Translating Tamil Caṅkam Poetry: Taking Stock

Wilden, Eva: Naṟṟiṇai. A Critical Edition and an Annotated Translation of the Naṟṟiṇai. Pondichéry: École française d’Extrême-Orient / Chennai: Tamilmann Patippakam 2008. Volume I: Naṟṟiṇai 1–200. xvii, 1–459 S., Volume II: Naṟṟiṇai 201–400. xv, 460–860 S., Volume III: Word Index of the Naṟṟiṇai. viii, 421 S. 8°. = Critical Texts of Caṅkam Literature 1.1–1.3. Brosch. ₹ 1500, € 48,00. ISBN 978-285539-672-9. Wilden, Eva: Kuṟuntokai. A Critical Edition and an Annotated Translation of the Kuṟuntokai. Pondichéry: École française d’Extrême-Orient / Chennai: Tamilmann Patippakam 2010. Volume I: Kuṟuntokai 1–200. x, 1–479 S., Volume II: Kuṟuntokai 201–401. 480–879 S., Volume III: Word Index to the Kuṟuntokai. 339 S. 8°. = Critical Texts of Caṅkam Literature 2.1–2.3. Brosch. ₹ 1500, € 48,00. ISBN 978-2-85539-106-9. Wilden, Eva: A Critical Edition and an Annotated Translation of the Akanāṉūṟu. (Part I – Kaḷiṟṟiyāṉainirai). Pondichéry: École française d’Extrême-Orient, Institut français de Pondichéry 2018. Volume I: Introduction, Invocation–50. cxliv, 1–323 S., Volume II: 51–120. 324–787 S., Volume III: Old commentary on Kaḷiṟṟiyāṉainirai KV-90, Word index of Akanāṉūṟu KV-120. 470 S. 8°. = Collection Indologie 134.1–134.3; NETamil Series 1.1–1.3; Critical Texts of Caṅkam Literature 4.1–4.3. Brosch. ₹ 3000, € 130,00. ISBN 978-2-85539-225-7 (EFEO), ISBN 978-818470-219-4 (IFP).

1.The available translations of Classical Tamil Caṅkam (from Sanskrit saṅgha-, "community") poetry1 can be divided into roughly two types, one comprising poetic translations which but for a general introduction to the poetic tradition should speak for themselves, and the other annotated, literal translations.For the first category the tone has been set by A.K. Ramanujan.Ramanujan was a poet in his own right and his translations from Caṅkam poetry were meant to be savoured and enjoyed just like that, without introduction; the poetic tradition is explained 2008.10At present Eva Wilden thus has the field all to herself.So far, critical editions and translations from her hand have appeared of all 400 poems of each of the Naṟṟiṇai and Kuṟuntokai, and the first 120 poems of the Akanāṉūṟu.These are part of a project of publishing critical editions, with translations, of the complete Caṅkam corpus -the first of their kind, based on manuscripts and earlier editions -so we may expect to see more of them.However, if we should look forward to them is another matter.In translating the poems Wilden has decided to ignore the commentaries as well as the traditional poetical tradition accompanying the poems, which, she claims, would only blur our vision of the original text.Instead, she provides literal translations ("as literal as possible") together with notes and "a host of question marks (a punctuation mark that has, in my opinion, been used all too sparingly in Caṅkam philology as a whole)", and "avoids" to go into the "possible implications" of the words of the poems; if the outcome is unintelligible, she writes, which it often is, the "exercise … might teach [us] the limits both of a mere philological approach and of the traditional approach guided by poetics" (Wilden 2010: 30 f.).11It seems that Wilden calls her approach a philological one (in the Continental meaning of the term).This is not the place to quibble about definitions of philology.However, if for traces of philology we have to turn to Wilden's notes and question marks, expressly lacking any investigative intention, then these can hardly be called philology by any standard.Furthermore, if her approach is indeed meant to be didactic, she fails to offer guidelines on how to tackle problems; the many question marks, for instance, if at all relevant, time and again prove to be mere dead-end streets.But Wilden's lack of interest in the meaning of the poems also affects her work as an editor, for how else can one select from among available variant readings than on the basis of the meaning of the text?
These are grave allegations, which of course need to be substantiated.The aim of the following12 is this very substantiation, as well as to offer suggestions on how the poems should be approached.

2.
For determining the meaning of a Caṅkam poem it is important to realise that the poem does not exist in isolation, but is one of a group of poems dealing with similar themes, situations and expressions.The Caṅkam corpus falls apart into two categories, that of Akam, or "the inner world", and of Puṟam, or the "exterior world".While Akam is often equated with love poetry, it is better to speak of poetry about village life, depicting the unhappy love lives of people living in small villages in the countryside.Akam poems have been fruitfully compared to the Prakrit poems of Hāla's Sattasaī.13Puṟam, on the other hand, is characterised as heroic poetry, but as in the case of Akam that description covers the poem's content only partly.In the Puṟam poems we hear wandering bards praising kings and begging these to support them and their families.
Caṅkam poems present someone speaking to someone else (or to one's self), in the Puṟam poems a poor bard, in the Akam village poems an unhappy lover.The auditor's or reader's task is to identify the problem the speaker is experiencing or commenting upon and what her (in most village poems it is a woman) or his intentions are.This is also the main task the traditional poetical tradition had set itself.It is simplified by the fact that the more than 3000 poems revolve around a restricted number of situations in the villagers' love lives or the kings' roles as warriors or patrons of bards.Therefore, in the case of an unclear poem it might help to look at other poems dealing with a similar theme.
Furthermore, we now have several grammars of the language of the poems,14 which tell us in full detail what is grammatically possible and, by implication, what is not.There is, moreover, a good dictionary,15 and there are two word indexes covering the entire corpus,16 the  1924-1939 (reprinted 1982).16 Index des mots de la littérature tamoule ancienne.(Publications de l'Institut français d'Indologie 37.) Three volumes.Pondichéry: Institut français d 'Indologie 1967-1970, and, Thomas Lehmann, Thomas Malten: A Word Index of Old Tamil Caṅkam Literature.(Beiträge zur Südasienforschung 147.) Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 1992.older of which also includes many compounds and word combinations.For determining the meanings of words and expressions one is therefore not restricted to the one context under consideration.It is strange to see, however, how little use is made of all these tools, which explains the many ad hoc solutions found in the translations that have recently been produced.
Before turning to Wilden's translations I think it apposite to discuss some examples from the translations by Ramanujan (note 2 above), Selby (note 6), and Hart, or rather, Hart and Heifetz (note 4).17The samples will be discussed in some detail to exemplify the issues that need to be tackled and that the abovementioned authors as well as Wilden have ignored.
As indicated, with Ramanujan translating Caṅkam poetry became from the very beginning the preserve of poets, or scholars with ambitions in that direction.What Selby and Hart (or HH), who all followed in Ramanujan's footsteps, share with him is a lack of interest in any form of philological investigation into the poems.Only HH provide more than cursory notes to the translations; however, these hardly ever deal with textual problems or questions of interpretation, but mostly with realia, or just quote explanations found in the old, or not so old, commentaries to the texts.18As far as her own avowed low expectations of philology19 are concerned Wilden thus appears to stand in a tradition.
Puṟanāṉūṟu 82 is translated by Ramanujan 1987: 123 (see also pp.233 f.) as: With the festival hour close at hand, his woman in labor, a sun setting behind pouring rains, the needle in the cobbler's hand is in a frenzy stitching thongs for a cot: swifter, far swifter, were the tackles of our lord wearing garlands of laburnum, as he wrestled with the enemy come all the way to take the land.
Elegant though this translation may be -HH's more recent translation (1999: 61) differs only in details -, it is wrong.Ramanujan apparently saw no reason to doubt the information found in the commentary, according to which cāṟu in the first line of the poem (cāṟu talaikkoṇṭeṉa) would mean "festival".However, he might have asked what festival we are dealing with, which starts at sunset in the wet rainy season, when the nights are, moreover, extremely dark.More importantly, a study of the other instances of the word cāṟu in the Caṅkam poems would have shown that here it means not "festival" but "mud"; cāṟu is just one way of spelling /cǣṟu/, the other being cēṟu, "mud" (also "pulp, juice").20The man depicted in the poem is hurrying to finish the raised bed before sunset so that his pregnant wife can lie upon it, as otherwise she would have to lie on the ground muddy due to the rain.In this connection it should be noted that we are dealing with a poor couple; the man is iḻiciṉaṉ "low-caste, uncivilised".Such people do indeed usually sleep on the ground, and the earthen floors of huts do tend to become muddy or even water-logged through seepage from outside when rains are heavy.
Equally problematic is Selby's translation (p.29) of Aiṅkuṟunūṟu 20.21The 500 poems of the Aiṅkuṟunūṟu are arranged in groups of ten, the poems of each decade sharing the same word or phrase.For instance, those of the second all contain the word "bamboo".In her translation Selby follows this division and to each decade has added an introduction briefly indicating the situations dealt with in the individual poems.About Aiṅkuṟunūṟu 20 she writes (p.27) that "the heroine describes the dashing of her domestic hopes, blaming her ruin on the hollow reeds.Her bangles slip from her wrists because her anxiety has caused her to grow thin -this is a common convention throughout the anthology, and throughout South Asian literature as a whole."The translation runs: Thinking of that man from the place near the riverbank where tubular reeds as hollow as bamboo rip out eggs laid in a hundred-petaled lotus by a tiny-legged dragonfly with iridescent wings, the beautiful, gleaming bangles slip from my wrists.
