Avvaiyar The Fearless Wanderer Translations by C. Rajagopalachari The anger of the little-minded divides like a crack in stone There are others who when angered are like gold That divides but easily welds again But the anger of noble souls that walk in the righteous path Is like the arrow’s wound in water Which splashes momentarily but itself unites again. Avvaiyar AVVAIYAR is loved and respected in given to a series of women poets. form of an old woman and thus avoid Tamil Nadu as an incarnation of the Avvaiyar is constructed in legend as a marriage (see pages 18 to 29 of this issue). goddess of learning, Saraswati. There are grand old woman, with flowing white hair, Avvaiyar is the most popular of the even some shrines dedicated to her. who was totally fearless, afraid of neither classic Tamil poets. Her poems are read by The most accepted theory is that she ruler nor wild animal nor supernatural young children — the first thing a Tamil lived in the Sangam period, the golden force. She struck terror into the hearts of child reads is her Attichudi or alphabet period of classical Tamil literature and art. the unjust. She wandered the land, aphorisms. She is also read by scholars Another theory is that she lived in the time admonishing husbands and wives who among classics of the highest rank. of Cheraman Perumal, the eighth century misbehaved, and advising rulers. Simplicity of expression and terseness are king. Yet another theory is that she was a Tradition has it that she was the child the characteristic features of her verse. contemporary of Kamban, the twelfth of an untouchable mother and a high caste century poet who wrote the Tamil father, was abandoned, and was brought On the hospitality of shepherd girls Ramayana. These conflicting theories up by untouchables. Another version is Angava and Sangava who sheltered her have helped perpetuate the legend that she that she belonged to the caste of dancing from rain, fed her and gave her their own lived for many centuries. It is also likely girls. From childhood, she worshipped small sized half-sari to wear: that the name “Avvaiyar” or mother was Ganesh and invoked his aid to achieve the 30 MANUSHI These girls with arms all full of Of the Pandyan King, the royal We cross the wide ocean, we pretend, bangles, scholar? we enslave and rule, They served me their feast, warm and I was pressed and was pushed and my We sing eulogies, and we lead our fragrant hunger sore oppressed me, souls to the Pit: And asked me to eat as much as I My belly shrank, but of rice I had All for a measure of rice for this liked, nothing. tyrant Belly. Pouring the ghee on it, It was green, and they said it was z z only vegetables cooked, But really they served me Amrit! When a woman, at her husband’s bidding, Look at the swallow’s ties’, or the z very unwillingly served food to Avvai: beautiful lac, Poor Barri the shelpherd held me by The white ant’s wonderful structure; my cloth Alas! my eyes blink to see, Look at the honey and the hive of the And would not let me go at all from My hands shake with shame, bee; his house. And my good mouth refuses to open Or the little spider’s delicate web: And simple Kaari of Paliyanur And all my bones burn so with pain No mortal man can imitate these. Gave me his pick-axe, saying, dig At the sight of food so unwillingly served! Let no one therefore vaunt his skill with me. Because he can do this or that. Seraman said, come let us go to z There is none but in something Kailas. excels. These three love-offerings rank high The divine poets Kural, the sum of z And rank with the little blue sari the sacred Vedas, That the girls so lovingly gave for me The Thevaram of the Three (Shaivite Harshness cannot succeed against to wear. saints) gentleness, z The Tiruvaimczhi of the (Vaithnav) The arrow speeds its way through the (on a woman married to an unworthy sage, wild elephant man) the Tirukkovai, the Tiruvachakam, But it cannot pierce through yielding If I could get at the Brahma (the creator) the Tirumantram of Tirumular, cotton. that yoked All are but one and the same The rock that breaks not for This deer to this dry log of a man teaching. the blows of the long crowbar I would wring his four necks and fling We bow to the undeserving we Splits under the gentle stress of the his four heeds wander, and we beg, To go the same way that the fifth went before. z A virtuous wife worthy of her lord Makes life happy under my conditions. But when there is incompatibility Don’t tell any one, but take sanyaas. z Take it not always that relatives