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Study of Civakacintamani
When these criteria are fulfilled these four metres produse characteristic musical tones ('ocai') of their own when read. For example, the ‘āciriyappa' always has a narrative tone (akaval-ocai'), the 'veņpā' has a conversational tone ('ceppal-ocai'), the *kalippa' has a jumping and trotting tone ("tu]ļal ocai') and the 'vancippa' has got a swinging tone (“tūrkal ocai').
Apart from these four main metres, there is also a metre called 'marutpa' which combines the tones the 'venpå' and the faciriyappa' at the end respectively. This is not very common in the early Tamil literature.
It is apparent that such conditions place severe restrictions on the composer, and it was but natural that there arose a good many deviations from the rules. This gave rise to supplementary categories of verses known as “pāvinams'. It is not known at what stage this began or whether Sanskrit elements influenced their evolution in any way. These supplementary metres are classified under the three heads, the 'tālicai', the 'turai' and the 'viruttam'. All of them are subject to rule: similar to those governing the original 'pa' metres ( the main metres ) in regard to the feet and the lines. But the rigid and cumbersome restrictions on the links between the feet are mostly lifted in the new verse patterns. This meant considerable freedom for the authors to introduce syllables so as to depict various moods, to set the verse to music and rhythm or to produce desired sound effects. The main requirement for a 'viruttam' is that it should have four lines. We do not know whether this is anything more than an accidental coincidence with the Sanskrit 'catuspadi' (stanza with four lines). Alliteration (etukai) and assonance (monai) are essential for this verse form. The relaxation of restrictions on the links meant that the characteristics sound (ocai) of the earlier metres were lost. But, this was only an advantage. In the earlier poems, a particular kind of verse could echo only a corresponding mood and conversely, to describe a particular mood only the metre appropriate to it could be employed. With metres like the 'viruttams' this was no longer the case and much was left to the inge. nuity of the poet.
In Tamil, the Cilappat ikaram, the Magimēkalai and the Peru á katai are all in the 'aciriyappa' metre. But we find some parts of the Cilappatikāram where the supplementary metres have been employed I The supplementary metres are greatly used in the devotional songs of Saiva saints and Vaisnava alvārs. The Cc. is the first epic in Tamil with verses couched in the 'pāvinam' metres. Out of the 3145 verses found in the Cc., except 271 verses which are in the 'tupai' metre, the rest of the verses are in the viruttam metre 2 The following chart given by Gnanamurthy in his work clearly shows us the various kinds of metres use and their numbers in each chapter.3 Tēvar who was aware of the requirement ‘sravyavsttaih' (metres pleasing to the ears) for a mahākavya made effective use of the freedom afforded by the melodious 'viruttam' verses. 1 A Chidambaranātha Chettiyar, Advanced Studies in Tamil Prosody, 3rd edition, Annamalai 1957,
pp. 98 ff. 2 T. E. Gnanamurthy, op. cit. p. 266.
3 Ibid., p. 266. See next page for Chart.
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