In the olden days, when there was no television for children or when movies and dramas were not allowed to be seen except for once in a few months, the evenings in Kerala were spent in the ummaram—the verandah—reciting verses or hearing stories told by elders. This tradition has continued in olden homes where songs are sung, poems are recited which have been handed down over generations.
The translator Vijay Nambisan admits that though his education was in English and his knowledge of Malayalam little, he decided to translate Bhakti poems with the help of his father in this book under review. He makes no bones in saying, “I am no bhakta. I think the Bhakti philosophy as applied—second only to the caste system— is the bane of Indian society today.”
The two works, Jnana-paana and the Narayaniyam are two very popular Bhakti poems which have been touchstones of faith in Kerala. Puntanam’s Jnana-paana may be claimed as the first original poem in Malayalam—simple and innocent, but it was Melpattur’s Narayaniyam which is “the last great hurrah of classical Sanskrit” in India, says the translator.
It is good that the translator has given a background of classical literature in the south. He says well after the Sangam era (up to CE 400), Kerala was a part of Jamizhakam—the Tamil country—culturally, if not politically. Many literary works which are part of classical Tamil literature were composed by writers from this eastern region. The Tamil masterpiece, Silappatikaram is said to be written by a Kerala prince. The Tamil spoken in Kerala slowly evolved into a distinct form of an independent political power, establishing itself in Kerala as the cultural differences became more pronounced.
Between the 9th and 12th centuries, a new literary language called Mamipravalam—half Tamil and half Sanskrit—developed in Kerala. This language continued to evolve when the Cholas of Tamil region were at war with the Cheras or Kulasekharas of the western region in the war-ravaged Kerala of the time. At the end of the 11th century, the Namputiris came to hold the balance of cultural power in Kerala.
The Namputiris or Namboodiris are generally supposed to be Aryan Brahmins who settled in Kerala, probably before the Christian era began. The Namputiris are the biggest landowners in Kerala. They remained patrilineal while among the non-Brahmins it was the sister’s son who inherited the wealth. Until well into the 18th century, Sanskrit was the court language and today the written Malayalam has a highly Sanskritic flavour. It is said that between 1575 and 1625, Ramanujan Ezhuttacchan, the father of modern Malayalam, who was from a low-caste Nayar family, gave the best-loved translation of Ramayana and Mahabharata besides reviving the Bhakti tradition.
Puntanam Namputiri in 1547 and Melpattur Narayana Bhatatirippad in 1560 were two great poets. But the Bhakti cult—the wave of religious freedom that swept north India, reached the south only 2nd to 3rd centuries later. While Kabir, Mira, Eknath, Surdas, Nanak, Jnaneswar, Namdeo, Tukaram stormed the north, the Sangam poets, the Vaisnava and Shaiva saints were writing in the south their own Bhakti expressions.
It is said that Puntanam composed the Jnana-paana after the death of his six-month old son. Puntanam Namputiri recites:
Within the bubble which the body is
We se here wobble just a shade of life.
When breath lasts, we do not think of it;
When death comes, we see it become thin and fade.
Vallathol Narayana Menon’s poem relates the story of Melpattur and Puntanam’s meeting and how the Sanskritist scorned the vernacular poet.
In this way the translator Nambisan explores the dynamics of Malayali culture, placing its literature in context while studying the matters of prosody.
—MG
(Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017.)
