¯ and pakkatanmavacanam (xxix. 71) for 34) for Sanskrit praman ¯ ¯ ¯ for example, attests to an anticipated audience paks. adharmavacana, familiar with philosophical and narrative literature beyond the Tamil. ¯. u found in the Tolkappiyam ¯ bears striking resemThe list of meyppat ¯. yas´astra: ¯ blance to the eight rasas discussed by Bharata in his Nat

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¯ or the humorous; alukai (Sanskrit karun. a) or nakai (Sanskrit hasya) ¯ the pitiable; ilivaral (Sanskrit b¯ıbhatsa) or the loathesome; marut. kai ¯ ¯ or (Sanskrit adbhuta) or the awesome; accam (Sanskrit bhayanaka) ¯ the terrifying; perumitam (Sanskrit vıra) or the heroic; vekul. i (Sanskrit ˙ ara) ¯ or the erotic.37 raudra) or the furious; and uvakai (Sanskrit s´r. ng ¯ Perhaps not surprisingly, given the Tolkappiyam’s emphasis on akam ¯. u or “inner” love themes, the bulk of the text’s discussion of meyppat focuses on the last, uvakai, the erotic. Whatever the precise relationship of the Tamil concept to the Sanskrit, it is clear from the last verse on ¯. u that such an experience on the part of the audience is not meyppat “raw emotion,” but rather heightened sensitivity or mood: ¯. u which are of good quality cannot be comprehended The meyppat except by those who have proper perspective [and] through proper observation and hearing.38

¯ Like all Tamil (and Sanskrit) ornate poetic works or kavyas, the ¯. u. Man. ime¯kalai can easily be seen to evoke any number of meyppat The scene of C¯atuvan, a merchant of Puk¯ar, preaching to the wild ¯ N¯aga chief who “holds his mate, like a bear with a carcass” (xvi. 66– 127) amidst “vats of boiling toddy,” no doubt evokes a mood of nakai ¯ the comic. The N¯aga episode vividly depicts all four (Sanskrit hasya), ¯ mockery (el..lal); of the roots of nakai as outlined in the Tolkappiyam: childishness (il. amai); ignorance (pe¯taimai); and credulity (mat. an).39 ¯ In a similar way, many of the scenes featuring Utayakumaran and ¯ 40 ˙ ara), ¯ while Man. im¯ekalai evoke a mood of eroticism (uvakai or s´r. ng descriptions of the goddess, Man. im¯ekal¯a, and particularly the Buddha’s lotus seat on the magical island of Man. ipallavam, might be said to create an emotional experience of marut. kai or adbhuta, the marvelous or wonderful.41 Yet in the story of K¯ayacan. t.ikai and K¯an˜canan, as in the Man. ime¯kalai ¯ ¯ ¯. u predominates: that of alukai, the more generally, clearly one meyppat ¯ ¯ couple, from pitiable. The entire subplot concerning the vidyadhara K¯ayacan. t.ikai’s innocent misstep that results in twelve years of suffering to the ironic scene of her untimely end – the woman so recently relieved of an insatiable hunger is swallowed up into the belly of a hungry divine guardian – creates a mood of unjust and grievous suffering, an ¯. u, the text itself selfatmosphere of pathos. The evocation of this meyppat consciously instructs its audience, is not, however, simply to entertain the literary connoisseur who enjoys “proper perspective”; rather, the mood of alukai or the pitiable is transformed by the Man. ime¯kalai ¯ ¯ story in particular – into a – and by the outcome of the vidyadhara prescription for acting in the world, for being human and humane in a

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¯ or world ruled by vinai or karma in the context of pat. iccasamuppada ¯ interdependent origination. This mood of alukai is evoked in several ways in the story of ¯ ¯ Kayacan. t.ikai and K¯an˜canan, first and most obviously at the level of ¯ ¯ language, of individual words and phrases which in Tamil are able to express a profound range of psycho-physical states of grief and despair. K¯ayacan. t.ikai’s name itself – no less than her pitiful story – immediately brings to mind one of the most pointed images of physical pain and suffering to be found in the Man. ime¯kalai: she is “Can. t.ikai” or Can. d. ik¯a ¯ ¯ like the fearful goddess Durg¯a, with kayam, from in “body” (kayam), ¯ also signifying in the Tamil a wound, bruise, or scar. the Sanskrit kaya, Immediately we learn that she suffers “incomparable pain” (tanit tuyar ¯ ¯ (xv. 84) because of bad karma (valvinai), and that she “wanders uruum) ¯ ¯ about [afflicted] with the want of a great, unappeasable hunger” (v¯ıvil vem paci ve¯.tkaiyot. u tiritarum) (xv. 85). As K¯ayacan. t.ikai explains her predicament to Man. im¯ekalai, she describes the inability of her husband, ¯ (ilaku ol. i vin˜caiyan) (xvii. 52), to cope with the “splendid vidyadhara” ¯ her suffering. ¯. u) he approached (me and said): In distress (vilumamot ¯ ‘You are suffering without reason because of that divine ascetic of extraordinary austerities. Rise into the sky!’ (xvii. 50–54)

K¯ayacan. t.ikai has, of course, lost her ability to fly; she tells him only of her “stomach-withering hunger so powerful it may take my life” ¯ uyir n¯ ˙ ¯ ri vayiru kay ¯ perum paci varuttum) (xvii. ınkum uruppot. u ton (un ¯ ¯ ¯¯ 56–57). K¯an˜canan, feeling great sorrow (net. u tuyar) offers her the ¯ ¯ choicest foods to appease her hunger, but to no avail (xvii. 58–59). He sends his wife to Puk¯ar, “a city of virtue,” and faithfully visits her there each year during the Indra festival (xvii. 60–70); but, as K¯ayacan. t.ikai ˙ and departs explains, “he witnesses my great hunger, feels pity (iranki), [again], thinking of the [many] years yet to come” (xvii. 71–72). Later, K¯an˜canan’s heartache is clear as he searches the city for his wife, saying ¯ ¯ (xx. 22–25): Twelve years have passed since the curse was placed upon my wife by the great ascetic, as a result of her karma, on the banks of the wild river of bamboo thickets on Mount Potiyil whose summit is engulfed in clouds. Still K¯ayacan. .tikai has not come.

Almost palpable is the tragic turn of K¯an˜canan’s mind from sympathy ¯ ¯ and sadness to rage as he later witnesses Man. im¯ekalai, now disguised as K¯ayacan. t.ikai to avoid the amorous advances of the prince, speaking intimately with Utayakumaran (xx. 71–78): ¯

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She does not take into account my words that have praised her. She regards me as a stranger and follows after someone else. Having given a mature discourse full of knowledge to the son of the king who wears a garland of fragrant flowers, her smile of shining white pearls between two pieces of red coral and her red-streaked eyes that are like lilies have given the prince a look that expresses love. Because this prince here is her lover, my wife, a woman who wears beautiful ornaments, has remained here.

