Story of the Anklet (Cilappatikaram)
The Cilappatikaram is not “the story of the anklet.”
I’m not quibbling with the common translation of the title. What I mean is that the plot does not convey what is truly remarkable about this Tamil epic of the fifth century CE: its texture.
Prince Ilango Adigal brings a heady sensuality and all-embracing humanity to his tale of a woman’s vengeance. His is an exotic South India of sandalwood breezes and dancers with ropes of pearls around their waists. In this colorful world live Buddhists, Jains, and Hindus of all castes. The streets of Puhar teem with priests and smiths and parrot-sellers.
The heroine Kannagi is the last word in dutiful wives. Not only does she forgive her husband Kovalan for spending all their money on a courtesan, she gives Kovalan her anklet to sell when he returns to her.
He tries to sell it to the king’s goldsmith, who coincidentally had stolen the queen’s anklet and decided to frame Kovalan for the theft.
Without a trial, without inquiry, the king orders the execution of Kovalan.
Possessed by a semi-divine fury, Kannagi avenges her husband by torching the king’s city of Madurai. The fire only burns the evil and the corrupt. In the end, Kannagi rejoins Kovalan in heaven as the locals begin to worship her on earth.
Along with scenes of erotic dalliance and fiery vengeance, the Cilappatikaram celebrates the land where, in the poet’s words, farmers are the children of the river Kauveri.
From the Reader’s Notebook:
* Knowing the plot of the Story of the Anklet, I put off reading it for years. I expected it to be a sexist story that champions a submissive, self-sacrificing wife.
I was surprised to find that Adigal celebrates the power of his female characters: not only their beauty, but their artistry and moral compass.
This is no truer than in the depiction of the courtesan Madhavi. Assuring us that she knows the sixty-four arts, Adigal cites the songs and dances she knows with the kind of detail you get in the descriptions of animal sacrifices in Homer. The king himself praises her.
She forgets those techniques, though, when Kovalan leaves her. She’s bereft. Nowhere do you get “She was a temptress and a slut, and it’s all her fault that Kovalan fell for her.” (I can’t tell you how much ancient – and not so ancient – literature blames the woman.) She’s a courtesan. That’s her job.
And no one says, “Kovalan’s a man and men are like that.” No, his parents were upset, Kannagi was distraught, and Madhavi later has to remind him to tell his parents where he went. What Kovalan does is conceived of as wrong within the context of the story.
* Why did the city have to pay for the king’s poor decision? It has to do with Great Chain of Being, I think. If king is unjust, then there’s something rotten in the city itself.
* Some readers have a problem with characters talking about karma because it makes them sound passive. Kovalan blames karma for his affair with Madhavi. But in a way, he’s taking responsibility by saying it’s the consequence of his acts, albeit in a previous life.
* Kovalan is 16 at the beginning of the story; Kannagi and Madhavi are 12. It’s odd to think of this as happening among sixth graders (and one dissolute sophomore).
* It’s neat to read a story from so long ago that’s partly set in Madurai, a city that still exists and continues to be known as the temple city. I was excited, too, when an Indian friend said that Kannagi and Kovalan’s hometown of Puhar is also a real place. I wanted to see the Puhar that was so colorfully and lovingly described in the book. But when I asked where it was, he said, “Underwater.” Apparently it was destroyed, probably in a tsunami, about 1500 years ago. It made me sad suddenly, as if a place I had just seen and people I had known had disappeared,
He also said the tree where Kovalan was hanged is still in Madurai. He even biked there to see it when he was a kid. In the text, though, Kovalan wasn’t hanged – he was killed with a sword. It just goes to show that this story remains well-known through the oral tradition.
Translation: The Chilappathikaram of Ilanko Atikal. Trans. R. Parthasarathi (Columbia University Press, 1993)
