Modern Currents in Malayalam Poetry

BY C. KUNHAN RAJA, M.A., D. PHIL. (Oxon)

Sriman Vallathol Narayana Menon is recognised by a very influential school in Malayalam as the greatest living poet of the country, and many even say that he is the greatest poet that Malabar has ever seen and count him among the foremost poets of the world. He is known as ‘Malayali Tagore.’ Mr. K. M. Panikkar, M.A. (Oxon), Dixon Scholar at Oxford and a well-known figure in the public life of India, has contributed some articles on Malayalam Literature to some journals in recent years and in these articles he has given a fair picture of the poet's contributions to Malayalam. I am not here writing an essay on Vallathol, but only on modern Malayalam Literature. I refer to Vallathol only as the representative poet of the age. He is not merely the greatest poet of the land, but he is also the pioneer of a new movement in Malayalam Literature, the leader of what may be called the romantic period in Malayalam Literature. In this he may be compared to Wordsworth or Coleridge.

To understand this new movement, it is necessary to pass through the various stages in the development of Malayalam Literature making a general survey of the whole field, skipping over details. We do not know much of the earliest period in Malayalam Literature. Chronology cannot be settled by the evidence of the antiquity of the type of language in a particular poem that one may be considering. There are many other circumstances that influence the type of language that one may come across in a particular poem, circumstances other than age. A poet may deliberately use an archaic form of language in a later age. In the same period, the language in one part of the country may be of a ancient type than in some other parts. The language of poetry is sometimes of a more ancient type than the language of prose, and even within the range of poetry, certain varieties may show an inclination towards archaism. From these considerations I am rather diffident to accept the dates of such works as ‘Ramacharitam’ and ‘Unnunilisandesam,’ which have been assigned to them by specialists in the field.

.We have no evidence of a period in Malayalam Literature when there was no Sanskrit influence. ‘Lilatilakam’ is a work on Malayalam Literature belonging to a very early

date. It gives quotations, by way of illustration, from ancient works and these quotations reveal Sanskrit influence to a very large extent, so much so that the stanzas quoted are composed in Sanskrit metres. The work is itself written in Sanskrit. It describes ‘Pattu’ as a variety in Malayalam Literature–written in Dravidian metre and having only Dravidian sounds, perhaps not excluding Sanskritic words. From this we are justified in inferring that there must have been some period in the history of Malayalam Literature, when there was absolutely no Sanskritic influence. Or is it that Malayalam is only variety of Tamil branched off from the main stem by the influence of Sanskrit, and as such there is no period in the history of Malayalam Literature when there was no influence of Sanskrit? I am inclined to accept this view, with the reservation that the dialect in the West Coast even from the earliest times had certain basic difference from the Tamil in the East Coast. Thus so far as we know even from the earliest times, there were two parallel currents in Malayalam Literature–one, Malayalam poetry written in Sanskritic metres, with a profusion of Sanskritic words (not merely Sanskrit stems with Dravidian terminations) and with Sanskritic sounds introduced without any restriction; and the other, Malayalam poetry written in Dravidian metres, with only Dravidian words (Sanskrit stems with Dravidian terminations being accepted as Dravidian words) and with Sanskritic sounds occurring only rarely though not strictly excluded. The first variety influenced the second in so far as there are Sanskritic elements in the vocabulary of the latter, and the second influenced the first in so far as certain canons of Dravidian prosody were strictly observed in the first, namely the appearance of a kind of alliteration known as ‘dvitiyaksharaprasam’ (alliteration on the second syllable of the lines).

Till about a century , the second of these two types held the ground. Most of the best works in Malayalam Literature are written in Dravidian metre, for instance the ‘Kilippatukal’ of Ezhuthasan, the ‘Krishnapattu’ of Cheruseri and the ‘Thullals’ of Nambyar. Sanskrit metres were used only for minor works like ‘Champus.’ After the time of Nambyar, the Dravidian metre was practically banished from the field till very recently when Vallathol recalled it and gave it an honorable place in Malayalam Literature. In this aspect Vallathol is a reformer for he revived the true spirit of Malayalam Poetry.

Malayalam Literature consisted mainly of epic poetry. There were few ballads, and very little of lyrics. It is true that there were lyrical pieces in these epics, that there were some devotional lyrics, and that there were a few ballads. But what counted among the critics as the principal things in Literature were epics–works of the type of Ezhuthasan's ‘Bharatam’ and Cheruseri's ‘Krishnappattu.’ No one took the ‘Thacholli Pattukal’ as literature, and I do not know if selections from these ‘Pattukal’ have ever appeared in text-books prescribed by the University. It is Vallathol who has for the first time written lyrics as literature to be taken seriously, not as songs for the farm-girls. In this way Vallathol is the pioneer of a really new movement in the field of Malayalam Literature.

Vallathol started life in the realm of Malayalam Literature in. the school established, though not started, by Kerala Varma Valia Koilthampuran, writing poetry in Sanskritic metres, taking all ideas from Sanskrit authors, using long Sanskrit compounds, introducing a profusion of the Sanskritic element both in vocabulary and in intonation. Along with some other members of an association of young poets, who were dominated by the spirit of Kerala Varma, he wrote the ‘Pancha Tantra’ in Malayalam verse (in Sanskritic metre). He was contributing small poems to various journals in Malabar. Then came his great under-taking in the form of a translation of the epic, