Word, Sound, Image

The Life of the Tamil Text

Saskia Kersenboom

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000323085
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This original and radical book challenges dominant parameters of literacy by comparing the oral tradition of the Tamils in South India with the Western culture of printed text. In India, traditional texts are always performed; as a result, form and meaning can change depending on the occasion. This is the opposite of Western communication through publication which is a static representation of knowledge. The author examines the reasons for the differences between the Indian and Western textual traditions, and describes how text lives through the performing arts of words, sound and imagery. She argues that interactive multimedia is the first Western communication form to represent oral traditions effectively.

Part I Habitus

Chapter 2 Text

mōkamāUn/Ua eun/umītil nī irita vēḷaiyil; mōṭiceyyalāmōeun/u cāmi metta/ /
nākarīkamāun/ua tirunakaril vācarē; pōkatyākēcā aun/uupōkam ceyya vā kiṭṭa//
māraun/u kaṇaikaḷ tūvurāun/u caramā riyāy//

At this moment your presence fills me with the intoxication of love; ignoring me could that be, my Lord? it is hard to bear / /
The elegant holy town is your residence; Bhogatyagesha to delight me too, you must come to my side / /
Lethal arrows of love descend like pouring rain / /

This text forms the central object of our discussion. It appears in an edition of manuscripts ascribed to the so-called Tanjore Brothers (early nineteenth century). Its three lines form a varnam (literally 'colour') and are set in the tonal scale bhairavi and the rhythm cycle rupakam. Varnam is classified as a type of prabandham, a large and important genre of Tamil literature. This particular varnam survives in many oral versions followed by various schools and in one printed version; its original author is said to be Ponniah (1887-1945).¹

An introduction like this immediately reveals the difficulties that are peculiar to oral verbal art. 'Text', 'classification', 'genre' all terms sound familiar and adequate. However, when applied to bhairavi varnam, they hold on paper but not in praxis. Earlier we discussed the discrepancy between the types of data that served as a basis for literary analysis and criticism. Whereas it is a quite self-evident move to the Western scholar to accept the manuscript as a point of departure, this attitude lands us in deep trouble when followed in a Tamil context. The Tamil palmleaf manuscript, the olai, does not correspond to the product that the Tamils themselves regard as literature. How does this product, termed ilakkiyam (lit. 'the marked'), relate to the manuscript? In short, as three lines to thirty minutes: the olai manuscript serves as a residuum of the performance bhairavi varnam. Thus the application of the manuscript may take half an hour or more.² During this process the palmleaves are converted into a marked sign. According to Western criteria, it is hard to consider a varnam 'literature'; after all, it turns out to be dance, music and mime. It seems to be an either/or situation: either a text is literature, i.e. written and received as such; or, a text is Art and expressed in performance. However, a third possibility is available: varnam as literature is literature as applied science. The logic of application allows a varnam to reach its full expression in the course of performance. The difficulties in analysing the varnam reflect the difficulties literary criticism has encountered in trying to analyse the 'genre' prabandham. Kamil Zvelebil (1992) assesses the 'state of the art' as follows

It is my conviction, though, that the very 'basics' mentioned above the 'particles' making up the complex dynamic structure of Tamil verbal art - have still not been dealt with adequately, even in approximation. We may have very deep-going, detailed and supremely intelligent studies of individual works (.. .), but entire epochs (e.g. sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth centuries), not to speak of hundreds of individual authors and works, and of the oral dimension of verbal art, have been left virtually untouched by serious scholarship.³

The hypergerire of prabandha (Skt.), prabandham (Tamilised Sanskrit), or pirapantam (Ta.) in fact falls into every one of the lacunae mentioned above: prabandham flourished and expanded into a megagenre precisely during this period; crucial questions regarding the form, nature and generic logic of prabandham remained unanswered in Western criticism because of the oral character of this type of texts. Even the question of 'genre' has been problem-ridden: how should we account for a genre that is first mentioned in a normative treatise of the tenth century as comprising 36 subgenres,⁴ that expands in the course of six centuries into 96 subgenres, and eventually attains the stupendous total of 248 subgenres by the nineteenth century. The examination of this particular varnaprabandham gives a surprising turn to the immobility of the scientific discussion on the genre at large. Literary scholarship got stuck in the seemingly insurmountable problems of inorganic growth, lack of inner coherence and megalithic status. The normative work (pattiyal) by Cuvaminatam (eighteenth/nineteenth century) and the Pirapant-atipikai by Muttuvenkata Cuppaiya Navalar (nineteenth century) mention varnam as a composition that belongs to the genre prabandham.⁵ The varnaprabandham, and especially the padavarna-prabandham that we deal with here, depicts one of the many love situations that make up lyrical poetry. Our varnam, too, speaks of the intense longing for the beloved and moves from hope to despair and back within the range of melancholy. The Tamil experts' analysis of the form of varnam shows the following progression:

1. Invocation of the gods
2. Praise of the hero
3. The town and the country of the hero
4. and 5 The hero meets a woman in his garden and enjoys himself with her. 6, 7 and 8 (and more: SK) Further erotic descriptions.

