Innovative Researches in Literary Works and Social Sciences Chief Editor K. Muniisvaran Editors N. Suppiah P. Vijaya S. Ilangkumaran Tamil Linguistics Association, Malaysia 1 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA Title of the Book: Innovative Researches in Literary Works and Social Sciences Chief Editor: K. Muniisvaran Editors: N. Suppiah P. Vijaya S. Ilangkumaran Publisher: Persatuan Linguistik Bahasa Tamil, Malaysia Language: English Edition: First Year of Publication: 2018 Size of the book: B5 Price: RM30 Subject: Literature & Social Sciences Website: talias.org Copyright holder: Tamil Linguistics Association, Malaysia ISBN: © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. 2 Chief Editor’s Note There is no end for studies and discussions on literature and social science topics. They are getting more and more interesting if we explore deep and deeper. There are new theories and hypothesis keep on formed along with new strategy and methods to do researches in the fields of literature and social sciences. This book discusses various topics in those fields. Many new strategies and methods were used to explore deeper into these fields to get some answers that definitely help to lift up knowledge of readers. A total of ten chapters included in this book. Each chapters discussing different topics and ideas. All those chapters divided into two main parts viz. 1) literature and 2) social science. This book published by Tamil Linguistics Association, Malaysia as one of our effort to upsurge research activities in the fields of literature and social sciences. The chapters are collected from the ‘International Conference on Language, Linguistics & Social Sciences 2018’ organized by Tamil Linguistics Association, Malaysia and CAS in Linguistics, Annamalai University, India in Annamalai University. I would like to extend my gratitude to those contributed directly and indirectly to materialize this book. Thank you. Dr. K. Muniisvaran Chief Editor 3 Content Chief Editor’s Note 3 Chapter 1 6 Status of Women in Medieval Kerala with the special reference to Manipravala Literature Shibina K. K. Chapter 2 14 Cecilia’s Short Stories from Sarawak: A Study with Reader Response Franklin Thambi Jose. S Chapter 3 24 Mapping the Role of Literature in Anti-Colonial Struggles: The History of Mappilas in Malabar K. Hathika Chapter 4 36 The Caste and Gender Themes in Gundert’s Malayalam- English Dictionary Prameela P. K. Chapter 5 44 Ethno-cultural floras used in Rituals by the Mao Naga of Manipur, Northeast India Losü Heshu 4 Chapter 6 59 Expression of Aggression in Kannada on Social Media P. Gajendra Chapter 7 65 The Role of Missions in the Enhancement of People with Disabilities: Case of the Colonial India Baby Rizwana N. V. Chapter 8 79 An Introduction to Alu Kurumba R. Singaravelan Chapter 9 91 Marriage System of Garo Community Biginchi N. Mark Chapter 10 97 The Vanishing Language and Culture of the Koragas in Kasaragod Anjali V. Kumar 5 Chapter 1 Status of Women in Medieval Kerala with the special reference to Manipravala Literature Shibina K. K. Department of History, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500046 Telangana [email protected] ABSTRACT The present study on Manipravala literature talks about how women are depicted in this literature. We find the presence of women only in the Manipravala literature during the medieval perio. After the importance of Manipravala literature diminished, there was a considerable loss of representation of women in literature. While the mainstream literature talks about the devadasis during these periods, the Manipravala literature talks about the ‘nagiyar’ women who are honourably living with their husbands. From here, the present study tries to find out the difference between the importance of the common women in the literature and the devadasis in particular. In the Manipravala literature they only talk about the women and their status being popular with their mothers rather than thier fathers. Some of the characters in the Manipravala literatures are ‘Unniyachi’, ‘unnichirudevi’, ‘unniadi’ and so on. The present study attempts to find out the status of women in medieval Kerala using the literature of Manipravala. 6 Keywords: Manipravala literature, Medieval Kerala, Women, Devadasis, Champu kavya, Unniyachi charita, Unnichirutevi charita, Unniyadi charita. Introduction Language is a useful source to know about the socio-cultural milieu of any place, at any point in time. It is through the language one can find the soul of society, its people, tradition, beliefs, culture, heritage, arts and literature. European missionaries, who set out to spread the Gospel knew this very well, and so they developed an attitude that inspired and enabled them to learn the vernacular languages of every land they reached. Their intellectual process and multi- linguistic skills yielded phenomenal results. The Christian missionaries who landed in Kerala after the intercontinental traders of earlier times also maintained and fostered this policy. They learnt Sanskrit and Malayalam and even immersed themselves in literary pursuits. They wrote poems, prose, grammar works and dictionaries, contributing to the growth of Malayalam language and literature. This led to the origin of a new stream of literature in Kerala. