Page:Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture.djvu/39

 he rides the horse made of (the stem of the leaf of) the palmyra, shame torturing his mind.'

Should I one day wearing a garland of gems on my breast and decorated with bones, go along the streets, without shame and ridiculed by others?'

These seven tiṇais constitute the Agattiṇai, the class of poems celebrating love.

The other subject of ancient poetry was war. The wars of ancient Tamil kings were not inspired by earth-hunger, for we find, throughout the ages, the boundaries of the Śera, Śo l a, and Pāṇḍya kingdoms were intact. Wars were undertaken either as affording exercise for the development of martial virtues or for the purpose of achieving, by personal prowess, supremacy in rank and the title of the liege lord of the Tamil country and for the privilege of wearing the triple crown, Mummuḍi. Wars were undertaken in the season which followed the harvest, when the king and the subjects had no more agricultural work to do before the next rainfall. Warlike operations were divided into five, namely, veṭchi, vañji, u l iñai, tumbai, vāgai, respectively corresponding to kuṛinji, mullai, marudam, neydal and pālai. It will be noticed that all these ten are the names of flowers and each flower symbolizes the incident which is named after it. Each of these incidents, called tiṇai, subdivided into tuṛai, were celebrated by people wearing garlands of flowers appropriate to it. Thus we find that the Tamils noted and named hundreds of flowers and dedicated each of them with their leaves and twigs to some separate life-situation, which they celebrated by decorating their persons with garlands of those leaves and flowers, by singing measures and dancing dances specially appropriate to each of them. The passion the Tamils had for wearing garlands, symbolic or otherwise, is further indicated by the fact that there are several words meaning garland, kaṇṇi, tār, toḍaiyal, alaṅgal, kōdai, teriyal. This ancient love of flowers is

There are sixteen other names for garlands, which shows wbat great love the Tamils have for personal decoration with flowers. This is further indicated by the fact that garlands had differentiated names ; thus, a garland for the face was ilambagam, šiltti for the hair-knot, karodigai? ; a garland where the flowers were tied together, sigaligai, todaiyal,' malai, vašigai, a plaited garland, pinaiyal ; 8 a strung garland, kõvai,' padalaz, 10 vasigai. 11 1இலம்பகம். உருட்டு, கரோடிகை. 4சிகழிகை. தொடையல். மாலை. 7வாசிகை. பிணையல், கோவை. 10படலை. 11வாசிகை.