It is basically a paraphrase of the commentary of Po.Vē.Cōmacuntaraṉār, the editor of the text.22It is also a good example of what can go wrong by relying too much on such secondary sources.However, I would like to begin with what seems to be Selby's own contribution, namely the translation of tumpi "bee" with "dragonfly".23Probably she opted for this more exotic insect because bees do not lay eggs in flowers.But neither do dragonflies, who lay their eggs in the water.For the rest Selby's translation is based on a failure to understand the grammatical structure of the passage tumpi nūṟṟitaḻt tāmaraip pūcciṉai cīkkum,24 which she obviously analyses as "where reeds rip out (cīkkum) egg(s) (ciṉai) of the dragonfly (tumpi) in the flower (pū[c]) of the hundred-petalled (nūṟṟitaḻ) lotus (tāmarai)", but which should have been translated as "where a bee brushes against (cīkkum) the swollen pistil (ciṉai) of the flower (pū) of the hundred-petaled lotus"; the bee is the subject of the participle cīkkum, not the reed (vēḻattu).It is an open question, though, if the participle cīkkum is dependent on "reed" or on the "village", i. e. ūr in ūraṉai "the man from the village" ("in which bees [fly around] brushing against …").In either case, the reed cannot be blamed for the woman's marital problems, as Selby would have it; it has a purely decorative function in the poem.The woman is not complaining about her husband, but about her lover (the bee) who is unwilling to leave his pregnant wife (the lotus with swollen pistil) for her.

3.
Puṟanāṉūṟu 343 offers a variation on the common theme of a king who refuses to give his daughter in marriage to a warrior with royal ambitions.The latter takes the refusal as a challenge, which results in an all-out war between the two.As in the poem concerned, this war usually ends in the destruction of the king's town.HH's translation (pp.195 f.) reads: "In Muciṟi25 with its drums, where the ocean roars, where the paddy traded for fish and stacked high on the boats makes boats and houses look the same 22 Tinnevelly: South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society 1966.23 According to the Tamil Lexicon (see note 15), p. 1971 the meaning "dragonfly" is found only in "other" dictionaries, i. e. is not substantiated by the evidence of the texts used for the lexicon.24 The complete Tamil text of Aiṅkuṟunūṟu 20 reads: aṟucil kāla vañciṟait tumpi nūṟṟitaḻt tāmaraip pūcciṉai cīkkum kāmpukaṇṭaṉṉa tūmpuṭai vēḻattut tuṟainaṇi yūraṉai yuḷḷiyeṉ ṉiṟaiyēr elvaḷai nekiḻpōṭummē.25 A seaport town in present-day Kerala on India's west coast.and the sacks of pepper raised up beside them make the houses look the same as the tumultuous shore and the golden wares brought by the ships are carried to land in the servicing boats, Kuṭṭuvaṉ its king to whom toddy is no more valuable than water, who wears a shining garland, gives out gifts of goods from the mountains along with goods from the sea to those who have come to him.Even if you humbly bring and bestow as much fine and copious wealth as that city possesses, she will not marry someone who is unworthy of her."So says her father and will not grant her hand.Think!Will the tall city suffer where sighing kites sleep on the middle wall of the fort, the roads hard to conquer are filled with weapons, but ladders have been thrown up by men who have come to force their way in!
The notes to this poem (pp.324 f.) concern mainly realia, such as the type of drums (line 1) and the nature of the sea trade and the storage of goods in the harbour (lines 2-7).On lines 14-17 they say: "the kite is meant as a bad omen, and the men with weapons on the roads belong to the enemy king".But are there really men with weapons on the roads?Moreover, we are most probably dealing not with kites, but with vultures,26 taking a rest after having eaten their fill on the dead bodies of the soldiers who had in vain tried to prevent the enemy from entering the town.The translation of the last six lines of the poem need closer consideration for other reasons as well.They read: puraiyar allōr varaiyalaḷ ivaḷ eṉattantaiyuṅ koṭāaṉ āyiṉ vantōr vāyppaṭa viṟutta vēṇi yāyiṭai varuntiṉṟu kollō tāṉē paruntuyirttiṭaimatiṟ cēkkum puricaippaṭai mayaṅkāriṭai netunalūrē.
In HH's translation, the (bolded) expression āyiṭai at the end of the third line is ignored.However, as the approximately 25 instances in the Caṅkam poems show, āyiṭai invariably heads a new sentence, referring back to the preceding sentence or sentences, and meaning something like "in the middle of that".27This can be substantiated by examples of the use of āyiṭai in some other Caṅkam poems.
A good example is found in the preceding Puṟanāṉūṟu 341.This poem begins with two sentences, each ending on a finite verb, pukkaṉaṉē "he entered" and toṭṭaṉaṉē "he touched, laid his hand on" respectively.Its theme is the same as that of 343: The girl's father, to prepare himself for battle has bathed in a reservoir (kayam pukkaṉaṉē), and the chieftain, while laying his hand on his weapon (paṭai toṭṭaṉaṉē kuricil), vows (HH: 194 f.): "Either tomorrow I will marry that girl … or else … I will go to the world from which no one returns".The following passage paints the consequences of the coming battle (HH: 195): "This cool city by the river with its fertile tracts of land, will surely lose its great beauty …".However, it is introduced by āyiṭai, not represented in the translation.With āyiṭai we obtain: "In the middle of that (= Caught between these two warriors), this cool city by the river …".
Another clear example of āyiṭai is found in Naṟṟiṇai 284, in which two sentences are followed by one introduced by āyiṭai.The following translation by E. Annamalai and Harold F. Schiffman28 speaks for itself: My heart says, "Go to her, unbind the thongs of suffering from her soul".She of the cool-lidded eyes, whose outlines are dark kuvaḷai blossoms, and long black tresses hanging low.My mind: "A job undone will bring disgrace; rush not".My body bears the tension of these two [(āyiṭai)]a worn-out rope pulled from both ends by elephants with bright upswinging shiny tusks.29 Puṟanāṉūṟu 343 differs from these two poems in that āyiṭai is preceded not by two sentences but only by one, concluded by the finite verb koṭāaṉ.Moreover, it is turned into a conditional sentence by the addition of āyiṉ "if [he] is/had been" after koṭāaṉ "he does/did not give".Constructions of the type koṭāaṉ āyiṉ … āyiṭai are found elsewhere too, for instance in Kuṟuntokai 111.
In this poem a young girl speaks to a friend.The girl has fallen in love with a man from the mountains who after their first meeting seems to have lost interest, or the courage, to come down to her village.As a result she has become ill and grown thin.Her worried parents have consulted a village priest dedicated to Murukaṉ.In most poems where this priest occurs he has no inkling of the real cause of the girl's illness, but has both a standard diagnosis -the girl is possessed by 'his' god Murukaṉ -and a standard cure, sacrificing a goat.The girl's mother is quick to accept the priest's diagnosis in order to allay the other family members' suspicion that her daughter has fallen in love with a stranger.Through her friend the girl lets her lover know that if he wants to meet her he should come now, as her family, fooled by the foolish priest, is off guard, which, however, will 28 As quoted by Kamil Zvelebil: The Smile of Murugan.On Tamil Literature of South India.Leiden: E. J. Brill 1973, p. 76. 29 Wilden (2008: 627) seems to take āyiṭai as a kind of postposition, if "At the time" indeed represents āyiṭai: "At the time [my] heart … says …, but [my] knowledge … says …, -will my body perish …?" (the square brackets are hers).It is unclear whether here "at the time" pertains also to "but [my] knowledge", as it should.not be for long, for they both know all too well that the remedy will not work.
The poem starts with two sentences each ending with a finite verb, eṉṉum "he (the priest) will say" and uṇarum, "she (the mother), will think": meṉṟōṇekiḻtta cellal vēlaṉ veṉṟi neṭuvēḷ eṉṉum "The vēlaṉ priest will say that the illness, which makes my shoulders droop, is caused by the victorious long spear [of Murukaṉ]", and aṉṉaiyum atuveṉa vuṇarum "and mother will believe that that is indeed what is the matter with me".After uṇarum stands āyiṉ "if", literally "if that happens", the conditional of the verb ā-"be, occur".After that, as the last word of the line, we find āyiṭai, heading the following sentence: … āyiṭai kūḻai yirumpiṭik kai karantaṉṉa kēḻiruntuṟukaṟ ceḻumalai nāṭaṉ vallē varuka tōḻi namm illōr perunakai kāṇiya ciṟitē.