In the end, K¯an˜canan’s greatest source of tuyar, a Tamil word ¯ ¯ meaning “suffering” or “pain” that occurs repeatedly throughout this sub-narrative, is his own mistaken anger, his own pitiable inability to grasp the true nature of the scene before him. ¯. u of alukai is also evoked in the manner The mood or meyppat ¯ ¯ through scenes of disgrace (ilivu), outlined explicitly in the Tolkappiyam, ¯ deprivation (ilavu), loss of position (acaivu), and poverty (varumai).42 ¯ ¯ Most significantly for the Buddhist context of the Man. ime¯kalai, the “cause” of each of these “results” lies in t¯ıvinai or “bad karma.” Time ¯ and time again, K¯ayacan. t.ikai explains her disgrace and deprivation as the inevitable result of bad karma. It is due to the arising of bad or relentless karma (velvinai uruppa) that K¯ayacan. t.ikai and her husband first come ¯ south to Mount Potiyil (xvii. 23); because of bad karma she trods on the sage’s wondrous fruit (t¯ıvinai uruttalin) (xvii. 33). K¯ayacan. t.ikai suffers ¯ ¯ ilivu (disgrace) before the sage who learns the fruit he eats but once ¯ every dozen years has been crushed;43 her husband suffers the same in sending his suffering wife off to Puk¯ar to rely on the charity of others.44 ¯ The vidyadhara woman’s insatiable hunger is the embodiment of ilavu ¯ or deprivation, while that same hunger keeps her in banishment from her husband’s great northern city for twelve long years. Like the hunter ˙ reduced to begging in the following poem, quoted from the Cankam ¯ u by the thirteenth-century commentator on the ¯ ur anthology Puranan ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ P¯er¯aciriyar, as an example of acaivu or loss of position,45 Tolkappiyam, ¯ K¯an˜canan, a mighty vidyadhara, is transformed into a nursemaid for ¯ ¯ his wife, bringing her “sweet fruits, yams, and well-cultivated produce . . . without leaving that place” (xvii. 58–61): Bathing in the roaring white waterfall has changed his color, His matted locks are brown leaves on a blinding tree, and he is now plucking for food a bunch of thick leaves from a bindweed. He was a hunter once. He had a net

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of words, and he caught peacocks that wandered innocently into his yard.

The splendid couple, reduced to hunger and futile attempts to alleviate ¯ situations evocative of that hunger, suffer all four of the Tolkappiyam’s alukai or pity. ¯ The story of K¯ayacan. t.ikai and K¯an˜canan evokes pity in yet another ¯ ¯ ˙ way, one that inverts nearly all Cankam literary depictions of the suffering of male and female characters in love. The loss of position ¯ story by the or acaivu is made all the more poignant in the vidyadhara fact that it is K¯an˜canan, the glorious male figure, who suffers at the ¯ ¯ demise of his wife, turning upside down the images of grieving widows that dominate earlier poems of the puram or heroic genre. The widow ¯ ¯ u, an anthology of poems on ¯ ur in the following selection from Puranan ¯ ¯ ¯ the “outer” or “heroic” theme, for example, is utterly distraught, her normal eating patterns disrupted, at the loss of her husband: The little white lilies, poor things, gave me tender leaf to wear, when I was young. Now, my great husband is dead, I eat at untimely evening hours and the lilies give me lily seed, a widow’s rice.46

Instead, in the Man. ime¯kalai, it is K¯an˜canan who grieves for his starving ¯ ¯ wife, just as it is K¯an˜canan, and not K¯ayacan. t.ikai, who worries what ¯ ¯ his lover is up to off in the great city of Puk¯ar. Compare that image to the following from the anthology of poems on the akam theme known as Kuruntokai: ¯

As for me, I am here. My virtue lies with boundless grief in a salt marsh. He is in his town and our secret has become gossip in common places.47

¯ Il.ampu¯ran. ar, the eleventh-century commentator on Tolkappiyam, quotes ˙ scene evoking alukai the following poem as an example of a Cankam ¯

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¯ which similarly underscores the gender inversion ¯ uru from Puranan ¯ ¯ that makes of K¯an˜canan an even more tragic sight. Here the grieving, ¯ ¯ soon-to-be widow implores her warrior husband to try to stand up, to ¯ “walk just a little,” in the manner of K¯an˜canan, the mighty vidyadhara, ¯ ¯ imploring his wife to eat just a little, to get up and fly with him back to their native city: I cannot cry out. I’m afraid of tigers. I cannot hold you, your chest is too wide for my lifting. Death has no codes and has dealt you wrong, may he shiver as I do! Hold my wrist of bangles, let’s go to the shade of that hill. Just try and walk a little.48

¯ The pitiable nature of this vidyadhara subplot is, in short, made all the more poignant by the reduction of a mighty male character to the classical role played by a woman, one filled with sorrow and, in other circumstances, jealousy. K¯an˜canan’s mistaken realization, that his wife ¯ ¯ (Man. im¯ekalai in disguise) has remained in Puk¯ar as Utayakumaran’s ¯ lover, echoes such akam, “inner” or love, themes above, making the events to follow all the more tragic. One final way in which the author of the Man. ime¯kalai elicits the ¯. u of alukai or the pitiable through the story of K¯ayacan. t.ikai and meyppat ¯ ¯ ˜ Kancanan, a technique not wholly unrelated to the gender inversion ¯ ¯ noted above, is through the poignant juxtaposition of two closely paired themes in the akam or “inner” love genre of poetic composition and the puram or outer: ka¯n˜ci and peruntin. ai. Ka¯n˜ci is the puram or ¯ ¯ heroic theme of transience, discussed at length by Richman in her ¯ treatment of the sixth chapter of the Man. ime¯kalai;49 the Tolkappiyam enumerates two sets of turai or situations evoking a sense of the ¯ transitory or impermanent, each touching in some way on death and the grieving of the surviving spouse.50 Peruntin. ai, held explicitly by classical Tamil literary tradition to be the akam counterpart of the heroic ka¯n˜ci theme, is one of two themes51 depicting improper or non-mutual ¯ story love relationships.52 What is so interesting about the vidyadharas’ in this regard is that while the theme of ka¯n˜ci is readily apparent –

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K¯ayacan. t.ikai is suddenly stricken by a curse, her body withered, and ultimately consumed by a goddess of the Vindhya hills – K¯ayacan. t.ikai and her husband constitute the only couple in the entire Man. ime¯kalai narrative who are not representative of peruntin. ai or improper love. Their concern for each other is truly touching; K¯an˜canan, literally “the ¯ ¯ golden one,” tenderly cares for his wife and sends her off to Puk¯ar for her own welfare, visiting her faithfully each year. In contrast, the tragic story of the ill-suited M¯atavi and Ko¯valan provides the backdrop for ¯ the Man. ime¯kalai story; Man. im¯ekalai herself is pursued by the amorous Utayakumaran whose advances leave her confused and sometimes ¯ frightened. K¯ayacan. t.ikai and K¯an˜canan are the only characters whose ¯ ¯ wedded happiness and love for each other we are allowed to witness, yet even their relationship is doomed. That they, too, suffer the pain of the classical widow grieving the loss of her husband on the battlefield greatly sharpens the evocation of alukai in their story. Those who should ¯ enjoy wedded bliss and contentment instead suffer the vagaries of an ascetic’s curse and a guardian goddess’s hunger. In creating such an atmosphere or mood of profound and senseless suffering caused by unknown or unrealized karmic circumstances, the ¯. u of pathes that story of K¯an˜canan and K¯ayacan. t.ikai, and the meyppat ¯ ¯ ¯ it evokes, in the wider context of the Man. imekalai as a whole, suggests ¯. u than simply the aesthetic something more at stake in the play of meyppat enjoyment of the text. Given the Man. ime¯kalai’s overall concern with karma or vinai, and the manner in which human beings can and should ¯ live most responsibly in a world ruled by forces beyond our control, the audience’s heightened emotional awareness of alukai implies not ¯ merely a mode of “experiencing” the Man. ime¯kalai as a literary work, but a mode of inquiry into how one should respond to human suffering, how one should act and live in the world in the constant presence of human pain. Certainly Ricouer’s vision of literature as “a vast laboratory . . . through which narrativity serves as a propaedeutic to ethics”53 applies to much of South Asian Buddhist narrative54 and particularly to the Man. ime¯kalai, with its persistent emphasis upon e¯tunikalcci and the ¯ evocation of pity or empathy. In Ricouer’s terms – and, as I will argue briefly below, in the terms of (later) Buddhist literary theory in Tamil – the Man. ime¯kalai might most fruitfully be interpreted as an inquiry, as an “experiment” in thinking through the value of human life, and the possibilities for human action, in a world comprised of interdependently ¯ driven by karma (vinai) and arising phenomena (pat. iccasamuppada) ¯ defined by human suffering (tuyar). Fostering in the reader or audience an experience of heightened emotional awareness inherently demands

