A grand portrait of ancient poets

THE WISDOM OF POETS — Studies in Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit: David Shulman; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 650.

POETS ARE the unacknowledged legislators of the world. They are worshippers of nature, admirers of life and propounders of great truths. Human life, without the soothing words of poets, would be barren and boring.

The words the poet uses, the way he uses them and the deep sentiments and feelings, which he kindles in the minds of connoisseurs of art, are all unique. The bliss a good piece of literature generates is equated in Indian literary traditions with the bliss of Divine communion itself.

Poetry is the magic wand in the hands of a poet. It is the means of bringing to our vision, the presence of God. Poetry can become the medium of any thought and feeling, provided it comes from an accomplished poet. Poetic abilities of course differ from person to person.

In the work under review, Prof. David Shulman, who is Professor of Indian Studies and Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, provides an innovative inner vision of the poetics of the classical and medieval period in Tamil and Telugu.

The author has dealt with various dimensions of a poet from several angles and has succeeded in presenting a grand portrait of poets to whatever region or religion, age or language they belong. Some of the essays here deal with the theory of self, the organisation of the internal world of imagination, memory etc., in poetic compositions.

Describing the methodology adopted by a poet, Shulman says first there is always the voice — the musical, usually distinctive, embodied, expressive timbre that tells us that the poet is singing, at a singular moment within time, a moment that can become history. Even among poets belonging to more or less the same age, there will be a distinctiveness, which may be called the texture.

The words used by a great poet try to reproduce the primary features of the object or meaning embedded in the author's sentences: syntactical, lexical, metrical patterns — conscious or unconscious; eloquent silences and hiatuses; suggestive expressions.

Textures entail the mutual resonance and recurrence of theme, context, etc.

The words of Emily Dickinson may be quoted here: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold that no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know about it. Is there any other way?"

Poetry is undoubtedly the gift of God. Poet and God create one another, through the medium of a linguistically potent poem, remarks Shulman. Sometimes poets become so obsessed with their own conventions and rules that they fail and even refuse to accept something, which seems to defy those conventions.

The story of the Tamil Sangam poet, Nakkirar, is an example in instance. He was the president of the academy of poets at Madurai and the stark embodiment of the grammarians' ethos. He is placed in opposition to Lord Siva "who is himself a poet".

But unlike Lord Siva, the crusty academician is impaled on the rigid rules of his own system, unable to contain with his own resources the internal process by which this system periodically moves beyond itself, renewing itself through indeterminate experience.

In effect, the scholar-poet had to be released from his own rules; while the grammar he defends to his cost turns out in the end to be poised rather precariously between normative and self- subverting, or self-transcending vectors.

Here the systemic is art, its core. A mode of transition and grammar is only an initial frame to be either shattered or stretched to incorporate newer spaces and perceptions.

Shulman has studied selections from the classical and medieval literature in Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu to illustrate his point. The work is in three sections.

The first section, entitled "Authority, structure and voice", contains several essays such as the "Historical poetics of the Sanskrit epics; the Yaksha's questions (from the Mahabharata); Poets and patrons in Tamil literature and literary legend", and "From author to non-author in Tamil literary legend".

The second section deals with the subject of "Being human in the Sanskrit epic: The riddle of Nala; Harsa's play within a play'' and "The prospects of memory and dreaming the self in South India''.

Section three comprises thought-provoking essays and "Bhavabhuti on cruelty and compassion" (as reflected in his Uttararamacharita, "the testing of Sita in the Tamil Kamba Ramayana"; "First man and forest mother: Telugu humanism in the age of Krishnadevaraya" (based on the Manucharitram of Allasani Peddana who flourished in the court of Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagar) and "Does God have moods?" (based on the famous Samkirtanas of Annamacharya).

Annamacharya who lived in the 15th century sang about a single God, Lord Venkatesvara, the presiding deity at Tirumala.

His "padams" are full of impulse, ideation, breath, feeling and emotion, reminiscent of the "Viraha bhakti" of the Azhvars.

If we follow what Annamayya says about his God, or the manner of his singing, we will have to conclude that this God is subject to an intense and restless process of varying moods.

In a way, these moods reveal the unfolding of a richly textured sensibility, which is the medium of God's connectedness to his devotees. We can say that the moods the poet conjures up are a means of awakening him into a fuller presence.

The author has succeeded creditably well in his presentation of the wisdom of poets in this unique work. He has caught the modes and moods, melodies and maladies, inspirations and aspirations, dedication and devotion of poets, taking representative selections from well-known Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu works — both of classical and medieval periods.

There is a saying in Sanskrit that none can goad the poets. The author has driven home this truth through his marvellous selections.

This is a work, which every student of literature should read for an insight into the workings of the gifted poets of our land.

This would help in widening the vistas of comparative studies in literary criticism, narrowing down their apparent differences by tracing the common ground of their works — experience of a unique bliss by the interaction of notions and emotions, sights and insights, imitations and limitations.

M. NARASIMHACHARY

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