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Author(s): ANNE E. MONIUS
Source: Journal of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 32, No. 2/3 (June 2004), pp. 113-172
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23497259
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ANNE E. MONIUS
'There is now and there has always been something about violenc
Jody Enders, The Medieval Theater of Cruelty
The stories of the sixty-three saints of the Hindu god Siva told in the Tamil
speaking corner of southeastern India are striking for their vivid depictions
of violence done in the name of love for the lord. In the twelfth-century
Tamil hagiographie text known as the Tiruttontarpurânam, 'The Ancient
Strory of the Holy Servants', or more simply, the Periyapuran am, 'The
Great Story',1 limbs fly, blood flows, and bodies fall to the ground as
the saints or nâyanmâr (literally 'leaders')2 express their profound devo
tion to their god. The child saint, Cantëcurar, cuts off his father's feet
(v. 1261); Kannappar gouges out his own eye to heal the bleeding wound
on a Siva image (v. 827). Cimttontar gleefully kills and cooks his son
at the request of a visiting Saiva ascetic (vv. 3727-3730), while Kôtpuli
slaughters his entire family - including an infant - for the crime of eating
rice reserved for Siva in a time of great famine (vv. 4146-4148). Non
believers are relieved of their tongues (vv. 4046-4047), wives are maimed
and disfigured (v. 4024), and the nâyanmâr subject their own bodily
* Research for this project was generously funded by an American Council of Learned
Societies ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship and a Fulbright
Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship.
1 The Periyapurânam has been published in a number of editions over the last century.
All references to the text in this essay refer to Cêkkilâr (1999).
2 The term nâyanmâr (or, more precisely, the honorific singular nâyanâr) is applied
only to Siva in the Periyapurânam, not to his devotees. Nâyanâr is first used to describe at
least three of the most important saints in the Tamil Saiva tradition only in the thirteenth
century, in an inscription dated to the tenth regnal year of the Cola king, Râjendra III (1256
CE); see Vamadeva (1995: 3-4) and Nagaswamy (1989: 226).
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114 ANNEE. MONIUS
3 As in the story of Arivattayar, who, exhausted, drops his offerings intended for Siva
and, in utter despair at having ruined the lord's food, begins to saw at his neck with a sickle
(v. 923).
4 As in the story of Mürtti, who, denied access to sandalwood by an evil Jain king,
begins to grind his own arm against a stone (vv. 992-993).
5 As in the story of Kanampullar, who burns his own hair in the temple lamps when he
can no longer afford anything else (v. 4066).
6 The Periyapurânam actually narrates the stories of seventy-one saints or 'leaders' of
the community; eight of these, however, are collective groups without much personality or
character, from 'the brahmins who live in Tillai' (tillai val antanar) to 'those who depend
on [the lord's] feet beyond [the Tamil region]' (appâlum atic cârntâr).
1 There is, quite surprisingly, no scholarly agreement as to how many of the nâyanmâr
actually commit a violent act. Vamadeva (1995: 97-98) limits her analysis to violence
that relates directly to love (anpu) for Siva and provides a list of only twenty acts of
'violent love' in the Periyapurânam-, she also mentions six other acts of violence in the
Periyapurânam, but does not include them in her analysis (pp. 30-31). Hudson (1989: 40,
note 9) outlines a typology of violence that includes twenty-four among the saints. Yocum
(1988: 7) adds several more incidents of violence, and details a list of thirty violent acts in
the Periyapurânam.
8 A disproportionate number of these hapless victims are women; see discussion below.
9 Hardy (1995: 34), for example, cites a number of North Indian saints whose lives are
tinged with violence, from the story of a humble potter whose meditation on Visnu is so
profound that he fails to notice his small son being crushed by the clay to the tale of the
wife of Tukârâm ranting at Visnu to provide her with necessary household items. Such
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 115
narratives, however, although displaying a certain chutzpah toward the divine on the part
of the saint, lack the single-minded intensity to the nâyanmârs' acts of violence.
10 The pañcapuránam refers to five Tamil devotional texts from the canonical collection
known as the Tirumurai, recited at the end of puja to (worship of) Siva, performed by the
non-brahmin ôtuvar or temple singer. The first text is taken from the first seven bools of
poetic hymns known collectively as the Têvâram, the second from a ninth-century hymn
attributed to the saint, Mànikkavàcakar, and known as the Tiruvâcakam, the third from the
Tiruvicaippá hymns found in the ninth canonical volume, the fourth from Cëtanàr's Tirup
pallântu in the same volume, and the fifth from the Periyapuránam. For a brief discussion
of the use of Tamil canonical texts in the daily worship rites of the Kapàlïsvarar temple in
Chennai, see Cutler (1987: 190-192).