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that one think about others, about human situations beyond one’s own immediate knowledge.55 That “experience,” in the context of Indian poetic theory in general and the Man. ime¯kalai in particular, is defined in terms of human feeling, of emotional awareness; such “emotion,” ¯ or raw however, is not the immediate, crude, “gut” response of bhava emotion, but the highly refined and sophisticated aesthetic appreciation ¯. u or rasa. Such heightened emotional awareness carries with of meyppat ¯. u of alukai or it a certain cognitive or moral value,56 for the meyppat ¯ pathos consistently arises in tandem with the most persistent and basic of ethical questions raised by the Man. ime¯kalai text: In a world ruled by the powerful forces of vinai or karma, how should one live?57 ¯ ¯ To return to the story of the vidyadhara husband and wife, K¯an˜canan, ¯ ¯ “fearful” and “in distress” (xvii. 50–52) that his wife has been cursed, at first refuses to acknowledge the terms of her suffering; although the ascetic has clearly stated that K¯ayacan. t.ikai will no longer possess the mantra that allows her to fly (xvii. 43), K¯an˜canan commands his ¯ ¯ wife: “Rise into the sky!” (xvii. 55). Now fully aware that his wife is earthbound and ravenously hungry, K¯an˜canan seems unsure what to do ¯ ¯ to alleviate her pain; he begins by tempting her with the choicest foods (xvii, 58–59), and refuses to leave her (xvii. 60–61). In desperation, he sends his wife to Puk¯ar, where the good citizens “help those who are helpless” (xvii. 64), and faithfully visits his wife each year to check on ¯ repeated acknowledgment her progress (xvii. 71–72). The vidyadharas’ of the karmic causes behind their suffering does not in any way diminish their love for one another; in fact, their continuing devotion and mutual concern as the two are buffeted about by forces beyond their control contributes significantly to the poignancy of their story. In the face ¯ of his wife’s acute pain, K¯an˜canan, a mighty scion of the vidyadhara ¯ ¯ kingdom “that lies pure, shining and untarnished in the north” (xvii. 21–22), transforms himself into servant and nurse, tenderly caring for his wife and eventually sending her away in great anguish. K¯ayacan. t.ikai’s suffering is, in a very real sense, her husband’s suffering as well, and for twelve long years K¯an˜canan devotes himself to attending to his ¯ ¯ wife. It is his sudden and desperate feeling that all his sacrifice has been for nothing, that his wife has betrayed his trust with Utayakumaran, ¯ that results in the one tragic instance in which K¯an˜canan acts not from ¯ ¯ a feeling of alukai but from selfish jealousy. At xx. 123–126, K¯an˜canan ¯ ¯ ¯ is explicitly informed by Tuvatikan, the painting on the temple pillar, ¯ that even though the prince’s death can, in one sense, be attributed to ¯ is Utayakumaran’s own bad karma, on the other the jealous vidyadhara ¯

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¯ (xx. 124). The bad guilty of acting without “due consideration” (ariyay) ¯ karma arising for K¯an˜canan as a result will follow him through many ¯ ¯ lifetimes.58 K¯an˜canan has, in fact, been a bad “reader” of the “text” ¯ ¯ of his own life situation; where the situation called for empathy and understanding, K¯an˜canan acted out of anger and haste, “like a ferocious ¯ ¯ snake baring its venomous fangs, rising up in great wrath and opening its hood,”59 and committed a heinous crime for which he will suffer through many lifetimes. ¯ K¯an˜canan and K¯ayacan. t.ikai Although both are said to be vidyadharas, ¯ ¯ are consummately human characters – in many ways the most human and humane in the text – facing situations of love, pain, and resentment that would be familiar to any audience. In using the dramatic and ¯. u-evoking language and imagery described above, the story of meyppat K¯an˜canan’s confusion, his compassionate concern for his wife, and his ¯ ¯ ultimate submission to jealousy and rage, serve to draw the audience ¯ couple and consider the same into the experience of the vidyadhara questions that confront them: How does one respond to the suffering of a loved one? How should one act in the face of seeming betrayal and ingratitude? The question of how to live with, and for, others in a world governed by the seemingly cruel and impersonal forces of karma, is ¯ but throughout the text raised not only by the story of the vidyadharas of the Man. ime¯kalai; in consistently eliciting an experience of pathos, the text invites its audience to reflect upon the needs and desires of others, to relate to other human beings with compassion and care. Alukai ¯ represents here not simply an aesthetic experience in the manner of ¯. u or rasa, not simply a heightened mood of pity or pathos, but meyppat a call to act compassionately in the world. This “call to act compassionately” is stated even more boldly elsewhere in the text in what constitutes perhaps the most significant of the text’s direct ethical statements, far-reaching in its implications for an audience of ordinary human beings: Man. im¯ekalai’s instruction to the queen who grieves over the loss of her son, Utayakumaran – the ¯ direct narrative result of K¯an˜canan’s misplaced rage – and blames ¯ ¯ Man. im¯ekalai for his sudden and bloody demise. While Man. im¯ekalai herself has already become that rare recipient of knowledge of her former births and her place in a greater karmic scheme of human relationships,60 her exhortation to the queen to care for others is predicated not upon special knowledge or powers, but upon the ordinary human state of ignorance (xxiii. 67–79): On that day when I burned away my life, unable to bear living after the snake of poisonous eyes took the precious life of Ir¯akulan, . . . 61 ¯

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where were you weeping for your son, you who are a good flowering creeper, now doing things that are not proper? Do you weep for his body? Or do you weep for his life?62 If you weep for his body, who raised up your son and placed him on the cremation ground? If you weep for his life, it is difficult to know which life it will enter next through the workings of karma. If your love is for that life, lady of beautiful bangles, then your 63 ˙ weeping (irankal) must be for all lives.

The ethic of compassion assumes not the copious knowledge of past lives gained by Man. im¯ekalai on the course of her spiritual maturation, a knowledge to which few are entitled,64 but ignorance of such things; it is because the queen cannot be sure of her son’s whereabouts in his next incarnation that she must transfer her love and concern for him to all lives. Here Man. im¯ekalai might well be speaking directly to the text’s “audience” of karmically unaware beings, to K¯ayacan. t.ikai and K¯an˜canan who most poignantly represent that situation, as well as ¯ ¯ to the queen. The dramatic passages of the text, Man. im¯ekalai seems ¯. u experience here to be implying, should create not simply a meyppat of pity and compassion for the characters of the Man. ime¯kalai but for all characters, all human beings. “Those who (never) cease loving all human beings,” she continues (xxiii. 136–137), “are those who realize the final truth that eradicates suffering.” In the world of the Man. ime¯kalai marked by human suffering, only transient joys, and the complex and interdependent causal processes ¯ ¯. u evoked by the text – that of it is the meyppat of pat. iccasamuppada, alukai, presented both as an aesthetic experience and an active ethic ¯ of compassion – that underlies the moral vision, the ethical stance of the narrative. As literary scholar Geoffrey Harpham has recently noted, true ethical inquiry “does not solve problems, it structures them”;65 compassionate concern for the well-being of others moves the text forward, the violent climax caused by that instant in which K¯an˜canan ¯ ¯ ¯. u of alukai, the loses sight of all but his rage. In evoking the meyppat ¯ text inherently demands that its audience ponder the same problems, think about characters and situations at some distance from one’s own life, enter into an inquiry concerning the quality of human interaction and the human good. Although the sole other remaining Buddhist text composed in ¯ iyam and its commentary, are separated from the Tamil, the V¯ıracol ¯ Man. imekalai by a least five hundred years and obviously address different communities,66 a similar pattern of ethicizing earlier Tamil

