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The Sanskrit interaction in the literary style...
101
(Her ears in which her pendants dangling shine Resemble well-shaped loops of scissors used To trim the hair...
..) Here the ears and the earrings on it together are compared to a pair of scissors which trim the hair. The same object of comparison, the pair of scissors, is used in describing Vicayai in the following lines ;
mayir eri kattarikaiy anaiyavā y vallai văț uyir cekutlu mun onrip pin përát uruvamainta ceyir makara kuntalamun tilaipp äna vār katum
(The beautiful earrings which are in the shape of a Makara fish and the immovable ears, which destroyed the beauty of a fatigued Vaļļai creeper, looked like a pair of scissors which are used to trim the hair.) The fingers are compared to the Kānta flower in both works. Kāntal mel viral... 3
--Porunarärtuppațai. (ths fingers like Kāntal flower (Gloriosa superba)).
Viral cenkāntal... 4 (the fingers like the red Kāntaj flower). In describing the thighs of the queen Tēvar follows Kalidāsa. The latter compares the trunk of the elephant Airāvata and the stem of the plantain tree to the thighs of Umā and says that though they were considered in the world to be beautiful, through their toughness and coldness they could not be compared to the thighs of Umā. Tēvar does not use the same alankāra vyatireka in his description, but uses the trunk of Airāvata and the stem of a young plantain as the standards of comparison for the thighs of Vicayai, in the following lines :
vela ven tira țațakkai verutti marr ilan kanni
vā.ait tant epat tirantu ... ... .. ... ... 6 (Her (Vicaiyai's) thighs had the beauty which scares (surpasses) (the beauty of) the trunk of white elephant (Airāvata), and they were plump like a young plantain tree.)
In the description of Kõvintai, the daughter of Kõvintan, the chief of the cowherds, Tēvar follows the Tamil tradition completely. Since, she is a cowherdess all the comparisons are to the products of milk.
venney ponr Uriniyal mem pal pör riñcolla! unna urukkiya a ney pòl mēniya!
1 Translated by J. V. Chelliah, Pattupattu, Madras, 1962, p. 63. 2 Cc. v. 168.
5 Kumarasambhava, 1:36. 3 Porunarārruppațai, line 33.
6 Cc. v. 174. 4 Co. v. 370.
7 Ibid, v. 480.
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