In the last parts, there may be a description of a 'Gandharva marriage' (i.e. a marriage without ceremonies and without the permission of relatives).⁶ At first sight it seems hard to accommodate our three-line manuscript into the eight-part scheme given above. However, when we follow the logic of application and, in consequence, we observe the performance of these three lines, then a new text appears. The term ilakkiyam begins to make sense as a 'marked event' the moment the olai manuscript unfolds in practice into the following 'libretto':

1. At this moment your presence fills me with the intoxication of love;
2. ignoring me, could that be, my Lord? It is hard to bear/ /
3. The elegant holy town of Arur is your residence;
4. Bhogatyagesha, in order to delight me too, you must come to my side//

Now, a line appears in the application which is not to be found in the manuscript text. It functions as a transition to the second part of the varnam.⁷

5 Contamuṭaun/u eun/uai kūṭiun/ua vintaiyai niun/uaintē tinam vāṭi maun/uam nāṭi umai tēṭi uravāṭa mikavum eun/uatutalatu patarutē iun/ui arai nimisamum yukamākutu atarasāramatu tara itē camayam caraca catkunanē//

5 (Translation:) As your very own you embraced me; that splendour I remember every day; my heart quivers searching for you, just as if you were intimately related to me; inside, I am all trembling, half a minute turns into an aeon; your sweet lips, please do grant me these; this is the right moment, O You whose nature is the Experiential (Skt. sa-rasa), the Embodiment of Being (Skt. sat-guna).

The third line of the manuscript māraun/u kaṇaikaḷ tūvuur/uāun/u caramāriyāy unfolds into four further performance sentences:

6 Lethal arrows of love descend like pouring rain (free translation) unfolds into 7, 8,9 and 10, thus

7 māvēril kuyilkaḷ kūvutē iun/ui eun/u ceykuvēun/u / / (māraun/u . . .) In the garden love-birds are cooing; now what am I to do?

8 mārutam orupuram vīcutu iravinil tamasam eun/uai aṇaivāy ini vacamalla// (māraun/u . . .)

The (cool) breeze is blowing on one side; without delay you might embrace me during the night, now my strength ebbs away.

9 Cōmantaṇal mika cōriyayil rāmā iuun/ui cakiyēun/uaṭa kāmaun/u kalavikku cintaiyai nāun/u cāmi maun/uatu vimmutaṭā/ / (māra,un/u ...) The rays of the moon pour down like fiery cinders; alas, I can't bear any more, my Lord, my heart overflows with the thought of a love tryst.

10 Curēcaun/u aun/uutiun/uamum pukaul/u varēca muun/uivar paṇiyum jakatīcaun/u akaṇṭa pūraṇa vilācāun/u aṭiyavarkkaruḷ puriyum īcaun/u akila puvaun/uamatil vācaun/u ari aiyaun/u ariyāta īcaun/u varaṇkaul/u tarum tiru tyākēcaun/u kaiyilai puvaun/uamatil vācaun/u eun/utaun/uai aṇaiya ippō// (māran...)

Sureshan, Lord of Lords daily praised, Lord of boons, worshipped by sages, Lord of the universe, encompassing the entire expanse, showering grace on his devotees, Isha!, unfathomable to Hari and Ayan, Tyagesha!, bestowing all wishes, living in the realm of Kailasa, embrace verily me, nowl

The branching out of three written lines into a performance of ten lines poses an enigma to Western textual scholarship. All parameters of criticism seem to be uprooted. Which is the text: the manuscript, the libretto, or each interpretation it receives in performance? Where is the text located: in the palmleaves, in the memory of the performers, or in the performance itself? Once more, such questions may be tackled best when posed in the context of indigenous categories and terminology. The manuscript of the varnaprabandham employs three terms for the three lines that reveal the nature of the text. These are: pallavi, anupallavi, caranam, and can be understood as 'branch', 'twig' and 'tail of a peacock'.⁸ This terminology indicates the dynamic nature of the text: the three lines noted down in the manuscript serve as seeds for the organic growth of the stem, branches and foliage of a tree. The text develops branches, sub-branches and rich foliage that fans out like a peacock's tail, displaying the splendour of its imagery. This process explains the amplification of three lines into thirty minutes of performance. How this process is achieved is described in Part II of this work.

What matters in this context is the remarkable discrepancy that occurs between the foci of attention and criticism: whereas the Indian expert has analysed the application of the three lines in the course of their being performed, the Western scholar has tried to analyse the document, taking the manuscript for the text. The difference between the application and the document is the difference between coordinated activity and its formula. The manuscript yields the formula pallavi, anupallavi, and caranam, while its application in performance yields coordinated, meaningful action as its product. In short, text considered as meaningful action is the Tamil model of a text, and thus an exact opposite of Ricoeur's model of the text that was discussed earlier.⁹

The object of exegesis on this model transforms itself; we pass from exegesis of a document to exegesis of a colourful event. The text dwells in its colouring activity. This activity is varnana 'colouring'; varnam as 'literature' does not equate with its formula, but with the event of concerted action. The colouring of the event contains words, sounds and images. All three have their 'formulaic still' that demands to be committed to interactive communication.

Just as the word stratum has an olai, the dimension 'sound' is registered in the form of graphemes. These are the initial letters of the name of the note; thus, they do not differ from the graphemes of the alphabet. Tonal scales therefore read like the written word, which does not do much justice to their tonal quality. In addition the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Transcription and Transliteration
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• Part I: Habitus
• Part II: Praxis
• Part III: Representation
• Conclusion
• Select Bibliography
• Glossary
• Index