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and Sanskrit literary themes and devices can also clearly be seen. ¯ iyam67 is a To provide a brief introduction to the texts, the V¯ıracol ¯ treatise on Tamil grammar and poetics in one hundred eighty-one ¯ on the model of the much verses, arranged in five chapters or atikaram ¯ eluttu (phonemes or “letters”); col (morphemes, earlier Tolkappiyam: ¯ literally “words”); and porul. (literally “meaning” or poetic content). ¯ discusses poetics entirely under the rubric of While the Tolkappiyam ¯ ¯ porul. , the Vıracoliyam is the first Tamil grammar to further subdivide ¯ ¯ ¯ on porul. (content), yappu (metrics) poetics into a separate atikaram ˙ aram ¯ ˙ aram, ¯ (poetic “ornament”); in this latter section on alank and alank the author, Puttamittiran, explicitly says that he follows Dan. d. in (tan. .ti ¯ ¯ pat. iye¯ uraippan).68 The entire project of harmoncon. n. a karaimali nulin ¯ ¯ izing Sanskrit and Tamil literary theory is explicitly made Buddhist in the text, for “true Tamil” was first taught to the great sage Agastya by Avalo¯kitan (Avalokite´svara) “whose glory shines in a thousand ways.”69 ¯ It is in the commentary, however, traditionally believed to have been composed by Puttamittiran’s student, Perunt¯evan¯ar, that we see both ¯ ¯ Tamil and Sanskrit literary traditions imbued with a Buddhist moral vision. To begin with the Tamil case, fragments of verse quoted by Perunt¯evana¯r addressed to the glories of the Buddha’s past lives become ¯ a means of infusing, through example, classical literary conventions and themes with Buddhist values. To cite but one particularly clear case of such redefinition, the commentator quotes a rather lengthy verse to explicate the poetic theme of kot. ai under verse number 102. Kot. ai, ¯ as one of the generally meaning “gift,” is named in the Tolkappiyam ¯ rum) divisions of vet. ci, a puram or fourteen “dreadful” (ut. kuvarat ton ¯ ¯¯ heroic theme describing the king as he captures enemy cattle in war.70 After a series of events that includes killing the villagers from whom ¯ the king is to “give” (kot. ai);71 the “gift” the cattle are stolen (urkolai), ¯ is glossed by the eleventh-century commentator on the Tolkappiyam, Il.ampu¯ran. ar, as “the distribution of the herd of cattle to those in need” ¯ (pakutta niraiyai ve¯n. .ti irapparkkuk kot. uttal),72 “those in need” being the destitute survivors of the raid and ensuing massacre. In classical Tamil literary texts, then, kot. ai represents the act of a beneficent king who, having stolen and slaughtered in royal fashion, simply returns to his victims that which was theirs in the first place. Perunt¯evan¯ar’s commentarial example of kot. ai as a poetic theme also ¯ stresses giving – the Buddha is, indeed, described here as “v¯ırakkot. ai” or “heroic giver” – but the nature of the gift, the giver, and the recipient is utterly transformed. The king as “hero” is replaced by the “v¯ıra”kkot. ai,

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identified in the first line of the verse as “the great and compassionate arahant of the green-leafed bodhi tree.”73 The kot. ai itself is not the culmination of any royal conquest, but the “gift unbidden” (varaiya¯ ¯ ıkai), unprescribed, not looked for by its recipients; moreover, the “gift” represents an action far more humane and compassionate than the return of stolen or pillaged property to its rightful owners-made-victims, of ˙ anthology of heroic poetry the sort glorified throughout the Cankam ¯ ¯ known as Purananuru. The bodhisatta instead offers his own blood ¯ ¯ ¯ to quench the thirst of a band of thankless raks. asas or demons: “He split open his own body,” the unknown poet writes of the bodhisatta’s compassionate act of self-sacrifice, “and the blood gushed forth, [blood] plentiful enough to quench the thirst of those supplicants who were ˙ without love.”74 Through example, Perunt¯evana¯r turns the Cankam ¯ literary ideal on its head; the “king,” now replaced by the bodhisatta as “heroic giver,” gives selflessly of his own flesh and blood to feed those raks. asas who pay him no homage, offer him nothing in return. The “hero” is transformed from warring king to compassionate caregiver, feeding those in need regardless of their character or merit. The critical ¯ and borrowed in the third literary apparatus set out in the Tolkappiyam chapter on porul. or poetic content is reimagined by the commentator as a “technology” for expressing explicitly Buddhist values. ¯ iyam transforms not only the The commentator on the V¯ıracol ¯ literary vision of the classical Tamil poetic corpus as articulated in ¯ ˙ ara ¯ envisioned by Dan. d. in but the scheme of alamk the Tolkappiyam, as well. The Tirukkural. , for example, a text of more than thirteen ¯ hundred “moral epigrams”75 that may or may not be “Buddhist,” is ¯ iyam. cited some seventy-two times by the commentator on the V¯ıracol ¯ ¯ ¯ Of those seventy-two quotations given by Peruntevanar, a substan¯ tial majority (fifty-two) are taken not from the section dealing with ¯ or erotic love/lust, but from the first two sections addressing kamam themes of aram or dharma and porul. (in this case equivalent to Sanskrit ¯ artha, namely wealth and power); of the twenty quotations from the ¯ chapter on kamam, sixteen are employed to illustrate various aspects ˙ ara/ala ¯ ˙ aram. ¯ nk The effect of Dan. d. in’s/Perunt¯evana¯r’s theory of alamk ¯ of such use of Kural. verses on the nature of love is primarily two¯ fold. First and perhaps most obviously, the commentator’s selections highlight the pain and anguish of love – rather than its rapturous joys – as envisioned by the Kural. , particularly in the context of “chaste” ¯ ˙ aram ¯ known as or “wedded” love (karpu). As an example of the alank ¯ parimarram (Sanskrit parivr. tti), an expression involving a non-literal ¯¯ exchange of ideas or things, for example, Perunt¯evana¯r quotes verse ¯

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1183 from the Kural. section dealing with the pallor (pacalai) brought ¯ about by the separation of husband and wife: “He robbed me first of my beauty and shame / And gave me in exchange sickness and pallor.”76 The anguish of separation is again the focus of the commentator’s ¯ e¯pam (Sanskrit illustration of tat. aimoli, glossed by Perunt¯evana¯r as “akk ¯ ¯ ¯ . epa) according to Tan. t.iy¯ar,” 77 an expression of objection or denial. aks Here the verse quoted is Kural. 1151: “Tell me [only] if he is not going; ¯ of quick return tell [only] those who can survive [such sorrow].”78 In addition to this emphasis on love as a source of human anguish, ˙ aram ¯ with the commentator’s examples also imbue the various alank sentiments of pain and suffering not found in Dan. d. in’s examples of ˙ aras. ¯ ¯ adar ¯ s´a, for example, illustrates Dan. d. in’s Kavy the same alamk parivr. tti not with a verse of grief but with an image of kingly glory in battle: “Oh king, having struck blows with your sword, your arm has captured the long-held and lotus-pale glory of this earth’s prince.”79 ¯ . epa described by Dan. d. in,80 the Of the more than twenty types of aks examples given in the Sanskrit text again differ quite significantly from those found in the Tamil; rather than highlighting the miseries of love, Dan. d. in focuses on love’s joys and amusements, from “With his five flower-tipped arrows, the god of love conquered the entire world; this is not possible, [but] such is the wondrous power of things!”81 to “Oh, my one of soft voice, why do you place a lotus [near] your ear? Do you think that your glance will fail to attract me?”82 In choosing so selectively from the Tirukkural. such radically different examples of poetic ¯ embellishments or figures of speech, in other words, the commentary ¯ iyam imagines ordinary human or erotic love as a source on the V¯ıracol ¯ of human pain rather than joy, as a form of human attachment that leads only to suffering rather than the coy playfulness and happiness ˙ ara ¯ theory in practice. suggested by the Sanskrit “model” of alamk ˙ aram ¯ theory and Tirukkural. example enable the commentator to Alank ¯ refocus the Tamil tradition of literary love, to emphasize instead the ultimate pain caused by such “worldly” attachment. The commentary’s focus on the aram and porul. sections of the ¯ Kural. contributes even further to the “moral vision” of the text. The ¯ examples quoted stress, above all else, compassionate concern for others, particularly for the poor and suffering. “There is nothing worse than ¯ iyam 112 as death,” reads Tirukkural. verse 230, quoted under V¯ıracol ¯ ¯ ¯ “but death is sweet an example of the meter known as kural. ven. pa, ¯ if one is unable to help the poor.”83 As an example of kural. ven. pa¯ ¯ meter under verse 125, the commentator quotes Tirukkural. verse 406: ¯ “The ignorant are like a barren field; ‘they are,’ but [they] are without