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were periods of Renaissance or reawakening in Europe. One of the significant features was its literary revival. However, in contemporary India, especially in the southern extreme parts including Kerala, literature was still in the conservative mold, with limited modernization. Malayalam literature at that time was only at the early stages of its development. It was understood only by an elite minority. Malayalam literature has no pure prose, nor was it comprehensible to the common man. A new intellectual awareness and cultural transition took place in Kerala during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Manipravala Literature Manipravala is a movement that cuts down a period of transition in Malayalam language and literature. Manipravala as termed as a mixture of Tamil and early 7 Malayalam of Kerala and Sanskrit and Tamil. Mani-Pravalam denotes ruby-coral where mani means ruby in Tamil and pravalam means coral in Sanskrit. This new literature composed between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries was known as Manipravala works (Cultural Heritage of Kerala, Kerala, 2008). Thus, in Medieval Period a new literary style developed in Kerala, which was composed of ‘vattezhuthu’ and ‘grantha’ script. This language was a hybrid one, composed of Sanskrit and Malayalam and it reflected a synthesis of Aryan and Dravidian cultures. The elite community especially the Namboodiris patronized this school of poetry. However, Manipravala literature was not palatable to the ordinary people and only a minority could understand the literature. Manipravala works reflected the social conditions of the people of the period and these works aimed at pleasing the tastes of a leisured class. They also throw light on the behaviour and morals of the upper class society of its time. A special feature is that all these early Manipravala works deal with palace tales about courtesans and royal family and are mostly didactic. Ramacharitam is regarded as the earliest poetic version of the story of Ramayana that appeared in Malayalam (Gopinathan Nayar, N. 2016). Malayalam language got the poetic renaissance through the Manipravala literature. Manipravala works are classified into two branches namely Chambus and Sandesa Kavyas. The most important Chambus were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The temple arts like Koothu and Koodiyattam were often performed using Sanskrit and Malayalam and these performances caused the growth and development of Manipravala literature (Erumely Parameswaran Pillai, 1998). Women in Manipravala Literature Manipravala talks about the women in medieval period, who are very beautiful and serve in temple as devadasis. Some of the research scholars are not sure whether they are devadasis or women who are having had high position in the society. Manipravala not only talk about the dancers but they talk about the 8 society and also its culture. The important works of the Manipravala literature are Unniyachi Charita, Unnichiruthevi Charitas, and Unniyadi Charita are the examples of the former type, known by the name chambu and written in close imitation of the champus in Sanskrit. Early champus gave importance to the writing of erotic stories about the devadasis in that period. Ramacharita is the early Champu-Kavya in the Malayalam literature, but we got the kavya enlightenment through the Maniparavala literature. The early important Champu-Kavya is Unniyachi Charita (Gopinathan nayar.N, 2016). Mainly three champu poems gave immense importance to the Manipravala literature and from those it has become very popular. Unniyachi Charita composed the starting of the 14th century or in the 13th century. Unniyachi Charita was written by poet Tevan Chirikuman (Gopinathan Nayar. N, 2016). Among these three poems Unniyachi Charita excels in poetic beauty. It is incomplete because some parts of it were lost. The last page of the palm leaf gave the information about the author of Unniyachi Charita. Tevan Chirikuman was the author and the copy writer is Raman Chirikuaman. By the time the second important charita has composed during this period which is Unnichirutevi Charita. The first part is visible so as to understand the model of the poetry. The last part has been lost so we could not know the author of Unnichirutevi Charita. The Unniyadi Charita is in better condition and we can still read it. The main characters of the Champu-Kavya are women who played an important role. They had high position in the society. They were also called ‘nagyar’.Most of the researchers are of the opinion that women had been treated as a sexual objects in the Manipravala literature. But when you go through the authentic work it says about the society, culture, cities, common people, markets, etc.