Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/223

Rh by him on the battle-field in which both the rival kings Nedunj-cheral-Athan and Peru-virar-Killi died after a most sanguinary conflict.

“The elephants pierced by arrows are all disabled for ever. The splendid chargers are all slaughtered with their brave riders. The commanders who drove in their chariots all lie dead, their faces covered with their shields. The big thundering drums roll on the ground, as no drummer is alive. Both the contending kings have fallen on the battle-field, their perfumed breasts pierced by long lances. Alas! what will become of their fertile countries, in the cool rivers of which peasant girls decked with bracelets made of lily stalks, leap and sport?

Perunk-Kausikanâr (A.D. 100-130), a native of Perunkunrur, composed the Malaipadu-Kadu, a panegyric on Nannan, son of Nannan, chief of Chenkanma. The poem describes eloquently the grandeur of the scenery on the mountain Naviram; the ceaseless din on the hill sides caused by the roar of cascades falling on rocks, the shouts of the elephant trainers, the songs of women pounding millet, the whir of sugar-mills and the sound of drums beaten by drunken hill-men who dance merrily with their women; the stones with epitaphs inscribed on them set up in memory of departed warriors; the sign-posts planted at crossings showing the names of the places to which the roads lead; the hospitality of the hill-tribes; the rapid current of the river Cheyar which rushes whirling and eddying down the hill; the fort-gates guarded by soldiers armed with swords and lances: and the courteous reception of minstrels by the chief lannan who welcomes them graciously and expresses his regret for the tiresome ascent up the hill, and waits not till they finish their songs, but feasts them and sends them home loaded with presents.

Auvvaiyar (A.D. 100-130) the most famous of Tamil poetesses, is even more popular than Tiruvalluvar as the work of the latter is studied only by advanced scholars, while the poems of Auvvaiyar are read by every Tamil student, soon after learning the Alphabet. Her two books of aphorisms entitled Attichûdi and Konrai-venthan, written in the order of the Tamil Alphabet