11 Note, for example, Peterson's (1994) comment that 'the PP remains the standard
Tamil source for the lives of the Nàyanàrs' (p. 196).
12 While living in Chennai in 2001, I noted daily advertisements for lectures on the
Periyapuránam in the local English- and Tamil-language daily newspapers, The Hindu and
TTnattanti.
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116 ANNEE. MONIUS
1. THE TEXT
13 A reference to the Kâveri River that flows through the heart of the modern s
Tamilnadu.
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 117
14 For a discussion of the canonization of the Tamil Saiva poetic corpus, see Peterson
(1989: 16-17) and Prentiss (1999: 143-144).
15 See Zvelebil (1995: 547-548) for a partial list of published editions and partial trans
lations. Nambi Arooran (1977: 20-21) also provides a short history of the early printing of
the Periyapurdnam.
16 Film portrayals of the lives of individual nâyanâr began with the release of
'Siruthonda Nayanar' in 1935; see http://www.intamm.com/movies/movielist/movielist.
htm.
17 The full name of the extant Tamil text to which Umâpati refers is the CTvakacintâmani,
'CTvakan, the Wish-Fulfilling Gem'. This aspect of Umapati's story will be taken up for
detailed discussion below.
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118 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 119
20 The text in the inscription is not called the Periyapurânam, but rather the Sri Parana
of one Âlutaiya Nampi; Rajamanickam (1964) convincingly argues that the title refers
to the Periyapurânam of Cëkkilâr (pp. 211-213). For the full text of the inscription, see
South-Indian Inscriptions (1925: 494).
21 For an exhaustive study of the Aira vates vara temple and the Amman (goddess) temple
that stands alongside it, see l'Hernault, et al. (1987).
22 As claimed by Umâpati (v. 53).
23 As in the edition of the Saiva reformer, Arumuka Nâvalar, roughly a century ago;
for a discussion of the discrepancies among various contemporary editions, see Vamadeva
(1995: 95).
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120 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 121
(itâtai tâl maluvinâl erinta);25 to Kalikkampan, who 'who cut off a hand'
(kai tatinta)-,26 and to Nampi Munaiyatuvân 'whose spear cuts [flesh]'
(araik konta vet)?1 Nampi Àntàr Nampi, in his tenth-century elabora
tion of Cuntarar's work, the Tiruttontar Tiruvantâti, increases the level of
gore, narrating briefly fourteen episodes of violence (Nampi Ântàr Nambi,
1995b); elsewhere, in a separate hymn of praise to Campantar, Nampi
narrates for the first time in Tamil the story of the child-saint impaling
eight thousand Jain monks on stakes in the city of Maturai (Nampi Ântâr
Nampi, 1995a).28 While the stories of Kannappar and Cantëcurar obvi
ously predate even the Tëvâram, and violent activity on the part of the
saints is not unknown to Nampi Àntàr Nampi, Cëkkilàr expands that vision
of the axe-wielding saint to new and rather stunning heights. This vision
of violent devotion is further placed concretely, in the introduction to the
Periyapurânam, within the context of the righteous rule of Cola kings.
In addition to praising Anapâyan for his patronage of the great temple
at Citamparam (v. 8) and honoring his patron's glorious Côla lineage
(vv. 98-135), Cëkkilàr locates his hagiographie narratives in the discourse
of kingship, even reminding his readers of their official obligations to pay
taxes (v. 76) !29
25 VII-39. This and all following references to the poetry of Appar, Cam
Cuntarar are drawn from Tëvàram (1984-1991). Note that Cuntarar devotes
to Cantëcurar than to any other servant of Siva.
26 The Periyapurânam expands this epithet to narrate the story of Kal
displeasure at his wife's hesitation in washing the feet of a Saiva ascetic wh
been their servant.
27 The Periyapurânam expands this epithet to the story of a mercenary soldier who hires
himself out for battle and donates all his spoils of war to worthy Saiva devotees.
28 Note that even Cëkkilâr shies away from this scene of grisly violence, appearing 'to
be uncomfortable with the idea of Campantar's complicity in such a gruesome punishment
as impalement' (Peterson, 1998: 181). In the Periyapurânam (vv. 2756-2760), it is the
king of Maturai who orders the death of the Jains, not the child-saint who 'bears [them] no
enmity' (ikal ilar).