In this case āyiṭai "in the middle of that" is best reproduced simply with "then":30 Then the man from the (that) high mountain, which is covered with shining black stones resembling ever so many small elephant cows which have hidden their trunks, should come immediately to have a quick (ciṟitē) look at the great joy enjoyed by the people in our house (about the priest's diagnosis).31 From this account of the meaning of āyiṭai it will be clear that the words vantōr vāyppaṭa viṟutta vēṇi32 in Puṟanāṉūṟu 343 have somehow to be fitted into the sentence tantaiyuṅ koṭāaṉ (āyiṉ) "(if) her father (tantai) … will not grant/had not granted (koṭāaṉ)", i. e. the sentence about the ladders has somehow to be included in the one governed by the finite verb koṭāaṉ.This verb koṭu-is indeed most commonly used in the meaning "give", which led HH to supply the king's daughter's hand as its object ("her 30 Wilden (2010: 301) translates (the square brackets being hers): "Quickly he may come … in order to see the great laughter among those in our house on the occasion of the priest's saying … '[it is] Murukaṉ …' and mother realises: That['s it]."However, I fail to understand the note appended to "on the occasion" (āyiṭai): "My proposition is to read vēḻaṉ eṉṉum + aṉṉai uṇarum as dependent on āyiṉ āyiṭai (parallel construction: subject plus habitual future positioned at the end of the preceding line), and connected by -um".Does she mean that -um in eṉṉum and uṇarum is the ending of the habitual future (it is!) or the particle -um "and" (it is not!)? 31 Not directly related to the poem's structure is the question of the message contained in the description of the mountain, that makes up Ramanujan's "interior landscape" (cf note 2 above).As I see it, where the man comes from people know how to hide their true nature, a quality he should use when he comes down to the girl's village.He need not fear that her family will notice that he is her lover.32 In HH's translation: "but ladders [(ēṇi)] have been thrown up [(iṟutta)] by men who have come [(vantōr)] to force their way in [(vāyppaṭa)]".father … will not grant her hand").In the text, however, there is no word for "daughter".However, the action of giving also includes that of permitting or allowing, in this case the ladders: "if he (the girl's father) had not permitted the ladders, raised by those who had come (for his daughter) to climb over the walls".However, before being able to properly translate the whole passage, the words puricai, paṭai and iṭaimatil need to be discussed.
puricai denotes a wall around the town protecting it against enemy attacks;33 it is high, touches the sky,34 and lamps lighted by the watchmen stationed on it resemble the stars high in the sky.35What then does paṭai mean?As we saw above, Hart connects paṭai with mayaṅkāriṭai and translates it with "weapons": "roads [(iṭai)] hard to conquer [(ār)] are filled with [(mayaṅku)] weapons [(paṭai)]".However, as the phrase pal(a)paṭai puricai in Puṟanāṉūṟu 224,7 (see below) and Maturaikkāñci 352 (viṇṇuṟa vōṅkiya palpaṭaip puricai) shows, we have to do with a part of the puricai construction: in the town the streets (iṭai) are difficult to pass through (ār) as they are "crowded" (mayaṅku), that is blocked, by the paṭai of the puricai.
In this connection let us look at two instances of puricai in which the word refers to a Vedic altar, a raised platform made of several layers of bricks (iṭṭikai, Sanskrit iṣṭikā-).The first instance is Akanāṉūṟu 287,6-8 in a description of a deserted town: nāṭpali maṟanta naraikkaṇ iṭṭikaippuricai mūḻkiya poriyarai yālattu oru taṉi neṭu vīḻ utaitta kōṭai.The west wind blows against a single aerial root of a banyan tree, of which the trunk is completely dried out [by the sun] and which has undermined the raised platform (puricai) made of bricks (iṭṭikai) with greyish spots because the daily offerings are no longer made.36 The second example is Puṟanāṉūṟu 224,7-9, where we also find paṭai: paruti yuruviṟ palpaṭaippuricai eruvai nukarcci yūpa neṭuntūṇ vēta veḷvit toḻiṉ muṭittatūum.… performed the Vedic sacrifice (veta vēḷvit toḻil) which consisted of a feast for the vultures (eruvai)37 at the high sacrificial post (yūpa) on the altar made of many layers (paṭai) [of bricks] [and] has the shape of a paruti.
In the passage of Puṟanāṉūṟu 343 under consideration the streets were, therefore, blocked by layers of material (bricks?) fallen down from the rampart.39 The last expression which needs clarification is iṭaimatil, which HH translate as "middle wall".40But what is "middle wall" supposed to mean: a wall in the middle of what?The outer wall and the centre?In fact, for iṭaimatil there are two possible interpretations.It may be compared with iṭaiccuvar, "intervening wall, barrier, impediment" (Tamil Lexicon, p. 286), or with iṭaimulai "cleavage, the space between a woman's breasts" (Naṟṟiṇai 202,8,41 Kuṟuntokai 178,4;325,6,42 Akanāṉūṟu 73,4;362,1143).HH has adopted the first option in translating iṭaimatil, but I would adopt the second, to denote intra muros.In either case the wall in iṭaimatil is the same wall which subsequently is called puricai and is said to have fallen apart.
So apparently the girl's father had challenged her suitors to come and get her if they could, and as a result the fighting moved from outside the town to inside: 38 HH's translation is: "he performed the Vedic sacrifices … within the circling [(paruti uruviṟ)] many-layered [(palpaṭai)] wall where the towering post of sacrifice rises next to the kite to be fed!"."Circle" is indeed one of the meanings of paruti (= pariti, Sanskrit paridhi-) given in the Tamil Lexicon, pp.2513 f.; paridhi-also denotes the sticks laid round the sacrificial fire to delimit it.I fail to see, though, how this meaning fits the combination with uruvu "shape".39 This answers the question of the construction of the puricai, or walls, only partly, as in two instances the puricai is decorated, or strengthened, by things made of copper (cempu): Puṟanāṉūṟu 201,9 (cempupuṉaintiyaṟṟiya cēṇeṭum puricai) and 37,11 (cempuṟaḻ puricaic cemmaṉ mūtūr).Note also viṭu muṭ puricai yēmuṟa vaḷaii in Mullaippāṭṭu 27 (note 33 above) describing a fort in the jungle protected by a "wall" (puricai) of thorny bushes (muḷ).40 The choice is not explained, but HH may have had the compound puṟamatil "outer wall" in Puṟanāṉūṟu 387,33 in mind.However, the translation of that poem (pp.227 f.) leaves puṟamatil unaccounted for ("the resounding Porunai River that washes the city [(puṟamatil?)] of Vañci").41 Wilden (2008: 475): "Sobbing … so that [your] breasts become wet in between".42 Wilden (2010: 435 and 729): "between my breasts".43 The Akanāṉūṟu 73 passage Hart (2015: 84) translated with "Between your breasts a single strand of pearls shoots out its light".In the Akanāṉūru 362 passage he leaves iṭai in iṭaimulai untranslated: "like the pearl necklace that covers the lovely blush on my ample breasts" (p.364).
Would our large town have suffered less if (āyiṉ) the girl's father, saying that she will not marry someone unworthy of her, had not permitted (koṭāaṉ) the ladders, raised by those who had come [for his daughter] to climb over the walls -our town within the walls of which vultures are taking a rest after a day's hard work (uyirttu) and the streets are blocked by layers [of bricks or stones] broken off from these same walls?
A similar use of the verb to refer to something set in place is found in Puṟanāṉūṟu 19,8 f.: kuṉṟattiṟutta kurīiyiṉam pōla ampu ceṉṟiṟutta varumpuṇyāṉai a wounded elephant hit (ceṉṟu) by arrows (ampu) lodged [in his body] (iṟutta), which look like a flock of birds settled (iṟutta) on a hill.
Puṟanāṉūṟu 294,1 f. has: veṇkuṭai matiya mēṉilāt tikaḻtarakkaṇkūṭiṟutta kaṭaṉmaruḷ pācaṟai The military camp, vast like the ocean, in which so many (kaṇkūṭu) white parasols (veṇkuṭai) were raised (iṟutta) that together they produced more moonlight than (mēl) the moon.45And in Puṟanāṉūṟu 398,7 f. we find: 44 The modern commentary glosses iṟutta with cārttiya "placed upon/against", i. e. "ladders (ēṇi) set up against (the walls)"; this meaning, however, is not among the ones supplied in the Tamil Lexicon (p. 363).45 The translation of HH (p.172) is: "the camp where the men had seemed an ocean flooded by the descending light of the moon like a white umbrella".Instead of white parasols, the soldiers are taken as the subject of the participle iṟutta here, as explained in the corresponding note (p.313): "camp [(pācaṟai)] like an ocean [(kaṭaṉ maruḷ)] where they gathered [(iṟutta)] all together [(kaṇkūṭu)]".And instead of mēl "more than" (in matiya mēl "more than the moon"), mēl "above" is assumed and linked to nilā (i.e. "moonlight from above"), giving "descending light of the moon" in the translation.

paricilar … pantar varicaiyiṉ iṟutta vāymoḻi vañcaṉ
Vañcaṉ whose words are true (vāymoḻi), before whom in the pavilion (pantar) those in need (paricilar) stood,46 arranged (iṟutta) according to rank (varicaiyiṉ).47Finally, we find in Puṟanāṉūṟu 391,7-10: … pacitteṉa īṅku vantiṟutta veṉṉirumpēr okkal tīrkai viṭukkum paṇpiṉ mutukuṭi naṉantalai mūtūr … My large family, which, driven by hunger (pacitteṉa), has arrived (vantu) in this large, old town, expect to stay here (iṟutta)48 as the ancient clans living in it are known for offering a helping hand (tīrkai viṭukkum paṇpiṉ) (to the needy).49 Turning now to Wilden, we find that for the meaning of iṟu-she seems to have relied on the Tamil Lexicon, which mentions inter alia the meaning "tarry, stay".Of these two she has opted for the first, "tarry", and introduced this in practically all instances.Thus, in Naṟṟiṇai 99 the rainy season is a period "when … the clouds that have drawn [water] from the sea …, tarry, [full to] the breaking point", in 215 "sorrowful evening … has come [and] tarries with loneliness", in 257 there is a mountain-side, "on which clouds rise [and] tarry", and in 287 "a king with greeneyed elephants tarried outside the fortifications".50I do not intend to discuss the merits of these four translations other than by noting that because of the possibility of mis-understandings51 I would not use the English verb "tarry" to describe clouds clinging to mountains, and even less for a king laying siege to a fort.
