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Study of Civakacintamani
landscape cannot be used as the kind of love of another lindscape. If so used it is known as Tinaimayakkam.
There are five kinds of love, Punartal (union), Pirital (separation), fruttal (waiting), Utal (love quarrel), and Irankal (wailing); they are attributed to Kurinci (montage), Pālai (arid), Mullai (pastoral), Marutam (agricultural) and Neyatal (littoral) respectively. These kinds of love are allotted according to the nature of each landscape. Puņartal is the love of Kuşinci land, for hills afford more opportunities than any region for courtship and clandestine meetings. The Perumpolutu (major time) assigned to this kind of love is Kūtir (the cold season) and the Cirupol utu (minor time) is Yamam (midnight) which is the suitable time for clandestine union. This kind of love has always been described in poems as taking place before marriage. The love ascribed to Neytal, the littoral land, is Irankal (lamenting), for often the women of this region wail for their husbands who have gone to sea to fish in the evening. Erpāļu (sunset) is the minor time for Neytal, since once it is sunset, the roaring of the sea, the returning of beasts and birds to their homes etc. make the lady-love wail for her husband, Ūtal (love quarrel) is the love of Marutam, the agricultural land which is the richest of all lands. Owing to the prosperity of the land, man have enough time to spend on recreations and they often spend their time with harlots. After spending their time with harlots, the men return home and this causes the wives to have love quarrels with them. As this often takes place either in the late night or in the dawn, the minor time allocated to Marutam land is Vaikarai (before sunrise) and Vitiyal (sunrise).1 Pirital (separation) is the love for Pālai, the arid land, where men frequently leave their wives and take up occupations such as highway robbery, soldiering, marauding, etc. Here the separation includes the separation of lovers as well as the separation of couples from their parents when they elope. The major time for Pālai is Vēnil (summer) and the minor time is Nappakal (mid-day), the time suitable for highway robbery etc. Iruttal (waiting) is the kind of love for Mullai, the pastoral land where the lady-love waits patiently for her lover to come back after the successful completion of his errand. As the rainy season is the time when the husband is expected to come back, the major time of Mullai is Kār and the minor time is Mālai.
Whenever a poet wants to describe one of these themes, he also describes the particular natural surroundings. For example, if a poet wants to depict the union of two lovers, he has to select Kuriñci landscape as his background setting.
Apart from these five kinds of love, 3 there are Kaikkilai (one-sided love) and Peruntiņai (unequal love), which are not particularly ascribed to any land. In Kaikkilai, the one-sided or un-reciprocated love, the hero wants to get the love of an immature girl who cannot understand or reciprocate his feelings. Peruntiņai is the unequal or inappropriate love, when a hero takes to the mounting of Matal4 (mounting on a 1 Tolkāppiyam, Por., Akat., cut. 8. 2 lbid, loc. cit. cut. 9, 3 Ibid, loc. cit, cuts. 50, 51,
4 Ibid, loc. cit, cut. 54.
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