Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/152

Rh battle-field and fell bravely fighting with the foes, and yesterday her husband routed a whole array of elephants and was slaughtered on the same field, and yet to-day, when she heard the war drum, she seemed to be filled with joy and gave her only son a white cloth to wear, combed his hair and putting a lance into his hand, bade him go to the battle-field.” “The old mother with trembling frame and withered arms,” says another bard speaking of a woman of the military caste, “hearing that her son had fled from the battle-field, swore that she would cut off her breasts that nursed him, if he had really turned his back on the foe, and armed with a sword went to the battle-field and finding among the slain, the mangled body of her son, rejoiced more than she did when he was born.”

Warriors believed that their souls would ascend to the heaven reserved for heroes if they died in battle and this superstition had such a hold on them, that they seldom flinched from sacrificing their lives in the service of their kings. The kings too had the same superstitious belief and it is said that when severely wounded in battle, or about to die a natural death from old age or disease, they preferred to be laid on sacred grass spread by the Brahmins, and to be ripped open with a sword, so that they may die a warrior’s death.

The frequent skirmishes and fights with his neighbours in which each king was engaged, kept the soldiers in constant practice and fostered their martial spirit. The bards and minstrels who always formed part of the retinue of a king contributed in no small degree to create and strengthen a thirst for military glory. In times of peace they amused the king and his soldiers with tales of the heroic deeds of their ancestors, and in times of war they marched with the army, and with their war-songs stirred the soldiers and generals to emulate the valiant feats of their forefathers. There are four classes of bards mentioned in ancient Tamil poems—the Panar, Kooththar, Porunar and Viraliyar. The Panar were a very low caste and lived in the outskirts of the towns among the harlots, and when they wandered about