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Rāvaṇa the Great in modern Tamil fiction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The title of this brief essay is an echo of the title of a book once famous, nowadays almost forgotten: M. S. Purnalingam Pillai, Ravana the Great: King of Lanka (Munnirpallam, 1928). The same author, in his better-known Tamil Literature (1929) wrote: “The ten-faced and twenty-armed Ravana was apparently a very intelligent and valiant hero, a cultured and highly civilized ruler, knew the Vedas and was an expert musician. He took away Sita according to the Tamilian mode of warface, had her in the Asoka woods companioned by his own niece, and would not touch her unless she consented.” With this re-evaluation of the character of Rāvaṇa goes hand in hand a milder yet decisive re-evaluation of Rāma, of Rāma's warriors, of Vibhīṣaṇa, and other dramatis personae of the great story. Vibhīṣaṇa is portrayed as “the treacherous brother or deserter of Ravana, who desired to be King by hook or by crook”, the Aryans are described as haughty, cowardly, of low morality; Rāma “has his specks”, he lacks courage and falters in crises. In contrast, Rāvaṇa is not only “a physical and an intellectual giant” but also “great administrator and leader of men, … a man of his word”.
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References
1 I am not dealing in this short paper with the representations and relationship of Rāma: Rāvaṇa in the folk-narrative versions of the Rāmāyaṇa. There were apparently many.
2 The first edition of the book was published in Tinnevelly, 1904, as Primer of Tamil Literature. The quotations are from the 1929 edition, pp. 224–8.
3 A History of Tamil Literature, Annamalainagar, 1965.Google Scholar
4 Op.cit. pp. 117–19.Google Scholar
5 P. Sundaram Pillai (Cuntaram PiỊỊai), born at Alleppey, graduated in philosophy from Maharaja's College, Trivandrum, soon after graduation appointed Lecturer in Philosophy in his own alma mater, later elevated to Professorship; translator, original author, historian, philosopher, altogether brilliant in intellect and passionate in his convictions. Died of diabetes at the young age of forty-two. Cf. Pillay, K. K. (ed.), Professor P. Sundaram Pillai Commemoration Volume, Madras, 1957, introduction.Google Scholar
6 His dating of the Śaiva poet 
was perhaps the first truly rigorous and critical attempt at unprejudiced dating in Tamil literary historiography; it has been gradually accepted by Western and Indian scholarship as valid.
7 Op. cit. p. 24.Google Scholar
8 Letter to J. M. Nallaswami Pillai cited in E. F. Irschick, p. 295.
9 At this point I would like to rectify an unfortunate formulation by Irschick (op. cit. p. 343Google Scholar) concerning Caldwell; Irschick writes: “… the Self-Respect Movement represented the growing militancy of persons who … had assimilated the racial theories propounded by such men as Caldwell, Nelson, Grant-Duff, and Sundaram Pillai … “ I have no quarrel with Irschick concerning the views of Sundaram Pillai. However, Caldwell never propounded any “racial theories”. All Caldwell did - following earlier scholars like F. W. Ellis, Ch. Lassen and a few others - was to point out what should have been obvious: that there exists in India a family of languages in its “origins” totally independent of Aryan and Indo-European, a linguistic family sui generis spoken mainly by the inhabitants of South India, and for this family he adopted an old Sanskrit term drāviḍa - Dravidian.
10 Arooran, K. Nambi, Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism 1905–1944, Madurai, 1980, p. 35–6.Google Scholar
11 Ancient India, London, 1911, p. 5.Google Scholar
12 Tamil Studies, Madras, 1914, p. 46.Google Scholar
13 Mail, 16.5. 1942.
14 Cf. Mail, 17.1. and 18.1.1943, Hindu 17.1.1943, Mail, 20.1.1943.
15 Cf. Mail, 18.5.1943. See also a pamphlet by V. P. Subramanya Mudaliar entitled Kamparāmāyaṇattaiyum Periyapurāṇattaiy erikkum 
(“Attempts to burn K. and P.”), published in 1944, condemning the idea of burning the books; it was reviewed in The Hindu, 29.10.1944.
16 Whatever our opinions or sympathies may be, any attempt to burn books - whatever they are – must be condemned as negative, destructive and barbarous.
17 Cf. Hardgrove, Robert L. Jr., The Dravidian Movement, Bombay, 1965;Google ScholarIrschick, Eugene F., Politics and Social Conflict in South India, The Non-Brahmin Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916–1929, Bombay, 1969;Google ScholarRyerson, Charles A., ‘Meaning and Modernization' in Tamil India: Primordial Sentiments and Sankritization, Columbia University, 1979;Google ScholarNambi Arooran, K., Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism 1905–1944, Madurai, 1980.Google ScholarFurther, , Spratt, D., D.M.K. in Power, Bombay, 1970;Google Scholar and Klimkeit, H.-J., Anti-religiöse Bewegungen in modemen Südindien, Bonn, 1971.Google Scholar
18 One of the ironies of this case is that Periyār E. V. Ramaswami Naicker's personal name, Rāmacāmi, is indeed that of “Lord Rāma”.
19 The Ramayana: A True Reading, Madras, Dravidian Press, 1959;Google Scholar also, Irāmāyaṇa 
Madras, 1964; Irāmāyaṇa pāttiraṇkaỊ., TiruchirāppaỊỊi, 1971.
20 Viṭutalai, 8. 3. 1964.Google Scholar
21 2nd ed., 1971.
22 Notice the change of names: The original unflattering Sanskrit name of Rāvaṇa' sister, Śūrpaṇakhā (“Sharp-Nails”) is changed into the lovely Kāmavalli (“Creeper of Desire”).
23 The Hindu, 19. 10. 1944.Google Scholar
24 A History of Tamil Literature, Annamalainagar, 1965.Google Scholar
25 A History of Tamil Literature, Calcutta, 1961, pp. 181ff.Google Scholar
26 āriya mōkam, 
.
27 P. 53 of the text.
28 P. 43 of the text.