46 For the position of the paricilar in relation to the king compare that of the Sanskrit anujīvin-s.47 Here paricilar is the subject of iṟutta, but to HH (pp.237 f.) this is King Vañcaṉ, sitting under the pavilion.To then grammatically fit in paricilar a word for giving is appended, and paricilar linked with varicaiyiṉ: "(where) under a pavilion … sat [(iṟutta)] Vañcaṉ whose words are always true, who pays his debts according to the merit [(varicaiyiṉ)] of those who come to him in need [(paricilar)]".48 See also vantiṟutta in Akanāṉūṟu 243,8, Naṟṟiṇai 215,3, or puṟattiṟutta "besieged" in Naṟṟiṇai 287,2.49 For the "helping hand", see also kai pōl utavi in Naṟṟiṇai 216,3, literally, "helping like a hand".-HH translate tīrkai viṭukkum paṇpiṉ with "(this fine city whose clans are) of such worth that we never think of leaving" (p.231).It is unclear how this relates to the Tamil text.Apart from that, the idea is redundant, as already covered by iṟutta.50 Wilden 2008: 257, 489, 573 and 633 respectively (the square brackets are Wilden's).In the paraphrase preceding the translation of Naṟṟiṇai 99, Wilden (p.257) renders iṟutta with "broken"; the word is translated twice, once in "when … clouds tarry" and once in "[full to] the breaking point".51 Cf. the following paragraph.
What is more serious, however, is that Wilden seems to think that both meanings of English "tarry", namely the old, literary "stay in a place", and the more recent "delay or be slow in starting, going, coming etc.",52 are also applicable to Tamil iṟu-.Thus, in Naṟṟiṇai 387,6-8 she translates iṟutta with "tarry" in the sense of "hesitate or be afraid to proceed" (Wilden 2008: 833): … ceruviṟantu ālaṅkānattañcuvara viṟutta vēlkeḻu tāṉaic ceḻiyaṉ pācaṟai, in the encampment of Ceḻiyaṉ with an army full of spears that tarried for fear to come to the banyan forest, crossing a conflict.
Why would a king, or his army, just emerged victorious from a battle (ceruviṟantu, Wilden's "crossing a conflict"), be afraid to enter the banyan forest or, else, the place called Ālaṅkāṉam?Here Wilden appears to have fallen into her own trap of consistently translating iṟu-with "tarry".In this case this strange decision has even led to yet another one, namely to take añcuvara to mean "being afraid", even though in all instances in Caṅkam poetry this expression means "causing fear, terrifying".
Naṟṟiṇai 387,6-8 may, therefore, be translated as follows: The camp of Ceḻiyaṉ, whose army was well equipped with spears, who, after he had emerged victorious from the battle, encamped in Ālaṅkāṉam, terrifying the people there.

5.
But perhaps a self-imposed limitation of no more than two pages per poem in Wilden's editions-cum-translations did not invite detailed textual investigation.The works on both the Naṟṟiṇai and the Kuṟuntokai have the same layout: the page on the left has the reconstructed text of the poem, headed by the poet's name and a brief indication of the situation in which the poem is spoken, information generally transmitted together with a poem's text.After the reconstructed text, with an overview of the variant readings (both in the Tamil script), follows its romanised transliteration, with sandhis dissolved.The opposite page has first an English translation of the introductory matter and then a word-by-word 'translation' in a kind of coded language.58This is concluded by a 'regular' English translation.59 However, in the edition of the longer poems of the Akanāṉūṟu this limitation was abandoned and the information is spread out over as many pages as required.The possibility this offers for more thorough discussions is, however, left unused, so that it seems not merely a matter of external constraints.This may be exemplified by a discussion of the first five lines of Akanāṉūṟu 24:

vēḷāppārppāṉ vāḷaran tumitta vaḷai kaḷaintoḻinta koḻuntiṉ aṉṉa taḷaipiṇiy aviḻāc curimukiḻppakaṉṟai citaralan tuvalai tūvaliṉ malarun taii niṉṟa taṇpeyaṟ kataināḷ
Wilden translates (2018: 160): On the last day of the cool raining that had persisted in the month of Tai, When the jalap with curly buds that had not [yet] opened [their] tight fetters Blooms because of the diffuse, miserable, spattering spray, like splinters(?) left behind, having been removed from the conch bangles that are cut by the saw of a non-sacrificing Brahmin.
If I understand the translation correctly, the rain drops on the bud of the jalap flower are compared to the tiny splinters left after sawing through conch shells for making bangles.However, koḻuntu does not mean "splinter".This meaning is entirely Wilden's own invention, an attempt, as she explains in a footnote, to make sense of the comparison.Now one of the meanings of koḻuntu, beside "tender twig, tendril", is "the plume of the yak tail" (Tamil Lexicon, p. 1161).In the same footnote Wilden refers to an old gloss, caṅkiṉ talai, saying that koḻuntu refers to the tip of the conch here, which indeed looks like a plume.The bud of the jalap ends in a plume as well.Thus, the bud of the jalap flower is in our passage compared to the tip of a conch shell, which is cast away after having sawn through the shell, as for bracelets only its round, wider part is used.60Everything was, thus, already there: the dictionary, an old gloss.The only thing for Wilden left to do was to look for an image of the jalap flower!Instead she produces a ghost word, without, however, committing herself, as she puts a question mark after "splinters" the meaning "tendril" in the word index in the third volume.The one she longed for as for her own daughter, with gold-like body, is practicing steps with the cotton-soft feet that she of pretty thin hair has, running as if she were rolling a ball in play on the border of the land of [her] wealthy father with enduring hard blades, as if smeared with ghee, while elephants whose tusks are mature fill up together the wilderness.

Wilden's edition and translation of
60 According to Wilden (2018: 160 note 97) the non-sacrificing brahmin (vēḷāppārppāṉ) is an early example of a brahmin making a living by cutting bangles when he is unable to do so by officiating at sacrifices.Though I have no definite solution for vēḷāppārppāṉ, he seems to be a pārppāṉ distinguished from the pārppāṉ who officiates at sacrifices.61 ẖ transliterates the Āytam.
Something needs first to be said about the situation the poem refers to, one among the standard themes of the village poems.62The father mentioned is a wealthy man (here: celvat tantai); his daughter is brought up in great luxury by a so-called cevilittāy, a term usually translated as "foster mother".This woman started her career in the family as a wet nurse and stayed on as a nanny.Her own daughters were friends and companions of her charge; cf.Hart 1975 (see note 13): 214 note.Most poems dealing with such a daughter refer to the worries she causes this foster mother, the main worry being that she will refuse to marry the man her parents have chosen for her, elope with someone below her station and as a result cannot continue to enjoy the same luxury.In the poems we meet the girl running away together with her lover along rough paths through unknown country, or, as in this poem, preparing to do so; or we hear about her foster-mother worrying about the spoiled girl's subsequent fate in the stranger's house in a small village with "only one cow in the front yard" (Akanāṉūṟu 369).As in Naṟṟiṇai 324, much is made of the soles of the girl's feet, too soft and tender for jungle paths.
My first comment concerns Wilden's translation of taṉ makaḷ nayantōḷ as "the one she longed for as for her own daughter".In Classical Tamil other instances of the use of active participial nouns like nayantōḷ ("she who loves someone") as passives ("the one loved by someone") are rare, if available at all.63As seen, Wilden takes nayantōḷ as the subject of the verb payiṟṟummē at the end of the poem.To come into consideration for this function nayantōḷ must indeed be taken to have a passive meaning, for it is the wealthy father's daughter and foster mother's charge who is practicing steps here.This, however, brings me to my second comment: there is nothing in the Tamil text corresponding to "as" in "as for her own daughter".In fact, most probably we do not have to do with the foster mother's charge here, but with the woman's own (taṉ) daughter, who as a friend has a great affection (nayantōḷ) for the 62 See Tieken 2001 (note 13 above): 24-28.63 In modern Tamil participial nouns may indeed occasionally have a passive meaning.Hermann Beythan (Praktische Grammatik der Tamilsprache in Umschrift.(Praktische Grammatik und Übungsbuch der Tamilsprache 1.) Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz 1943, p. 110) mentions vāṅkiyavai as meaning both "das, was gekauft hat" and "das, was gekauft worden ist".Rajam (see note 14) quotes an interesting instance (p.656): varuntiṉaḷ aḷiyaḷ nī pirinticiṉōḷē "She, whom you (nī) had left (pirinticiṉōḷē), felt sad and is to be pitied" (my translation, with a relative clause for the passival participle).But comparable instances seem to be rare -neither Rajam nor Lehmann (see note 14): 137-144 ( § 6.2) mention the phenomenon -, and something like "she who is loved by her own daughter" would be unexpected in the passage from Naṟṟiṇai 324 anyway.girl, and worries as much as her mother.The foster mother's daughter is the subject of the verb ākuvaḷ: "What will happen (eṉṉ ākuvaḷ kol) to her own daughter who has a great affection (for the girl)?".