29 The verse adds 'paying taxes due the government' (aracu kol katankal ârri to the
traditional list of citizens' duties listed in the fifth-century Tamil work on ethics, the
Tirukkurat, the Kural list includes five duties of hospitality to one's ancestors, the gods,
guests, relatives, and oneself (Tirukkuraf, v. 43).
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122 ANNE E. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 123
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124 ANNEE. MONIUS
32 The irony of the resurgence of literary violence in an era of remarkable peace is taken
up for further discussion below.
33 References to the text refer to the edition found in Meykantacâttiram (1994).
34 Saiva Siddhànta tradition maintains that the work was initially rejected by the scho
larly community. The author left his text as an offering to Siva on the steps leading up to
the main shrine at Citamparam; a stone elephant, standing to one side, lifted up the text
and placed it before the image of the dancing Siva. This divine acceptance of the text thus
led both to its incorporation into the philosophical canon and to its rather peculiar title
(Siddhalingaiah, 1979: 85-86).
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 125
upon the life stories of some of the most violent saints found in the
Periyapurânam:
I have classified as harsh activity
the terrible deed of killing
without pity and cooking [his son] with [his] own hands
for the Bhairava [ascetic] who grants boons, (v. 18)35
For Uyyavanta Tëvanàyanâr, then, the ways of 'harsh' devotion are some
what mysterious, beyond the ken of the ordinary, 'terrible', certainly not
'easy for us' to emulate or understand, an admirable but perhaps distant
ideal for those who follow the path of 'gentle' action. The author further
notes that the path of harsh devotion is marked by a turn inward, away
from the material world, a life in which the only thing that matters is the
inner state of complete surrender to the lord:
Through the stone, the fissure, the shining sword, the grinding stone,
and the gaming board, they transformed themselves through the inner path (akamârkkam),
not through the path joined [to the world] (sakamârkkam). (v. 50)37
In this rare commentary from within the tradition itself, the violent deeds
of the nâyanmâr are marked as dharma, morally correct in every way,
conducive to life in the presence of Siva, yet little more is said. Modern
Tamil scholars, commenting on the Periyapurânam, have simply noted
the division into 'gentle' and 'harsh' modes of devotion made in the
Tirukkahrrupatiyar and moved on to other topics (Ponniah, 1952: 28;
Àramuka Nâvalar, quoted in Hudson, 1989: 380-381). A text roughly
contemporaneous with the Periyapurânam that exists now only in frag
ments, the Tillai ulâ, refers to the Siva's request for Ciruttontar's son not
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126 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 127
Peterson (1998: 164) notes, Jains have long served as useful foils for the
construction of Tamil Saiva identity, beginning with the poetry of Appar:
He is the cosmos, the blue-necked One,
who destroyed the arrogant and fat Jains,
lacking in both virtue and clothing.38
4. THE CAVA KA CI NT À MA NI
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128 ANNEE. MONIUS
history of Tamil Jainism, see Desai (1957), Chakravarti (1974), Champakalakshmi (1978),
Ekambaranathan (1988), and Orr (1998, 1999).
44 See the fourteenth-century commentary on verse 3143 by Naccinârkkiniyar in Tirut
takkatêvar (1986: 1518-1519). All further references to the text of the Cïvakacintâmani
are taken from this edition.
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 129
the throne himself. Amid much love-play with his wives, one day Cïvakan
witnesses a male monkey seducing a female in front of his mate; when the
male monkey offers his mate a bit of fruit to beg her forgiveness, the fruit
is snatched away by a palace guard. The scene thrusts Cïvakan into a state
of despair and disgust with the world, and he renounces all before the Jina
Mahâvlra.48
As a long and beautifully poetic narrative attributed to a Jain author,
the Cïvakacintâmani seems a bit out of place in a tradition known for
its commitment to ascetic restraint, even among members of the lay
community. Not only does this 'Book of Marriages' focus on the wedded
bliss of Cïvakan cavorting with his many wives, but the text is extremely
explicit, almost painfully graphic, in sexual imagery and double entendre,
not to mention vivid depictions of the gruesome horrors of the crema
tion ground (place of the hero's birth) and the battlefield (where Cïvakan
defeats many a foe, particularly the evil minister). Cïvakan's sexual antics
with his many wives are described in shockingly wild terms, in sharp
contrast to the more nuanced subtleties characteristic of earlier classical
Tamil love poetry; the Tamil telling of the hero's story is full of explicit
detail not found in its Sanskrit antecedents either.49 Consider, for example,
the description of the hero and his wife Patumai:
His garlands ripped, the saffron on him was ruined, his chaplet was charred - because
of the enthusiasm of intercourse her girdles broke, her beautiful anklets cried out and the
honeybees were scared off as the young couple made love. (v. 1349)50
48 A brief synopsis of the story can be found in Zvelebil (1995: 170), Vijayalakshmy
(1981:54-69), and Ryan (1985: 100-112).