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¯ verses discussed above, use.”84 Again, as in the case of the kamam ˙ aram, ¯ the bulk of these Kural. selections occur in the section on alank ¯ and imbue the poetic embellishments with an ethical sense not found in Dan. d. in’s work. Among the several types of virodha, or expression of contradictory properties in a single subject, Dan. d. in cites as an example: “Who would not be stricken by a woman’s body that is of thin waist, ample thighs, red lips, black eyes, flattened navel, and raised breasts?”85 As an example of muran. , the Tamil “equivalent” of virodha, Perunt¯evana¯r quotes a verse of strikingly different sentiment: ¯ “Even if one is without blame, it is bad to receive; even if [there is] no heaven, it is good to give.”86 In discussing generally the nature of ¯ ¯ iyam verse 150, or metaphor under V¯ıracol uruvakam (Sanskrit rupaka) ¯ the commentator offers as examples Kural. verses 42 – “The household ¯ is help for ascetics, the poor, and the dead” – and 10 – “Only those who clasp the feet of the lord cross the ocean of births.”87 As above, such moral imperatives to help the poor and the ascetic wanderer, to “clasp the feet of the lord,” stand in sharp contrast to Dan. d. in’s many examples of metaphor with a singularly erotic flavor, such as: “Anyone who is bewildered by your face, its cheeks red with drink and its eye [like] lotuses tender with affection, is made passionate.”88 Such a large number of quotations from the Kural. , in conjunction ¯ ¯ . iyar ¯ 89 and other with verses on similar themes drawn from the Nalat medieval texts of a comparable nature, serve to imbue the literary theory ¯ iyam – and particularly the theory of poetic outlined in the V¯ıracol ¯ ˙ aram ¯ – with moral sensibilities quite foreign embellishment or alank ¯ adar ¯ s´a. In drawing on to the examples given by Dan. d. in in his Kavy texts that may or may not be Buddhist, but carefully selected parts of which are in a sense made “Buddhist” through their association with the language of Avalo¯kitan and their close proximity in the commentary ¯ to verses of devotion to the Buddha, the commentator lays claim to a larger part of “Tamil” literary culture as compatible with his vision of a “Buddhist” community; the “moral maxims” of the Kural. that ¯ Perunt¯evana¯r chooses to highlight are thoroughly in keeping with ¯ the compassionate nature of the bodhisatta emphasized in the more avowedly “Buddhist” quotations. The commentary, in imagining a Buddhist community through literature that includes explicitly “ethical” ¯ . iyar, ¯ becomes a site to reflect works such as the Tirukkural. and Nalat ¯ upon issues far wider than mere grammatical categories or poetic theory. ¯ iyam considers not only the nature Perunt¯evana¯r’s gloss on the V¯ıracol ¯ ¯ of the Buddha and his miraculous deeds as bodhisatta, but the ideal ethical or moral orientation of the ordinary person. Perunt¯evan¯ar, in short, ¯

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˙ aras ¯ transforms Dan. d. in’s discussion of the alamk into a meditation upon the proper way to live. The “technology” of literary culture becomes a medium for envisioning a community of readers with an explicitly Buddhist set of values. ¯ The story of the pitiable vidyadhara couple in the Man. ime¯kalai – as in the case of the wider narrative as a whole – displays a certain tendency, on the part of the Buddhist author, to focus on the moral, to emphasize the ethical nature of the experience he seeks to evoke ¯. u or rasa; that tendency is given through the experience of meyppat more explicit direction in the only other Buddhist texts to survive in Tamil, the literary and grammatical “technology” developed by ¯ iyam and its Puttamittiran and his student, Perunt¯evana¯r, in the V¯ıracol ¯ ¯ ¯ commentary. Given this clear tendency in both these texts, so widely separated in virtually everything but language, one wonders if the ¯ iyam represent wider currents in South Man. ime¯kalai and the V¯ıracol ¯ Asian Buddhist literary production and criticism. Do other Buddhist authors and literary theoreticians similarly seek to imbue the models of their literary culture with specifically moral or ethical values? Certainly the sectarian interpretations of South Asian literary theory would seem to be a question worth pursuing further.

NOTES 1

Kamil V. Zvelebil, trans., The Story of My Life: An Autobiography of Dr. U. V. Swaminatha Iyer (Tiruvanmiyur: Institute of Asian Studies, 1994), vol. 2, p. 518. 2 Ibid., pp. 518–519. 3 See, for example, A. Chakravarti, ed., Neelakesi: The Original Text and the Commentary of Samaya-Divakara-Vamana-Muni (Tan˜c¯avu¯r: Tamilp Palkalaik Kalakam, ¯ ¯ 1984), part 2 (Tamil text), p. 71. 4 ¯ ˜ ¯ ¯ ¯ See Can. mukacuntara Mutaliyar, ed., Civananacittiyar parapakkamulam (Madras: By the author, 1894), p. 83; the same citation ¯is repeated on p. 117. 5 Nineteen verses of the Kun. .talake¯ci are preserved in the fifteenth-century anthology, Purattirat..tu; see S. Vaiyapuri, ed., Purattirattu (Madras, no date). 6 ¯ ´ ¯ı R¯ ¯ Totagamuv¯e Sr ahula “speaks of the Demala Jataka-gat . apada” in his ¯ ¯ Pan˜cikaprad ıpiya; see K. D. Somadasa, Catalogue of the Hugh Nevill Collection of Sinhalese Manuscripts in the British Library (London: The British Library, 1990), vol. 4, p. 373. 7 See, for example, Shu Hikosaka, Buddhism in Tamilnadu: A New Perspective (Tiruvanmiyur: Institute of Asian Studies, 1989), p. 54: “. . . propagation of Buddhism is one of the main purposes of Man. ime¯kalai.” Paula Richman, in her treatment of the Man. ime¯kalai’s inversion of classical Tamil poetic themes, likewise states: “One assumption that seems reasonable is that some of the members of the audience for Man. ime¯kalai would have been relatively ignorant of Buddhism. C¯attan¯ar spends ¯ so much time explaining extremely basic concepts of Buddhism – increasing the complexity of his discussion only toward the end of the text – that it seems reasonable to make such an assumption.” See Paula Richman, Women, Branch Stories,