As indicated, Wilden takes 'passive' nayantōḷ as the subject of the verb payiṟṟummē ("is practicing steps").Apparently, in the text as reconstructed by her she was unable to find a word that could come into consideration for that function.However, what about the pronoun ivaḷ "she" in (y)añcil ōti ivaḷ uṟum / pañci mellaṭi naṭai?But, if I understand Wilden's word-by-word paraphrase correctly, she takes ivaḷ as the subject in the phrase ivaḷ uṟum … mellaṭi, i. e. "soft feet (mellaṭi), which she (ivaḷ) has (uṟum)".This solution may, however, be questioned.
For one thing, the construction is rare; the only other example comparable to our phrase I could find is nī yuṟum poyccūḷ in Kalittokai 88,20.64Another problem is the meaning of uṟum in these two instances.For uṟu-the Tamil Lexicon (p.483) mentions quite a number of meanings, which, however, are all of a highly contextual nature and as such cannot simply be applied to the two contexts above.65By starting from the meanings "approach, gain access, reach" we might translate the Kalittokai passage as "false oaths (poyccūḻ) which you (nī) take recourse to (uṟum)".But I doubt if among the meanings of both transitive and intransitive uṟu-there is one through which we could arrive at "have, possess".Even then, the participle would be redundant, as its absence (ivaḷ pañci mellaṭi) results in the same meaning, namely "her (ivaḷ) feet soft as cotton (pañci)".This is not to say that uṟum is superfluous, for metrically we need at least one more syllable after ivaḷ.
At this point I would like to draw attention to ivaḷum, one of the variant readings for ivaḷuṟum.66(y)añcilōti (y) ivaḷum may be translated as "she with beautiful, thin hair, for her part (-um)", -um being functionally equivalent to Sanskrit api.The girl, for her part, is blissfully unaware of the anxieties she causes by her play in the minds of those 64 Cf. too uṟum iṭattu "a situation in which (something) is useful", as in cērntōrkku / uṟum iṭattuykkum utavi "(extend) the right type of assistance (utavi) to those who have approached you" (Akanāṉūṟu 231,1 f.) and uṟum iṭattutavātuvarnilam ūṭṭi, "rain not helping (utavātu) where it would be useful, falling on saline earth instead" (Puṟanāṉūṟu 142,2).Instances such as el uṟu mauval, "a jasmine flower (in brightness) resembling the sun" (Kuṟuntokai 19,4) are doubtful, as it is uncertain whether we have here the participle uṟum or the verb stem uṟu-, for in sandhi the final m of uṟum is dropped before another nasal (similarly uṟumuṟai in Puṟanāṉūṟu 98,16 and 292,2 and uṟumuraṇ in Puṟanānūṟu 135,21), 65 Objects: soft feet (mellaṭi) or way of walking (naṭai), and false oaths (poyccūḻ) respectively.66 According to Wilden 2008: 24, the variant occurs in the two-volume Naṟṟiṇai edition by Turaicāmi Piḷḷai (Ceṉṉai 1966(Ceṉṉai , 1968)).most close to her.Metrically, there are no objections to read ivaḷum instead of ivaḷuṟum.On the other hand, it is not easy to see how ivaḷum may have changed into ivaḷuṟum, unless one speculates that the eye of the copyist strayed to the following payiṟṟummē.Nevertheless, this reading would speak for ivaḷ being the subject of payiṟṟummē.
Wilden's "on the border of the land" translates iṭaṉ uṭai varaippiṉ.67This is not only inexact and incomplete, but also says nothing about the nature of the space referred to.We are clearly dealing with a rich man's (celvat tantai) place, as also in other poems containing iṭaṉ uṭai varaippu; thus, in Akanāṉūṟu 145,17 the girl's father possesses great wealth (kūḻ in kūḻ uṭait tantai iṭaṉuṭaivaraippiṉ).Those living in such places wear beautiful ornaments (kalam).68 As to what the place looked like, varaippu "boundary" is also used for an enclosed space such as a courtyard, and such areas do indeed seem to have been surrounded by a wall with gates, as in Porunarāṟṟuppaṭai 64-67: "To end my poverty I silently enter his iṭaṉ uṭai varaippu, where loud drumming can be heard,69 through its wide gate (peru vāyil) which is always open for those who come begging."70It seems also to have been a palace-like building complex, as in its totality it is said to be as beautiful as a painting (ōvattaṉṉa in Puṟanāṉūṟu 251,1 and Naṟṟiṇai 181,2.)As to iṭaṉ "place", the Tamil Lexicon (p.280), referring to Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar's commentary on the Porunarāṟṟuppaṭai passage above, provides the meaning "wide space" (akalam).71Interestingly, the possession of iṭaṉ by itself already marks a man as rich; see Patiṟṟuppattu 32,6: īttāṉṟāṉā viṭaṉuṭai vaḷaṉ, "a rich man possessing iṭaṉ, who will never stop giving [to beggars]".
The girl is living in a large manor house, a veritable golden cage, with no idea about the dangers that might befall her in the outside world.The house is surrounded by jungle where elephants with large tusks roam about: kōṭu muṟṟiyāṉai kāṭuṭaṉiṟaitara.Wilden's translation of the phrase uṭaṉ niṟaitara, "elephants … fill up together the wilderness", is, however, needlessly convoluted, as 67 Her word-by-word paraphrase reads "place [itaṉ] possess [uṭai]" -border [varaippiṉ] (the additions in square brackets are mine).68 Puṟanāṉūṟu 161,29 f.: iṭaṉuṭaivaraippiṉiṉ tāṇiḻal vāḻnar naṉkala-(m) mikuppa.69 In Puṟanāṉūṟu 161,29, referred to in the previous note, "the noise of drums is heard in the courtyard" (muraciraṅkum iṭaṉuṭaivaraippiṉiṉ). 70 yāṉum avaṉ iḻumeṉ cummai yiṭaṉuṭaivaraippiṉacaiyunart taṭaiyā naṉ peru vāyil icaiyēṉ pukkeṉṉiṭumpai tīra.71 In support of this traditional interpretation iṭam "place" too should be mentioned.Two of its many contextual meanings show that iṭam denoted the size of things, namely "cubit, in measuring the width of cloth" and "breadth, width, expanse" (Tamil Lexicon, p. 279).the use of uṭaṉ here had already been dealt with before by Rajam (see note 14): 328; beside the passage under consideration, "as the elephants filled/occupied all over the forest", Rajam quotes Patiṟṟuppattu 24,10 nāṭu uṭaṉ viḷaṅkum … nallicai, "good fame which shines all over the country".
The same characterisation applies to Wilden's translation of neypaṭṭaṉṉa nōṉkāḻ eẖkiṉ … tantai as "her father with enduring hard blades, as if smeared with ghee".eẖku can refer to any sharp, pointed weapon, such as a spear.As to nōṉ in the compound nōṉkāḻ, rather than from the verb nōṉ-"endure, practice austerities" we should start from the abstract noun nōṉmai "vigour, strength, force, might".It is also puzzling why of all the meanings of kāḻ Wilden opted for the one which the Tamil Lexicon (p.904), gives first, namely, "hardness, solidity", instead of considering the following "pillar, rod, handle, stem", especially in the light of Puṟanāṉūṟu 95,2 where nōṉkāḻ describes a separate part of a spear (vēl): nōṉkāḻ tirutti ney yaṇintu "having polished the strong shaft and anointed it with ghee".72The girl's father thus owns an arsenal full of spears, probably as a guarantee against invasions of wild elephants, but also of strangers who are after his daughter.
The poem may, thus, be translated as follows: Ah, pity on mother.What will become of the golden body of her own daughter, who will suffer and worry on account of the girl for whom she has great affection?While grown-up elephants with large tusks roam around through the jungle outside, inside, in the wide compound of the mansion, where her wealthy father keeps his sharp spears with strong shafts, gleaming as if they have been polished with ghee, the little girl with beautiful thin hair, under the pretext of rolling a ball, is teaching herself how to run with her feet soft as cotton.The village is situated in an area in which slash-andburn land cultivation is practiced, and dotted by fields called kollai.On these fields so-called kollaikkōvalar are employed.Who are these kollaikkōvalar?Wilden translates the word with "cowherds" having "small fields", asking noncommittally in a footnote: "What kind of relation is intended between the kōvalar and the iṭaimakaṉ?Is this a movement from centre to periphery?".In translating kōvalar with "cowherds", Wilden was no doubt led by its derivation from Sanskrit gopāla-.However, a comparison with the one and only other instance of kollaikkōvalar in the Caṅkam corpus, in Naṟṟiṇai 289, seems to show that these persons are no herders at all, neither of cows, nor of goats.To ascertain what they actually are, we need first to ascertain what exactly kollai signifies, and to do so we will also have to consider two other sorts of field, called puṉam and itai respecively.