49 For example, the story of Jîvandhara found in Gunabhadra's Uttarapurâna
(Gunabhadra, 1968: 494-528).
50 Translation adapted from Ryan (1998: 67).
51 This particular double entendre is discussed in brief by Zvelebil (1974: 138, note 23).
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130 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 131
and kings as well. Tamil classical poetry is replete with images of war
and violence in its pur am (literally, 'outer') or heroic mode, and the
Cîvakacintâmani similarly transforms such nuanced classical poetics into
graphic depictions of war through excess. The following Cañkam poem,
for example, typifies the classical treatment of violence and the human
anguish wrought by war:
If I think I'll receive an elephant and go home,
all the elephants like hills on which glowing clouds
are caught have been shot full of arrows and have died ....
You who labor with the plow of your sword so that men
are stacked like hay! On the broad, savage field where
those who have come in need, stripped of joy, grieve,
for there is nothing to bring away, I sang and beat out sharp rhythms
on the clear eye of my ... drum. (Puranânûru v. 368)53
As though to say that this was the level of the deluge of blood from the pale bodies, the
goblins with irregular, elephant-toenail like teeth joined their palms in obeisance on top of
their heads and danced, singing of what had been given. The small jackals on the elephants
called out laughing. Eagles and kites lay down, sides splitting with laughter, (v. 804)54
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132 ANNEE. MONIUS
56 The Buddhist monk, Nagasena, is said to yearn for the 'unexpurgated, original texts'
of the Buddha that permit drinking and the enjoyment of women (Lockwood & Bhat, 1994:
66).
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 133
the obvious Jain narrative tendency toward extolling sensual restraint and
asceticism, it requires no great leap of the imagination to assume that
the Jain poet, by ridiculing human love in its many mental and phys
ical aspects, also seeks to denigrate non-Jain religious tendencies that
focus specifically on love - on the evocation of the rasa of srngâra,
'the erotic' - namely Hindu devotionalism or bhakti. By the era of the
CTvakacintamanVs composition, Tamil literary culture had created new
genres of devotional literature centered on the deities Visnu and Siva, much
of it addressed to the lord as lover. Whereas Tiruttakkatêvar undermines
the classical literary tradition, the bhakti poets employ the love themes
of earlier texts to forge a new 'poetry of connections' (Ramanujan, 1981:
166), a first-person plea to the lord for union with him, often expressed,
particularly among the Vaisnava poets, in explicitly erotic terms.57 The
themes of landscape, mood, and secular love prevalent in the classical
Cankam corpus are used, in the poetry of Hindu devotionalism, to describe
human yearning for union with the lord, to capture the profoundly phys
ical and mental aspects of human love and transfer them to the realm of
devotee and divine (Ramanujan, 1981: 126-169). In denying the value of
human love, Tiruttakkatêvar strikes at the emotional core of Hindu bhakti,
its positive valuation of the physical body and mind that can know and
experience love on many complex levels.
This is not to suggest, however, that Tamil-speaking Jains in general,
or even Tiruttakkatêvar in particular, did not themselves engage in any of
the practices of pan-Indic 'devotion', including the erection of elaborate
temples, the consecration of images in metal and stone, and the composi
57 Consider, for example, the erotic anguish of the ninth-century female devotee of
Krsna, Ântâl:
In Nâlâyira Tivyap Pirapantam (1993: 272-273); translation from Dehejia (1990: 125—
126).
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134 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 135
59 'It may be this Cola king's admiration for the Cintâmani story written by Vàdhïba
Simha that is referred to in Cëkkilâr Purânam'. The dating of this text and the identity of
its author have been matters of considerable scholarly disagreement. Hultzsch (1914), for
example, assigns the text to the tenth century (pp. 697-698), while Venkatasubbiah (1928)
argues for a slightly later, early eleventh-century dating (pp. 156-160). The early eleventh
century date is also favored by Winternitz (1999: 515). The text was first published in
the early twentieth century (Vâdhïbasimha Süri, 1903). I am indebted to John Cort of
Denison University for his assistance in tracking down references to this text (personal
communication, November 28, 2001).
