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 Interpreted in this manner, it can be regarded that the work is a complete picture of the life of the heroine, and therefore answers to the description of a great kavya.

It may, however, be objected that very many of the incidents of her early life are passed over with brief hints and allusions, that her parentage cannot be said in any manner to be treated in this work, and as such it falls short of the requirements of a kavya. This objection finds some justification in the work being known not Manimēkhalai uniformly. It is described as Manimekhalaituravu in the prologue to the poem. Besides this, the work is said to be referred to in the commentary of Nīlakēsi, as Manimëkhalaituravu also. If so the subject may be described as 'the renunciation of Maņinēkhalai', and therefore the subject of the poem would be only that part of Manimēkhalai's life which refers to her renun. ciation of worldly life. The learned Editor of the work states that he called it Maņimēkhalai for the reason that the name has been found to be used generally in that form. It therefore cannot be said that the position that by itself it is not a mahākāvya has not some tenable argument to support it in itself. This position finds further support in the Silappadhikāram, which, in its concluding portion, states that the story of Manimēkhalai completes the subject matter of the poem Silappadhikaram. This position is taken up by the commentator of the latter Adiyarkkunallar. He lays it down that a kāppiyam must subserve the four main ends of life, and propounds the question that the Silappadikāram stops with the first three and does not appear to treat separately of the fourth. He gives a number of references in the course of the work to the renunciation of Manimēkhalai and concludes that having learnt that Maņirnēkhalai had renounced life, the author of the Silappadhikäram,