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217

and Religious Rhetoric in a Tamil Buddhist Text (Syracuse, NY: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 1988), pp. 9–10. 8 See, for example, P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri, History of Grammatical Theories in Tamil and their Relation to the Grammatical Literature in Sanskrit (Madras: The Journal of Oriental Research, 1934), p. 231. Subrahmanya Sastri focuses primarily ¯ iyam departs from the Tolkappiyam ¯ on the ways in which the V¯ıracol – the earliest ¯ extant Tamil grammar – and lambastes the Buddhist author for “proceed[ing] to violently dragoon Tamil language and grammar into the groove of Sanskrit.” 9 ¯ iyam and their place in South Indian For more on the Man. ime¯kalai, the V¯ıracol ¯ literary culture, see Anne Monius, “In Search of ‘Tamil Buddhism’: Language, Literary Culture, and Religions Community in Tamil-Speaking South India” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1997). 10 See Richman, Branch Stories. 11 ¯ As with all pre-modern Tamil texts, dating the Tolkappiyam is no easy task, and there has been much scholarly disagreement on this subject. For a concise discussion of the various arguments for dating the text, see Kamil V. Zvelebil, Lexicon of Tamil Literature (New York: E. J. Brill, 1995), pp. 705–708. Zvelebil suggests a ¯ fifth-century CE date for the “final reduction” of the Tolkappiyam, a conclusion that seems quite reasonable. 12 All references to the Man. ime¯kalai text are drawn from U. V¯e. C¯amin¯ataiyar, ed., Man. ime¯kalai (Tiruvanmiyur: Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. U. V. Swaminathaiyer Library, 1981). 13 The Man. ime¯kalai has been “translated” (more often summarized) several times over the past century, beginning with Julien Vinson’s partial translation and para´ phrase into French, Legendes Bouddhistes et Djainas: Traduites du Tamoul, 2 vols. (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1900). For a list of translations to date, see Zvelebil, Lexicon pp. 412–413. Since no translation of the text to date has addressed the Buddhist terms, allusions, and images in a satisfactorily consistent fashion, all translations below, unless otherwise noted are my own. 14 See Richman, pp. 2–3, for an explanation of the aptness of this term and a table outlining the main “branch stories” and their relation to events in the main narrative. 15 karpu, as the virtue of a woman and the power that inheres in such virtue, is ¯ ˙ a common theme in the Cankam classical poetic anthologies. Originally tied to the idea of marriage, karpu eventually became synonymous with the powers generated ¯ by the chastity of women. As the Tirukkural. , the pre-sixth-century ethical work, ¯ summarizes the force of karpu: ¯

What can excel a woman Who is rooted in chastity? She whose husband is her only God Says, ‘Rain’ and it rains. [Translation of verses fifty-four and fifty-five taken from P. S. Sundaram, trans., The Kural. (New York: Penguin Books, (1990), p. 24]. Note that the second verse, number fifty-five, is quoted directly by the Man. ime¯kalai at xxii. 59–61. 16 ¯ being an honorific ending in Tamil. -ar 17 ¯ u (Madras: An. n. ¯ See E. S. Varatar¯aja Ayyar, Tamil ilakkiya varalar amalai Palkalaik ¯ ¯ Kalakam, 1957), p. 148. As Richman, p. 160, correctly points out, early dating is ¯ characteristic “among Tamil scholars of a more traditional bent.” For a summary of the various attempts at dating the Man. ime¯kalai, see her discussion on pp. 160–161. 18 See Hikosaka, Buddhism in Tamilnadu, pp. 93–94. 19 S. N. Kandaswamy, Buddhism as Expounded in Man. ime¯kalai (Annamalainagar: Annamalai University, 1978), pp. 5–19. 20 xxx. 263–264:

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¯. .tu tarumam ke¯.t.tup tavattiram pun ¯ ¯ ¯ ranal. en pavattir am aruka enap pavai nor ¯

¯

¯

¯¯ ¯

¯

21

˙ Dating of the Cankam poetic anthologies is, of course, no easier than dating the ¯ Tolkappiyam or the Man. ime¯kalai. Many scholars place their composition sometime in the early centuries of the common era, and a date predating the final redaction of ¯ the Tolkappiyam – a text that seems to describe an extant literary culture and body of texts – seems quite certain. 22 See, for example, her summation of her argument in Branch Stories, pp. 4–5. 23 For a full treatment of the use of this term in the text, see Anne Monius and ¯ Vijayalakshmy Rangarajan, “Etunikal cci in the Man. ime¯kalai: The Manifestation ¯ of Beneficial Root ‘Causes’ and Renunciation,” in A Buddhist Woman’s Path to Enlightenment: Proceedings of a Workshop on the Tamil Narrative Man. ime¯kalai, Uppsala University, May 25–29, 1995, ed. by Peter Schalk, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis: Historica Religionum, vol. 13 (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1997), pp. 261–275. 24 ¯ (London: Henry Frowde, for the See Robert Chalmers, ed., The Majjhima-Nikaya Pali Text Society, 1898), vol. 2, pp. 97–105; and H. C. Norman, ed., The Commentary on the Dhammapada (London: Luzac and Company Ltd., for the Pali Text Society, 1970), vol. 3, pp. 169–170, and vol. 4, pp. 231–232. The story of the Buddha’s ˙ ¯ ¯ ¯ conversion of Angulim ala in a previous existence is told in the Mahasutasomaj ataka; ¯ see V. Fausboll, ed., The Jataka Together with its Commentary: Being Tales of the Anterior Births of Gotama Buddha (London: Kegan Paul Trench Trubner and Co., Ltd., 1877–1897), vol. 5, pp. 456–511. 25 Norman, Dhammapada Commentary, vol. 1, p. 26; the tale of Mat.t.hakun. d. ali ¯ also appears in E. Hardy, ed., Dhammapala’s Paramattha-D¯ıpan¯ı, Part IV: Being ¯ the Commentary on the Vimana-Vatthu (London: Henry Frowde, for the Pali Text Society, 1901), pp. 322–330. 26 ¯ or “wholesome roots” and their unbeneficial Discussions of these kusalamula counterparts (lobha, dosa, and moha), in the context of their identification with the first of the twenty-four conditional relations (hetupaccaya), can be found at any number of places in the P¯ali literature, including Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga xvii. 66–70. 27 ¯ ¯ıvika notion of ¯ ” appears to be an old Tamil word used to distinguish the Aj “ul ¯ ¯ niyati¯ or fate from vinai or karma. See R. Vijayalakshmy, Tamilakattil Ac ıvakarkal. ¯ (Madras: International¯ Institute of Tamil Studies, 1988), pp. 41–68, for a discussion ¯ in Tamil literature. In modern Tamil, ul ¯ and vinai are used of the use of the term ul ¯ ¯ ¯ synonymously. 28 ¯ For more on the concept of niyati as presented in non Aj¯ıvika Sanskrit works, as well as a brief look at Tamil sources, see A. L. Basham, History and Doctrines ¯¯ of the Aj ıvikas: A Vanished Indian Religion (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), pp. 224–239. 29 ¯ This and all following quotations from the text of the Cilappatikaram are ¯ ¯ drawn from: U. V¯e. C¯amin¯ataiyar, ed., Cilappatikaram mulamum Arumpatayuraiyum ¯ ¯ At. iyarkkunall aruraiyum (Tiruvanmiyur: Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. U. V. Swaminathaiyer Library, 1978). 30 xvi. 156:

t¯ıvinai mutirvalaic cenrupat..tirunta ¯¯

¯

31

xxi. 1:

¯..tiye¯n kot. uvinai at ¯

32

¯

The being who consumes K¯ayacan. t.ikai is described in the text as the “antari” ¯ . ikai.” “Antari” in later Tamil literature comes to mean (line 116) who is “vintakat