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136 ANNE E. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 137
example, the following two stanzas, in which the 'gruesome job' of the
ghouls is expressed through a 'horribly suggestive rhythm, which reflect[s]
marvellously the eagerness, the hunger, the perverse joy of the demons'
(Zvelebil, 1974: 210):
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138 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 139
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140 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 141
63 Shulman (1993: 10-17) discusses this narrative within the larger framework of his
examination of biblical and Indian aqedah stories.
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142 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 143
Listen, my friend,
yesterday
in broad daylight
I'm sure I saw
a holy one,
as he gazed at me
my garments slipped ...
If I see him again
I shall press my body
against his body
[and] never let him go.65
Such images of the sexually alluring Bhiksâtana and the virile young
warrior making young women swoon are nowhere to be found in the
Periyapurânam. As the story of King Manunlticôlan suggests, Siva in
Cêkkilâr's literary vision plays a paternal role, that of a father always
loving, at times playful and demanding, but always moved by a 'son's'
displays of love. Siva 'loves' only in a fatherly, and never sexual, way; like
a good father, he spends much of his time in the background, allowing his
human devotees to take center stage. In the story of the hunter, Kannappar,
for example, a narrative that dwells on the anpu of its hero more than any
other, Siva does not appear until the ninety-fifth verse; in most stories, he
appears only in the final verses of the narrative, ready to reward the saint
for his display of devotion. Siva is most commonly referred to with epithets
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144 ANNE E. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 145
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146 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 147
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148 ANNEE. MONIUS
'As that [stick-turned-axe] that chopped became a weapon to remove the impediment
to the worship, the son who had cut off the two feet of his fallen father removed what he
knew [only] as an impediment to his puja and entered into worship as before' (erinta atuvê
arccanaiyin itaiyüru akarrum patai âka marinta tâtai iru talum tunitta maintar pücanaiyil
arinta itaiyüru akarrinarây mun pól aruccittitap pukalum).
74 Tiruttakkatëvar provides the following description of a vetar or hunter whom Cïvakan
encounters in the forest:
He resembled a piece of dark darkness that had been fed with black. He had a sunken chest
from seizing and plucking lizards from deep holes in the ground. He resembled a bear with
flourishing hair. He did not know of betel leaf for his mouth. He had the voice of a ram.
(v. 1230)
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 149
bonds between doting parents and mischievous child and on the mother's
loving efforts to stem the tears brought on by paternal punishment. Like
young Krsna gleefully kicking down the sandcastles of his village play
mates in the poetry of his ninth-century Tamil devotee, Àntàl,75 Tinnan,
'with his small foot like a tender shoot scattered the playhouses built by
the girls of the hunter tribe' (v. 673). After Tinnan is made chief of his
tribe and leads the band of village bowmen on the hunt, the stream of
hunters moving through the dense forest is likened, in a direct allusion to
the mythic lands of Krsna, to 'the river Yamuna of deep waters and great
dark currents, entering into the great ocean of billowing waves' (v. 722).
One day, while avidly pursuing a boar into the forest, Tinnan happens upon
an image of Siva; not realizing who or what the god represents, the hunter
in nonetheless overcome by love for the deity 'due to his storehouse of
austerities performed in previous lives' (munpu cey tavattin ïttam) (v. 751).
With an almost maternal concern for the well-being of the lord, Tinnan
resolves to serve the image and sets about securing daily offerings of meat,
water, and fragrant forest flowers. A brahmin trained in Vedic ritual sees
the offerings left by the uneducated hunter and is horrified at the thought of
impure meat and other substances placed before the lord; Siva appears to
the brahmin in a dream, however, and commands him to watch a true test of
Tinnan's devotion. While the concealed brahmin looks on in amazement,
a despairing Tinnan, in a swift phrase of violence, gouges out his own eye
to heal the gushing wound on the eye of his beloved image (v. 827).76 The
image's other eye begins to bleed and, just as Tinnan raises his arrow to
75 Well known among Tamil-speaking Vaisnavas, for example, is the following verse
from Àntâl's Nâcciyâr Tirumoli (p. 234):
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150 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 151
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152 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 15 3
Here and throughout the Tiruvuntiyâr, all activities of Siva are rendered in
the context of game-song, voicing a theological commitment to a vision of
divine power exercised through play that does not survive within the Saiva
Siddhânta philosophical system. The great fourteenth-century scholar and
consolidator of the Saiva Siddhânta school, Umàpati Civàcâriyàr, himself
author of eight of the fourteen canonical works, clearly limits the scope
child Krsna: 'Singing of the strength of our lord, fly! Singing the praises of our lord, fly' !