Wilden
The term kollai has been investigated by Takanobu Takahashi, according to whom it refers to a clearing in a forest.74He derived kollai from the verb kol-"kill", which would have been used both for the felling of trees in the forest and ploughing the field after that.The main thesis of Takahashi's study is that in the use of kol-for ploughing the Tamils had been influenced by Jainism, for whom ploughing involves killing animals living in the soil.The term kollai does indeed refer to a field in the forest on mountain slopes, the cultivation of which depends on rainfall, and the main crop of which is millet.All these aspects come together in Naṟṟiṇai 209,1-4, which describe a girl who neglects the task assigned to her, of chasing away the birds from the crop on the field: malaiyiṭam paṭuttuk kōṭṭiyya kollaittaḷipatam peṟṟa kāṉ uḻukuṟavar cila vittakala viṭṭuṭaṉ pala viḷaintiṟaṅkukural piṟaṅkiya vēṉal uḷḷāḷ … After the kollai that the mountain people (kuṟavar) had cleared (paṭuttuk kōṭṭiya) in the forest (kāṉ) on the mountain slope (malaiyiṭam) had received sufficient rain (taḷipatam peṟṟa), they ploughed (uḻu) and sowed (vittakala) it, and as soon as they had left, everywhere millet (ēṉal) sprang up, glistening in the sun and its ripe ears hanging down.75But the girl did not care.
The forest was cleared for fields by burning down the trees and bushes; cf.Akanāṉūṟu 288,5: eri tiṉ kollai yiṟaiñciya ēṉal "millet, bent down (from the weight of its ears), on the kollais eaten (i.e. cleared) by fire".76After the fire, black becomes the prevailing colour Thus the following passage from Puṟanāṉūṟu 159,15-20 describes unsophisticated forest people -commonly depicted as prone to such mistakes77 -mistaking a kollai 75 For kollais in the mountains, see Cilappatikāram 17,21,1 (kollaiyañ cāraṟ kuruntocitta māyavaṉ "Māyavaṉ (Kṛṣṇa), who pulled out the kuruntu tree on the mountain slope spotted with kollais"), Kalittokai 39,13 f. (kollai kural vāṅki īṉā malai vāḻnar alla purintu oḻukalāṉ "because the people from the mountains misbehave the crops on the kollais have failed") and Akanāṉūṟu 133,7 (kollai itaiya kuṟumpoṟai maruṅkiṟ "on the slope of the small hill with its itai [fields] of the kollai type").For millet, see Akanāṉūṟu 288,5 (kollai yiṟaiñciya ēṉal "millet, bent down (from the weight of its ears), on the kollais").76 The real work begins only after the trees and bushes have been burnt down, namely the removal of the roots and half-burnt tree trunks.See, for instance, Puṟanāṉūṟu 231,1 f., which describes an upland field called puṉam after fire had been set to the trees on it: eṟi puṉak kuṟavaṉ kuṟaiyal aṉṉa / kari puṟa viṟakiṉ īma voḷḷaḻaṟ "the fire of the cremation pyre piled up with pieces of wood which are black (kari) on the outside like those the man from the hills collects from the puṉam he is hacking at".Cf. too Porunarāṟṟuppaṭai 117 f.: kollai yuḻukoḻu vēyppap pallē / yellaiyum iravum ūṉṟiṉṟu maḻuṅki "from eating meat day and night my teeth have become as blunt as the ploughshare ploughing a kollai".77 This is similar in Hāla's Sattasaī, the poems' counterpart from North Indian kāvya literature; see Tieken 2001 (see note 13), and Khoroche and Tieken (see note 73).Cf. too the Murukaṉ priest in Kuṟuntokai 111 ( § 3 above).
(black after the fire) for a muddy field, black being the colour of mud as well78:

… kāṉavar karipuṉa mayakkiya vakaṉkaṭ kollai aivaṉam vitti maiyuṟak kaviṉi īṉal cellā vēṉaṟkiḻumeṉakkaruvi vāṉan talaii yāṅkum ītta niṉ pukaḻ ēttit tokka …
Unfortunately, the text with its two dangling verbal participle clauses is grammatically a mongrel.Thus, while the subject of vitti, "having sowed", in line 17 are the kānavar or forest people (line 15) -for who else could come into consideration for that function here?-these do not, contrary to what one might expect, return in that or a related function with any of the following verbs: the verbal participle kaviṉi "having become beautiful", or the negative participle cellā "(the summer) in which (sprouting) is not possible".Another problem concerns the phrase maiyuṟak kaviṉi.In Tamil poetry the combination of "black" (maiyuṟa) and "beautiful" (kaviṉi) fits in particular the rainclouds (iḻumeṉak karuvi vāṉan talaii), from which, however, the phrase is separated by īṉal cellā vēṉaṟku.79 The following is, therefore, not a proper translation, but merely a paraphrase of what I think the poet had in mind.He compares the generous king to a raincloud, a standard topos in 'heroic' Tamil poetry.80The part which describes the kollai is grammatically clear: Having assembled, singing the praise of your generosity which is like a massive (beautifully black), thundering cloud appearing (unexpectedly) in the summer, when the wild rice seed does not sprout [which] the forest people had sowed on the wide kollais (black after the fire) which they had mistaken for fields black (from mud).This poem has in its entirety been translated by HH (see note 4): 101; the relevant passage reads: … I praise you for the fame of your generosity, which is like a cloud coming with lightning and roaring thunder as it sheds its rain down on millet [(ēṉal)] not yet sprouting its ears of a lovely dark color [(maiyuṟa kaviṉi)], after it has been planted among wild rice on a wide space of land new to cultivation [(kollai)] but burned over by men of the forest and transformed [(mayakkiya)] into a field [(puṉam)].This is problematic.To begin with, vēṉal "summer" is erroneously read as ēṉal "millet", with the initial v-in vēṉaṟku taken as a glide.But the seeds of wild rice (aivaṉam) do not normally bring forth millet.Therefore, the millet is here "planted among wild rice", which, however, has no basis in the text.Moreover, here it is the millet which has acquired a "lovely dark color" (maiyuṟak kaviṉi), but as far as I know dark-coloured millet does not offer a "lovely" sight.Note also the translation of mayakkiya "which (the forest people) had mistaken for" with "transformed".However, "transformed" as used here clearly implies a form of improvement,81 which the Tamil verb mayakku-"confuse (and the like)" does not.
In the texts discussed above altogether three types of fields are mentioned that have been cleared by first burning down the trees on it.For instance, beside kollai in eri tiṉ kollai in Akanāṉūṟu 288, there are puṉam and itai: itai in itai muyal puṉavaṉ pukai niḻaṟ kaṭukkum mā mūtaḷḷal82 in Akanāṉūṟu 140, and puṉam in eṟi puṉak kuṟavaṉ kuṟaiyal aṉṉa / kari puṟa viṟakiṉ īma voḷḷaḻaṟ in Puṟanāṉūṟu 231 (see note 76, with translation).
It seems that puṉam is a general term for a field in the hills or mountains in any stage of the cultivation process.Thus, in Akanāṉūṟu 288 the farmer is still hacking at the burned roots and tree trunks (eṟi puṉak kuṟavaṉ), while in Puṟanāṉūṟu 159 the "black puṉam" (karipuṉam) is already ready for sowing.The term itai is rare; apart from the four instances in Akanāṉūṟu (133,7,140,11,393,4,394,3), in which it is a kind of field, in its three other attestations (Maturaikkāñci 79, 376 and 536) it refers to the sail of a ship.But the two meanings "field" and "sail" may well be related, in the same way as in Dutch lapje ("small piece of cloth") is used for a small piece of land.In fact, the meaning "small field" would fit perfectly in Akanāṉūṟu 133,7: kollaiyitaiya kuṟumpoṟai maruṅkiṟ, "on the slope of the small hill with small fields (itaiya) of the kollai type" (cf.note 75).83As for kollai, as Puṟanāṉūṟu 159 shows, the blackness of these fields is proverbial and does not need to be specified.Of the three words for "field", kollai is also the only one which seems to have the action of burning in its name, for rather than with kol-"kill" we may be dealing 81 The same is the case with Takahashi's (see note 74) "mixed (dug) up": "Wild rice has been planted on a wide space of field [(kollai)] which was a dry upland [(puṉam)], burned over [(kari "black")] and then mixed (dug) up by men of the forest" (p.60).82 "Mud as black as the smoke produced by the farmer working on the puṉam (puṉavaṉ), attempting to make an itai".83 The compound kollaiyitai indicates that kollai and itai are not synonyms.In fact, kollais could be relatively large, as in Puṟanāṉūṟu 159,16, which describes the kollai as an akaṉkaṇ "wide place" (akaṉkaṭ kollai).
with the root also found in kollaṉ "blacksmith";84 as the blacksmith with the help of fire fashions unformed iron into useful instruments, so the farmer with fire turns a forest into fields (ultimately) fit for agriculture.
Naṟṟiṇai 289 tells us what the kollaikkōvalar do on the kollai.In the poem we hear what a woman says to a friend.Her husband has left her, making solemn promises to return before the rainy season starts.However, the rain clouds are already approaching and the husband has not yet returned.She is caught between (āyiṭai, see above) believing her husband or believing her own eyes, a Catch-22 situation.Lines 6-9 say: … āyiṭaikkollaikkōvalar elli māṭṭiya perumā vōṭiya pōla varuḷilēṉ amma vaḷiyeṉ yāṉē.… caught between these two choices I cannot expect any mercy and am to be pitied, like the wild animals (perumā), which while trying to escape (ōṭiya) (from the kollai) are driven back (māṭṭiya)85 in clear daylight by the kollaikkōvalar.