Are those whom blood unites. Disease that is born with you, Does it not kill? The herb that grows in the distant jungle, Does it not save you? Will you hear me how 1 feasted at the great Wedding NUMBER 50-51-52 (January-June 1989) green treeroot. from the sun. Compare the king and the man of Of afflictions hard to bear, learning; Hard, very hard to bear is poverty; The scholar’s dominion is greater Harder still is poverty in youth. than the king’s. Greater affliction than that The king’s glory is limited to his Is disease incurable. domains; But harder is his lot But the scholar is esteemed wherever Who is yoked to a wife he may go. Who loves him not. And his affliction greatest, z Who has to look to such a one Men may do deadly evil unto them; For his daily food. Consider it well, this body is but a The wise will yet exert to save these worthless home men. Verses by Avvaiyar, translated by C. For poisonous worms and diseases Have you seen men aim deadly blows Rajagopalachari in his monograph Avvaiar, numberless. With axes at the stately tree? Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1971, which had The wise know this and so like the Until the end when the noble tree earlier appeared in Gandhi’s Young India. water on the lotus falls down Commentary compiled from this Without attachment pass their lives It throws its hospitable shade monograph, and from material sent in by in silence. On the axe-men, and protects them Akhila Shivdas and Shri Ramachandran. S.S. Vasan’s Avvaiyar THE life and times of a legendary in a storm. Picked up by a childless the rest of her life, her voyages take her mystic have been portrayed in S. S. Brahman couple, she grows into a through the kingdoms of the Cholas, the Vasan’s Avvaiyar (1953), which was re-run precocious young girl, far ahead of her Pandyas and the Cheras, the three great on national TV recently. Vasan has used years in poetic ability and philosophical powers, whose territories are depicted in material drawn from folklore and tradition wisdom. The major crisis of her life, which Sangam literature. This gives Vasan an with incidents born of his own invention. leads her to recognise and accept her opportunity to introduce several incidents, In any case, authentic information is religious vocation, is depicted with a which are supposed to throw light on lacking regarding this saintsinger of the generous dose of the miraculous. An Avvaiyar’s benign influence on the spiritual early days of the Christian era, on which elephant appears before the young girl and intellectual life of the day. There are Vasan could have based his screenplay. and guides her away from her carefree miracles galore. Avvaiyar sings and draws In Vasan’s hands, the film has developed companions to an image of Lord Ganesha, forth rain from the skies to succour a into a strange blend of fable and fantasy, set in a forest clearing. The Lord reveals droughtstricken population. She moves revealing less the beliefs of the Sangam to his teenage devotee her life’s mission among the common people and advises age to which Avvaiyar belonged, than the as a peripatetic religious teacher, in the them not to be avaricious and wicked; ideas of contemporary Tamilnadu southern kingdoms. Avvaiyar is then those who do not heed her advice are regarding women who take to the pledged to be married to the son of a local punished miraculously. independent life of a religious leader and chieftain, who is emamoured of her looks. Avvaiyar’s role in the Tamil renaissance litterateur. Realising that her beauty is an obstacle, of the Sangam age has been portrayed by In order to cover Avvaiyar’s life-span, that would prevent her miraculously from Vasan in loving detail. Her words of Vasan has adopted an episodic approach fulfilling her godgiven vocation, Avvaiyar wisdom couched in the simple language to the story. Incidents are strung together seeks and is granted the boon of the loss of the ordinary man, replete with images loosely. We start with Avvaiyar’s birth as of her youthful good looks. Transformed drawn from daily life, have been set to the daughter of a low-caste mother and a into a middleaged, greyhaired woman, she haunting melodies. Although she is not a Brahmin father, abandoned and left to die then sets out on her lifelong travels. For member of the Sangam (the poetic group 32 MANUSHI organised around the Pandyan court), lyrics attributed to Avvaiyar and set them and are later married off bigamously to the Vasan makes Avvaiyar play the main part to inspired, enthralling music.