(Nâlâyirativyappirapantam, 1993: 150):
The Tiruvuntiyár mimics precisely the refrain of Mànikkavàcakar's unti song, but the
subject matter shifts significantly from Siva's heroic exploits to the nature of the human
condition vis-à-vis the lord. Pope (1995) translates the phrase untT para as 'fly away, UnthT'
or 'fly aloft, Unthï', Subramania (1912) translates the phrase as 'rise and fly'. Dhavamony
(1971) interprets the phrase and the poetic meter as one 'which children employ when
singing to the butterfly' (p. 175).
80 In this reading of the phrase, the title would mean 'those who play the holy unti game'.
According to the ninth-century Tamil lexicon known as the Piñkalanikantu, unti refers to 'a
game of Indian women somewhat akin to the English game of battled ore and shuttlecock'
{Tamil Lexicon, 1982: 417).
OI _ _
ekanum aki anekanum anavan
nâtanum ânân enru untl para
nammaiyë ântân enru untT para
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154 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 155
83 Given the fact that inscriptional evidence suggests the presence of numerous
Saiva monasteries with significant links to royal centers of power by the time of the
Periyapurânam's composition, this silence on the part of the text proves interesting. Does
the lack of reference to monastery and initiating teacher suggest that the text in some
way means to counter their ever-expanding influence in the Tamil-speaking South? Such a
question lies beyond the scope of this article and will be the subject of a forthcoming essay.
84 Têvâram IV-5.8; translation from Peterson (1998: 169-170).
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156 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 157
[Although still] playing [as a child], through the unending succession of worship [rites]
performed there previously [in former lives], and with an ever-expanding love,
[Cantëcurar], under the àtti trees on the banks of sand on the Manni River, built with sand
the holy body of the one who rides the red-eyed bull and constructed a temple, surrounded
by tall kôpurams, as well as a shrine to Siva. (v. 1242)
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158 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 159
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160 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 161
She was not able to rest in slumber on her bed [strewn with] soft petals, nor was she able
to rest in wakeful joy;
she could not sit on her seat of flowers and gold, nor was she able to stand or walk or go
outside;
she could not purge the shower of flower-darts [shot by] the god of love;
she could not think about [her] lord, nor could she forget him.
She was situation between the two - [the sorrow of] separation and sulking - both of which
melt one's bones, (v. 3474)
The scene of Paravai's joyous reunion with her husband evokes physical
union in a way not encountered in the life-stories of other married devotees
of Siva, however chaste and indirect the reference:
Praising the nature of the wealth of compassion and holy grace that the lord had performed
for them,
their minds were immersed in a flood of joy;
They become a single life,
in their positioning of one in the other, (v. 3540)
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162 ANNEE. MONIUS
91 Here Cuntarar sings a hymn meant 'to eradicate the bonds of this world'
pâcam atutía). Shulman (1985: 253) reads this as a gloss on the hymn Cuntarar re
beginning with the lines: 'I hate the householder's life; I have renounced it co
(veruttën manaivâlkkaiyai vittolintën) (Tëvâram VII-4.8).
92 For a brief overview of the contents of the texts, see Cort (1993: 191-195).
93 For an English translation of the text, see Hultzsch (1922).
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 163
With joined hands, I salute that lord JTvandhara who, in consequence of former good deeds,
won eight virgins hard to be won by others; who at the head of battle dispatched into the
other world the enemy who had killed his father; and who became an ascetic, dispelled the
94 Cort (1993: 205) provides a useful chart of pre-modem Jain purânic composition.
Peterson (1998: 179) suggests that Câmundarâya's Kannada text is the true source of
Cëkkilàr's inspiration, not the Cîvakacintâmani.
95 These are the twenty-four Tírthañkaras or Jinas, the twelve Cakravârtins or world
rulers, and the twenty-seven Baladevas, Vàsudevas, and Prati-Vâsudevas. For a discussion
of the characteristics of each, see Cort (1993: 196-202).
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164 ANNEE. MONIUS
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LOVE, VIOLENCE, AND THE AESTHETICS OF DISGUST 165
7. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
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166 ANNEE. MONIUS
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170 ANNEE. MONIUS
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