Though I have been unable to verify this, I doubt if the expression perumā is used as a general term for domesticated animals such as goats, sheep or cows.Rather, we are dealing with wild animals, which, while trying to escape from the burning forest, are driven back into the flames.The kollai field is cleared of both trees and wild animals, the 'domestication' including both plant and animal life.For this we have a mythic prototype in the burning of the Khāṇḍava Forest described in Mahābhārata 1,214-225, in which Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa set the forest alight and prevented the animals from escaping by circling around it, thus making them stay in the forest to serve as food for insatiable Agni, Fire.86As to the Tamil poem's mention 84 For kol-" kill" and kollaṉ, "blacksmith", see DED (in note 26), nos.2132 and 2133 f. respectively.If this derivation holds, then kollai can be struck from the already short list of loan translations showing Jaina influence on Caṅkam poetry, for which see, e. g., Zvelebil (note 28): 137.85 The meaning assigned to māṭṭiya here follows the meanings 1-3 in the Tamil Lexicon, p. 3149: "fasten on, buckle, tackle, hook; fix, attach; put in, thrust (as fuel)".Wilden has selected the eighth of the nine meanings, namely "light (as a lamp)": "Just as the big animals running when the cowherds have kindled (māṭṭiya) light (elli) in the clearing, I am without [his] consideration, alas, pitiable me".However, elli does not mean "light" (which can be kindled), but "daytime" (the additions within round brackets are mine, within square brackets Wilden's).86 For this myth, see pp. 21-26 of Herman Tieken: "The Mahābhārata after the Great Battle", Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens/ Vienna Journal of South Asian Studies 48 ( 2004) 5-46, and Alf Hiltebeitel: "The Burning of the Forest Myth", in: Bardwell L. Smith (ed.):Hinduism.New Essays in the History of Religions.(Studies in the His-of daylight, despite burning down the forest taking six days in the Mahābhārata (Tieken 2004: 24) Arjuna's and Kṛṣṇa's activities were, implicitly, set during daytime, for after they had chased away the rainclouds sent by Indra to douse the fire, "the foulness and darkness of the sky was appeased, … the orb of its sun restored to normality".87Only during daytime could they see the animals trying to flee the conflagration.
The kollaikkōvalar in this poem are no ordinary herders who have their cattle graze on very poor grounds, which involves much extra work to keep the herd together on the kollai field.Instead, the term kollaikkōvalar describes farmers who are burning down a forest and driving back the animals trying to escape the flames.They are not protecting (pāla-in gopāla-) the herd from harm, but are protectors in the sense of being jailers.
In Naṟṟiṇai 266 the woman's village is likewise surrounded by kollaikkōvalar.It is a poor village, whose inhabitants subsist on slash-and-burn agriculture.At the same time the kollaikkōvalar evoke the image of the village as a prison from which it is difficult to escape.The key word is the verb iri-"flee" (iriyiṉ) in line 8.
But for a full translation of Naṟṟiṇai 266 several more remarks on the text are needed, one of which concerns akaluḷāṅkaṇ, if only because of Wilden's laborious translation of it as "that place-wide-inside".It is made up of two words, namely akaluḷ and āṅkaṇ.The meaning and use of āṅkaṇ are more or less clear.Thus, though not very frequently, āṅkaṇ is an adverb of place, as in āṅkaṭ ṭīmpuṉal īṅkaṭ parakkum "where sweet water flows from there (āṅkaṇ) to this place here (īṅkaṇ)" (Naṟṟiṇai 70,7).It is also used to circumscribe the locative, as in kūṭal āṅkaṇ "in Kūṭal" (Naṟṟiṇai 298,9).Quite frequently it seems to function as a substantive, meaning "(that) place", which, like any substantive, can be described in more detail; a case in point is niḻalil āṅkaṇ "that place without shade" (Naṟṟiṇai 105,5).Often, these āṅkaṇ phrases are part of a larger descriptive passage, as niḻalil āṅkaṇ aruñcurakkavalai "a crossroad in the impassable desert, that place without shade".The same is seen in Naṟṟiṇai 63,1-3: paratavar / miku mīṉ uṇakkiya putumaṇal āṅkaṭ / kalleṉ cēri "the noisy quarter, where (āṅkaṭ) on the fresh sand the fishermen have laid out fish to dry".As in viḻavuṭai yāṅkaṇ / ūrēm "we (-ēm), living in a village (ūr), (that place) which celebrates (owns) festivals" (Naṟṟiṇai 220,6 f.), in akaluḷāṅkaṭ cīṟūrēm the āṅkaṇ phrase is found immediately before the village it describes.88 As to akaluḷ, Wilden seems to analyse it as consisting of the verb stem akal-"(being) wide" and the noun tory of Religions (Supplements to Numen) 33.) Leiden: E. J. Brill 1976, pp. 208-224. 87  uḷ, "inside".I think, however, that we have to do with the suffix -uḷ as found in, for instance, ceyyuḷ "action, poetic composition" from the verb cey-"do, make".For akaluḷ the Tamil Lexicon (p.14) provides the meaning "width, breadth" (the meanings "greatness, earth, street" may be ignored here).As such akaluḷāṅkaṇ may be compared to viyaluḷāṅkaṇ, "in a wide open space", though viyal is a noun and not, like akal, a verb.viyaluḷāṅkaṇ is found in Patiṟṟuppattu 56,1: viḻavu vīṟṟirunta viyaluḷāṅkaṇ "on the wide open space on which the festival takes place", and Malaipaṭukatām 350 f.: muḻavu tuyil aṟiyā viyaluḷāṅkaṇ viḻaviṉ "a festival on a wide open space during which the drums do not know sleep".89For obvious reasons festivals require an open space, for which in Puṟanāṉūṟu 65,5 instead of viyaluḷ the word akaluḷ is used.In this example, however, akaluḷāṅkaṇ seems to be in the first place a descriptor of the village: viḻavum akaluḷāṅkaṭ cīṟūr maṟappa "while the small village, which has a wide open space (where festivals can be held), forgets its festivals."Most likely the same is the case in akaluḷāṅkaṭ cīṟūrēm in Naṟṟiṇai 266.In any case the village in question is not situated in a wide open space, but in a forest area gradually being turned into agricultural land.
A passage that has to be dealt with in some detail as well is line 5: atuvē cāluva kāmam aṉṟiyum.To begin with, for the third person plural cāluva in atuvē cāluva I suggest to follow manuscripts (and editions) C1, G1+2, ER and ET, and adopt the third person singular cāluṅ, corresponding to atuvē "that", though it is the lectio facilior.Wilden defends her choice in a note, which I am unfortunately unable to follow.90The supposed corruption of cāluṅ into cāluva may be a mistake made by a copyist in either reading or writing ṅ as v; indeed, it is possible to recognise a v in that part of ṅ which remains if one skips the right vertical and upper horizontal lines.
For the verb cāl-the Tamil Lexicon (p.1389) provides a number of meanings.In the present context I consider appropriate the meaning "be suitable, fitting", which has counterparts in Kannada sāl-"be sufficient or enough, suffice" and Telugu cālu-"be enough, sufficient".91For the woman, living in a small village "suffices"; it is as it is and she won't complain.But she adds kāmam aṉṟiyum 89 It would here go too far to deal with similar expressions like viyaṉkaṇ (< viyal-kaṇ) and akaṉkaṇ (< akal-kaṇ), and viyalāṅkaṇ (there does not seem to be a corresponding akalāṅkaṇ).90 Wilden decides in favour of cāluva as it is found in the majority of sources.To explain the plural verb she suggests that the grammatical subject atu "it" is anaphoric and the verb cataphoric, referring to what follows.there being two subjects in the speaker's mind.91 DED (see note 26), no.2470(a); see also Kota ca·km "sufficiency" and Toda so·k "enough" in (b)."though it is not what I really want": if she had a choice, she would not be living there.
This leaves the last two and a half lines of the poem to be discussed: … vēṟupaṭṭirīiya kālai iriyiṟ periya vallavō periyavar nilaiyē.
Wilden's translation (2008: 591) runs as follows: if the time that made us wait [(irīiya, participle of the causative of iru "be somewhere, stay")], changing [(vēṟupaṭṭu)], retreats [((y)iriyiṟ, conditional of the verb iri-)], won't [(allavō)] the state [(nilai)] of the great ones [(periyavar)] be great?But time (kālai) is an unlikely subject of iriyiṉ, for time "flies" but does not "flee" (iri-).How should the passage then be interpreted?Just now we have seen that the woman has resigned herself to her situation.But this changes when her husband announces that he is going away, leaving her alone in the village (em viṭṭakaṉṟir āyiṉ).92She gives him a piece of her mind (koṉṉoṉṟu kūṟuval),93 threatening him with the consequences: If during the period (kālai) that I am forced to sit/stay here (irīiya) alone (vēṟupaṭṭu)94 I run away, the (i.e. your) high status [in the village] will no longer be that high, will it (allavō)?