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¯ . ikai” is somewhat obscure, but the goddess Durg¯a; the precise meaning of “vintakat perhaps means “guardian of the Vindhy¯a hills,” from the verb “kat. i” meaning “to drive off.” This is perhaps a reference to the goddess as Vindhyav¯asin¯ı. See David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 107; and Cynthia Ann Humes, “Vindhyav¯asin¯ı: Local Goddess Yet Great Goddess,” in Dev¯ı: Goddesses of India, ed. by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 49–76. 33 See, for example, John Ralston Marr, The Eight Anthologies: A Study in Early Tamil Literature (Tiruvanmiyur: Institute of Asian Studies, 1985), p. 56: “. . . this ¯. u] would seem to depend upon Sanskrit dramatic whole iyal [the chapter on meyppat theory . . . From the point of view of Tamil it is an accretion, and may well have been ¯ ¯. u added later to Tol[kappiyam].” Zvelebil includes only a four-line entry on meyppat in his Lexicon, p. 436. 34 ¯ All quotations from the Tolkappiyam to follow, unless otherwise noted, are drawn ¯ ¯ ¯ . ar uraiyut. an (Tirunelv¯ from Tolkappiyam porul. atikaram: Il. ampuran eli: Caivacitt¯anta ¯ Nu¯lpatippuk Kalakam, 1977), pp. 359–393. ¯ 35 ¯ ¯ arata ¯ See J. A. B. van Buitenen, trans., The Mahabh (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), vol. 3, p. 25. 36 ¯ msa, ˙ See Wilhelm Geiger and Mabel Haynes Bode, trans., The Mahava or the Great Chronicle of Ceylon (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1993), pp. 5–8. 37 ¯ ¯. yas´astra ¯ Tolkappiyam, verse 247, pp. 361–362; M. Ramakrishna, Nat of Bharatamuni ¯ ¯ ¯ arya, ¯ with the Commentary Abhinavabharat ı by Abhinavaguptac Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, no. 36, 2nd ed. (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1956), pp. 260–341. 38 ¯ Tolkappiyam, verse 271, p. 393:

kan. n. inum ceviyinum tin. n. itin un. akum ¯ ¯ ¯ un. avut allatu ¯teriyin . ai mantarkku ¯ ¯. en nannayap porul. kol .n . arum kuraitte¯ ¯¯

39

Ibid., verse 248, pp. 362–364. See, for example, the scene between Man. im¯ekalai and Prince Utayakumaran in ¯ chapter four, “The Story of the Entry into the Crystal Chamber.” 41 See, for example, the sudden appearance of the great, bejewelled seat of the Buddha on the wondrous island of Man. ipallavam (viii. 43–53), and Man. im¯ekalai’s reaction to it (ix. 1–4): “Man. im¯ekalai, the lady wearing choice ornaments, saw that (seat) there and forgot herself. Bringing her red, flower-like hands over her head, and with tears welling up in her reddened eyes, she . . . shed pearl(-like) tears upon her breast.” 42 ¯ Tolkappiyam, verse 249, pp. 364–365. This list of four situations giving rise to ¯. yas´astra, ¯ alukai or karun. a is significantly shorter than the lengthier list found in the Nat ¯ ¯. yas´astra, ¯ from suffering a curse to loss of wealth and bodily injury; see Nat p. 317. 43 Man. ime¯kalai xvii. 37–46: 40

Those people who eat that fruit that comes from the divine, renowned jamoon plum tree, the tree which yields a fruit only once in twelve years, for twelve years do not know bodily hunger. I observe a vow of fasting and eat only one day in every twelve years. You have destroyed the fruit I was to have eaten. You will now lose the mantra that enables you to fly through the sky, and you will suffer the pain of the insatiable hunger known as tantitt¯ı. In twelve years’ time, I will eat a ripened fruit here; on that day, your hunger will finally be appeased.

220 44

ANNE E. MONIUS

Man. ime¯kalai xvii. 62–66:

In the Tamil land, on the island of Campu, there is a city of virtue ¯ where ascetics dwell and where wealthy people, whose riches are constant, help those who are helpless. Even though it will take many days to get there by surface travel, go and enter that city! 45

¯ ¯ ¯ See Tolkappiyam porul. atikaram: Pe¯raciriyar urai (Triunelv¯ali: Caivacitt¯anta Nu¯lpatippuk Kalakam, 1966), p. 9. The translation is taken from A. K. Ramanujan, ¯ trans., Poems of¯Love and War: From the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), p. 175. 46 Ramanujan, Poems of Love and War, p. 178. 47 Norman Cutler and Paula Richman, eds., A Gift of Tamil: Translations from Tamil Literature in Honor of K. Paramasivam (New Delhi: Manohar and American Institute of Indian Studies, 1992), p. 12. 48 Translation by A. K. Ramanujan, Poems of Love and War, p. 176. The verse is ¯ ¯ ur ¯ ¯ u mulam, quoted at Tolkappiyam, p. 365; see also U. V¯e. C¯amin¯ataiyar, ed., Puranan ¯ ¯ ¯ 2nd ed. (Tiruvanmiyur: Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. U. V. Swaminathaiyer Library, 1993), p. 134. 49 See Richman, pp. 53–78. 50 ¯ Tolkappiyam, verse 77, pp. 127–135. 51 ¯ The other is kaikkilai and is discussed in the Tolkappiyam verse immediately ¯ preceding the discussion of peruntin. ai. 52 ¯ Tolkappiyam, verses 53–54, pp. 64–69. Verse 54 lists the following four situations suggestive of improper love: (1) the lover’s mounting of a palm-stem horse; (2) the old age of one of the lovers; (3) the state of complete forgetfulness in a violent passion; and (4) sexual union in such a state. 53 Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, Kathleen Blamey, trans. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 115. 54 The academic study of Buddhist ethics is a rapidly growing field, as witnessed by the recently inaugurated on-line periodical, The Journal of Buddhist Ethics. For an overview of the field as a whole, see Frank E. Reynolds, “Buddhist Ethics: A Bibliographic Essay,” Religious Studies Review 5/1 (January 1979): 40–48; and Charles Hallisey, “Recent Works on Buddhist Ethics,” Religious Studies Review 18/4 (October 1992): 276–285. Although writers such as Ricoeur address the relationship between narrative and ethics in a western context, the role of narrative literature as a medium for Buddhist ethical inquiry has thus far been little explored; see Charles Hallisey and Anne Hansen, “Narrative, Sub-Ethics, and the Moral Life: Some Evidence from Therav¯ada Buddhism,” Journal of Religious Ethics 24/2 (Fall 1996): 305–327. 55 To borrow briefly from another late twentieth-century literary critic, Martha Nussbaum, Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), p. xvi, for example, argues for the relevance of literature in thinking about moral choices because engagement with a literary work presupposes an ability to reflect upon and appreciate the lives of others: “. . . I defend the literary imagination precisely because it seems to me an essential ingredient of an ethical stance that asks us to concern ourselves with the good of other people whose lives are distant from our own.” 56 ¯. u or rasa also entails a higher knowledge or moral That the experience of meyppat understanding is apparent, although not always directly stated, in the Sanskrit traditions of literary criticism. Hart, for example, in introducing the medieval aesthetician, Jagann¯atha, notes: “There is . . . a tendency in India to see literature in moral terms – if a work has no possibility for the moral upliftment of people, its value is questioned” [see George L. Hart III, “Archetypes in Classical Indian Literature and Beyond,”

