Page:Status of Women in Tamilnadu during the Sangam age .pdf/10

8 purpose addresses the land in these words:"O Land, you may be a plain ground; you may be a forest; you may be a dale or a vale; when reighteous men live on you, you are righteous too"." In her effusion embodied in these lines the poetess emphasises on the truth that a land has no signific- ance or meaning of its own unless it is peopled by men possessing unsullied morality, character and action. We shall now see what Tolkāppiyar has to say about womanhood in his famous grammar. He states that a woman is guarded by the three great feminine virtues, "Accam," "Nāṇam" and "Madam". A woman's innate fear of hurt to her modesty is "Accam", Coyness and dissociation with anything that is incompatiable with womanhood is "Nāṇam," and feigning ignorance even though a woman may be a repository of learning is "Madam." Tolkāppiyar further credits the womanhood with the virtues of Self-restraint, mental peace, uprightness, uttering only purposeful words, discrimination between good and evil, and unfathomable mind." The grammarian defines the term "Madhar" as love, leaving us to infer that women are to be the objects of love. The norm that he sets for the conduct of women is, that sense of shame is superior to her love for her own life, and chastity, in its turn, surpasses the sense of shame in value.9 At the same time he prescribes that fear of censure and sin and acquisition of knowledge are masculine virtues, 10 9 A woman gifted with fascinating beauty of form, and the loveliness and charm attractive to males, was called "Karikai". Women endowed with sufficient graces to win the love of men were called "Madhar". Women who were pleasurable to all the five senses were said to possese "Sayal". This particular characteristic of woman was capable of undoing the heroism of a man, according to a verse in Kuruntokai,¹¹ In this verse a woman's softness and grace is compared to water, and the might of man to fire.