Page:Status of Women in Tamilnadu during the Sangam age .pdf/15

Dr. C. Balasubramanian

Netumpalliyattai, Fari Makalir, Pinkan Uttiraiyar, Bidap- pandiyan Devi, Perunkoppendu, Péymakal Ilaveyini, Pottiyar, Pondaippasalaiyir, Matokkattu Nappasalaiyar, Varumulai- yaritti, Vennikkuyatttiyar, Vellividiyar, Veti patiya Kamakkanniyar.

Of the above women poets Avvaiydr outshines as the most distinguished, one who could tender sage counsel even to mighty monarchs. Kakkaippdtiniyar has contributed two works on prosody namely, Kakkaippatiniyam, and Sirukakkaippadiniyam, The most equisite and soul-stirring pieces contributed by the Tamil poetesses of Sangam period have been praised as the repositories of poetic excellence and fertile wisdom.

WOMEN’S KNOWLEDGE OF MUSIC

By nature women were soft and tender, end their tone was sweet. They nursed the art of music as they nursed their babies, singing them lullaby songs. Even the beasts of the forests were charmed by the music of women. In one of the Sangam poems an interesting episode is related, A ‘Kurava’ girl sang the ‘Kurifici-p-pan," a melody native to the Kurifci tract, so sweetly, that an elephant, which came to forage the well ripe ears of Thinai corn, was fascinared by the music and fell into slumber.**

When women sang the Pdalai-p-par, even the cruel hearts of the Maravars of the Palai tract melted, and the hunting weapons slipped from their hands.**

It was not unusual for women to sing sweetly into the ears of their husbands and nurse their war wounds.*”

Malaipajukatam, one of the ten Idylls, contains reference to such instances.**

GIRLS PRACTISING DRAMA

Dancing is an art in which the participants could express by physical signs the emotions which surge through their