We have already seen that the husband as the owner of a flock of goats is better off than the majority of his fellow villagers, who make a living by slash-and-burn agriculture in the fields next to the village.In the first few lines of the poem he is described as showing off his success in life by parading through the streets of the village with a bunch of flowers in his hair.Marrying a woman from outside the village community is the final proof of his success.Therefore, by running away from him his wife would with one 92 In the village poems the husbands are practically always absent or on the point of leaving.In this case the husband has to leave his wife presumably to lead his goats to new pastures.93 The interjection koṉṉoṉṟu "one thing", is mentioned in Tolkāppiyam, Collatikāram 254; the grammar distinguishes altogether four attitudes on the part of the speaker expressed by it, namely accam "feeling fear", payamili "feeling no fear", perumai "feeling powerful, superior", and kālam "deeming it the right time to say it".Here the woman is clearly warning or threatening her husband, which comes close to "absence of fear" or "superiority".94 The verb vēṟupaṭu-has a number of contextual meanings, "be alone" being one of them.The available sources seem to hesitate between the verbal participle vēṟupaṭṭu and the infinitive vēṟupaṭa.The difference does not really affect the meaning: "remain here, being alone" or "so that I am alone".stroke destroy all his ambitions and make him the laughing stock of the village.
The above considerations yield the following translation of the poem: We live in a small village surrounded by small fields cleared by kollaikkōvalar [who have burned down the trees and driven back the wild animals trying to escape from the conflagration], a small village with wide open spaces, where bunches of white flowers hang in the short kuravu trees, flowers which are worn by the herder, who owns a flock of goats.It (living in a small village) is what it is, though it is not what I really want.However, if you persist in going away, leaving me behind, I will tell you [this] one thing: May you live long, my lord.But if during the period that you force me to stay here all on my own I run away, not much will be left of your high status here, will it?
Compare below Wilden's translation: We [are] in [our] small village, that place wide inside, where the sky flowers of the short-trunked Kura-tree bloom in heaped clusters, close to the small fields of the cowherds, in the clearing, to be worn by the shepherd-son95 with [his] sheep.That alone is worthy, even apart from desire: if you depart, deserting us, I tell you one thing, may you live, lord: if the time that made us wait, changing, retreats, won't the state of the great ones be great?8.The translations discussed above are no result of a tendentious selection.I randomly started with the poems about the kollai fields, and in my investigation of these poems had to consult other poems, necessitating consulting yet other poems, and so on.The translations I came across in the process are not what one would expect of scholarly work.One of the basic problems encountered in practically all translations, those mentioned above and others consulted, is that each poem seems to have been dealt with in isolation.A simple example of this is Selby's translation (see note 6) of the word puṉpulam "waste land, dry land, arid barren place" (Tamil Lexicon, p. 2813).In Aiṅkuṟunūṟu 260, she translates puṉpula mayakkattu viḷaintaṉa tiṉaiyē with "the millet has now ripened in the land of arid fields" (p.107).I suspect that the word "land" renders Tamil mayakkattu which, however, describes the poor quality of the field, consisting of a "mixture" (mayakkam; oblique form mayakkattu) of earth, stones and partly burnt roots of trees, which, as seen in Porunarāṟṟuppaṭai 117 f. blunts the ploughshare (see note 76).In Aiṅkuṟunūṟu 246, puṉpulam vittiya puṉavar, Selby translates puṉpulam with "millet field": "farmers who have sown their millet fields" (p.102).The translation may not be quite exact, but it is not wrong, in the sense that millet does grow on dry fields.However, in 283 from the very same collection she translates puṉpulamayakkattuḻuta vēṉal with "the millet [(vēṉal)] cultivated in grassy tracts" (p.116), as if she had just realised that puṉ might stand for pul "grass".But if we have indeed to do with pul here, it is, like Skt tṛṇa-"(dry) grass", used to refer to something useless.Clearly, Selby did not go back to her earlier translations.In addition, in this translation mayakkattu is not accounted for, unless it is somehow, in combination with uḻuta "ploughed" (thus "ploughed and sowed"), included in the word "cultivated".Compare the translation "transformed" by HH (see note 4): 101 of the participle mayakkiya in Puṟanāṉūṟu 159, said of a kollai field.
Yet another example of how in dealing with a word translators fail to take into account its other instances is HH's translation of paṭai when combined with puricai.The translation of palpaṭaippuricai in Puṟanāṉūṟu 224 is "many-layered wall" (p.140), even though, as already shown in § 3 above, we are not dealing with a wall here, but with a platform functioning as a Vedic sacrificial altar.paṭai in puricaippaṭai in poem 343 of the same collection is translated with "weapons" and puricai with "fort", in the process ignoring grammar by dividing one sentence into two, with puricai in the one and paṭai in the other.Taking the trouble, instead, to consult the available indexes covering Caṅkam poetry (see note 16) for puricai would have led to another instance of pal(a)paṭaippuricai, in Maturaikkāñci 352, which might have convinced HH that the paṭai is a part of the puricai.
It is curious, nay paradoxical, to see how little use translators make of these indexes.For, in the study of Caṅkam poetry the formulaic nature of the language, or the repetitiveness of the vocabulary, has been, and for some scholars still is, an important topic.According to K. Kailasapathy,96 in the Puṟanāṉūṟu we have poetry produced on the spot by wandering bards who make use of a fixed repertory of topics, themes and formulae.This theory has been further elaborated by Hart 1975 (see note 13), according to whom the Caṅkam corpus is a type of poetry composed by learned poets who were the heirs of these earlier bardic poets from the Deccan.Whatever exactly be the case, hapax legomena are rare.When faced with a problematical passage, it is common practice among scholars to turn to other instances of the words or expressions in the corpus.However, in the study of Old Tamil poetry this 96 Tamil Heroic Poetry.Oxford: Clarendon Press 1968.philological approach does not seem to have taken root yet.I hope I have been able to show that it should.
In the past few years a number of translations of Caṅkam poetry have appeared and more are in the pipeline.Maybe the projects are too ambitious.It is not difficult to see that the interpretation of a poem given in the commentary or by an earlier translator is not possible, for instance, for grammatical reasons.But to find out what the passage in question does mean may take days, if not months or even years.As it is, many such problems tend to be circumvented by ad hoc solutions.Because such solutions are not supported by the grammar of the original texts, they are difficult to reproduce.If grammar does not count, how can we claim that the study of Tamil poetry is a legitimate academic pursuit?
Unfortunately, the situation in Tamil studies is not unique.It is also met with in Schubring's translations of the Āyāraṃgasutta, one of the early Jaina canonical texts.In Worte Mahāvīras.Kritische Übersetzungen aus dem Kanon der Jaina97 one may come across several instances in which Schubring in his translation has joined together earlier and later text passages, something which in a note on p. 84 he justifies with: "Diese Wiedergabe … beruht auf freiem Schalten mit den anzunehmenden Bruchstücken, deren heutige Folge sinnlos is."The problem with, for instance, Hart's (and Heifetz's) and Selby's translations is that similar "freies Schalten" is done, as it were, secretly.
Wilden's translations form a category in their own right.They are literal to the extreme, and therefore very difficult to follow, at times resulting in meaningless gibberish.It is as if Tamil poetry were passed through Google Translate.An example is her translation (2008: 591) of atuvē cāluva (or cāluṅ) kāmam aṉṟiyum in Naṟṟiṇai 26698: "That alone is worthy, even apart from desire".All the words are there, but the translation does not make clear how the sentence fits in the context, nor how its two parts are related, or whose desire (kāmam) for what we are dealing with.
The poems, and I refer in particular to the Akam poems about village life, are riddles of sorts.In these poems, a villager, usually a woman, says something, either to a friend, her mother or to herself, about her love life in the widest sense of the word.this poetry is all about.The riddle must be solved before offering a translation.By her own confession Wilden is not interested in the intentions the speaker in the poem might have.This disqualifies her as a translator.But it also disqualifies her as a text editor, for how can one know what the original reading is and what the secondary one, if one is not interested in the meaning of the text?
As indicated, it is to the reader to find out from the words spoken what the matter is or in what context they are spoken, and what the speaker intends to achieve with them.This is not an easy task, but it is what 97 (Quellen der Religionsgeschichte 7,14.)Göttingen/Leipzig: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1927.98 Discussed extensively in § 7, and translated by me as "It is what it is, though it is not what I really want".

73 Her situation
may be compared to that of the one speaking in Gāthā 164 from that other anthology of village poetry, Hāla's Sattasaī.Peter Khoroche and Herman Tieken (Poems on Life and Love in Ancient India.Hāla's Sattasaī.(SUNY Series in Hindu Studies.)Albany: Clearing or Plowing Equal to Killing?Tamil Culture and the Spread of Jainism in Tamilnadu", in: Whitney Cox, Vincenzo Vergiani (eds.):Bilingual Discourse and Cross-Cultural Fertilisation: Sanskrit and Tamil in Medieval India.(Collection Indologie 121.) Pondichéry: Institut français de Pondichéry 2013, pp.53-67.
Translated by J. A. B. van Buitenen: The Mahābhārata. 1.The Book of the Beginning.Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press 1973, p. 419.88 See also akaluḷāṅkaṭ cīṟūr in Puṟanāṉūṟu 65,5.