TAMIL BUDDHIST LITERATURE

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in Syllables of Sky: Studies in South Indian Civilization in Honour of Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, ed. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 167]. ¯ ¯ Abhinavagupta, in his commentary on Anandavardhana’s Dhvanyaloka, asserts that only rasa can enter into the hearts of “princes, who are not educated in scripture” and instruct them in “the four goals of man” [see Daniel H. H. Ingalls, et al., trans., ¯ ¯ The Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana with the Locana of Abhinavagupta, Harvard Oriental Series, no. 49 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 437]. 57 This ethical “question,” the problem of finding value and meaning in human action in a world conditioned by forces beyond human control, takes precedence in the Man. ime¯kalai over any concern with the specifics of ontology or liberation; the text is strikingly lacking, for example, in terms so often associated with the Buddhist quest ¯ for enlightenment, terms such as bodhisatta, merit, nibbana, or arahant. The very structure of the overall text itself – the fact that in the story of “the renunciation of Man. im¯ekalai” (as the text describes its principal theme in the patikam, line 97) the renunciatory vow takes place only in the final two lines of the narrative – suggests that the world of everyday human affairs and interactions is the arena that most concerns the Man. ime¯kalai, not the rarefied existence of the ascetic few. 58 Man. ime¯kalai xx. 126: ¯ a¯nku ˙ avvinai ninaiyum akalatu urum ¯

59

¯

¯

Ibid., xx. 104–105:

ven˜cina aravam nan˜cu eyiru arumpa ¯ ¯ tan peru vekul. iyin eluntu pai viritta ena ¯

¯ ¯

¯

60

See Man. ime¯kalai, chapter nine, “The Story of Beholding the [Buddha]-Seat and Realizing [Former] Births.” 61 Here Man. im¯ekalai refers to her previous existence as the wife of Utayakumaran. ¯ 62 uyir, meaning life or breath, in later Hindu literature comes to be synonymous with “soul.” 63 ˙ irankal here might also be understood as “feeling” or “pity” for others. 64 See xi. 30–36. Here T¯ıvatilakai, the guardian of the miraculous almsbowl, explains to Man. im¯ekalai that those fortunate enough to gain knowledge of former births before the pedestal are “rare in this world.” 65 Geoffrey Halt Harpham, “Ethics,” in Critical Terms for Literary Study, ed. by Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 404. 66 ¯ iyam and its commentary address meyppat ¯. u, alukai, and ka¯n˜ci only The V¯ıracol ¯ briefly, and the¯ commentator, in citing examples from Buddhist literature – much of it now lost – never once mentions by name nor quotes the Man. ime¯kalai. 67 ¯ iyam All quotations are drawn from K¯a. Ra. Ko¯vintar¯aja Mutaliy¯ar, ed., V¯ıracol ¯ ´ ¯ iyarriya uraiyum (Cennai: Saiva ¯ mulamum Perunte¯vanar Siddh¯anta Works Publishing ¯¯ ¯¯ Association, 1970). ¯ 68 Ibid., verse 141, p. 198. 69 Ibid., verse 83, p. 86: ¯ ¯ ayiram vitattil poliyum pukal avalokitan meyt tamile¯ ¯

70 71 72 73

¯

¯ Tolkappiyam, verses 59–60, p. 74. Ibid., verse 61, p. 76. Ibid., p. 79. ¯ iyam, p. 115: V¯ıracol ¯

¯ . aip potip ¯ ¯ pacat pe¯r arul. vaman ¯

¯

222 74

ANNE E. MONIUS

¯ iyam, p. 115: V¯ıracol ¯

¯ e¯n anpilarkkav . .tal. avum paruka ¯ ¯ en pu torum kalippirran mey tirantu vakki ¯ ¯¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ kurutik kolumpatam kot. uttatum¯ anri ¯¯

¯

75

So described by G. U. Pope in the introduction to his edition and translation of the text, The Sacred Kurral of Tiruvalluva-Nayanar with Introduction, Grammar, Translation, Notes, Lexicon, and Concordance (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1990), p. vi. 76 All translations from the Kural. are adapted from Sundaram’s translation cited ¯ iyam, p. 219:¯ above. See V¯ıracol ¯

¯ ¯. um avar kon. .tar ¯ a¯ ¯ kaimmar cayalum nan ¯ noyum pacalaiyum tantu 77 78

¯ iyam, p. 211. V¯ıracol ¯ Ibid., p. 210:

¯ collamai un. .te¯l enakku urai mannu nin ¯¯ ¯ ¯ varkku ¯¯ valvaravu val urai ¯

79

¯ adar ¯ s´a are adapted from those of Edwin Gerow in A Translations from the Kavy Glossary of Indian Figures of Speech (The Hague: Mouton, 1971). See Premachandra ´¯ ¯ adar ¯ s´a of Sr Tarkab¯ag¯ı´sa, ed., The Kavy ı Dan. d. in, Bibliotheca Indica, no. 40, reprint (Osnabruck: Biblio Verlag, 1981), ii. 356, p. 309:

¯ m˙ dadata¯ bhujena tava bhubhuj ¯ ¯ s´astraprahara am ¯ ¯. d cirarjita m˙ hr. tam˙ tes. a¯m˙ yas´ah. kumudapan . uram 80 81

¯ iyam or its commentary. And not elaborated upon in the V¯ıracol ¯ ¯ adar ¯ s´a, ii. 121, p. 165: Kavy

anan˜gah. pan˜cabhih. pus. pair vis´vam vyajayates. ubhih. ˙ avyam ¯ ity asambh atha va¯ vicitra¯ vastus´aktayah. 82

Ibid., ii. 123, p. 166:

¯. in kutah. kuvalayam˙ karn. e karos. i kalabhas .i ˙ ¯ kim apa¯ngam aparyaptam asmin karman. i manyase 83

¯ iyam, p. 133: V¯ıracol ¯

¯ ¯ catalin innatta illai inittu¯ um ¯ ¯¯¯ ¯ ¯ ıtaliyaiy ak kat. ai 84

Ibid., p. 170:

¯ ¯ ul. ar ennum mattiraiyar allal. payavak ¯¯ kal. aran aiyar kalla¯ tavar ¯

85

¯ adar ¯ s´a, ii. 336, p. 296: Kavy

tanumadhyam˙ pr. thus´ron. i raktaus. .tham asiteks. an. am natanabhi vapuh. str¯ın. a¯m˙ kam˙ na hanty innatastanam 86

¯ iyam, p. 217: Tirukkural. verse 222, quoted in V¯ıracol ¯

¯

TAMIL BUDDHIST LITERATURE

223

¯ eninum kol. ar ı¯tu me¯lluka nallar ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ mill ¯enin¯um ıtale nanru ¯¯

87

¯¯

¯ iyam, p. 208. Verse 42: V¯ıracol ¯

¯ ¯ ¯ turantarkkum tuvvatavarkkum irantarkkum ¯ ¯ ¯˙ ¯ ¯ tun milv alvan enpan . ai ¯

¯

¯

Verse 10: ¯ piravip perum kat. al ¯ıntuvar ¯ı¯ıntar ¯ ¯ ar ¯ iraivan . at. i ce¯rat ¯

88

¯ adar ¯ s´a, ii. 75, p. 143: Kavy

¯. alagan madapat .d . ena raktanetrotpalena te ¯ mukhena mugdhah. so ’py es. a jano ragamayah . kr. tah . 89

¯ . iyar, ¯ verse 185, quoted under V¯ ¯ iyam, verse 112 (p. 135), as Such as Nalat ıracol ¯ an example of ven. pa¯ meter:

¯..ti arumit. attum uru punarantula kut ¯ ¯ um ar ¯ e¯ pol ¯ ¯celvam kallur r¯ul. i¯ ur ¯¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ric palark karrik ket..tulantak kan. n. um cilarkkar ¯¯ ¯¯ ¯ ceyvar ceyal palavai

The river pours forth a mighty stream and feeds the world; and when [the river] is dried up, if men dig in its bed, streams gush out! So good men, when rich, give to many; and, when ruined, give still at least to some, and do what should be done. ¯ ¯ or Four Hundred Text and translation from G. U. Pope, ed. and trans., The Naladiy ar Quatrains in Tamil (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1984), pp. 118–119.

Department of Religious Studies University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 U.S.A.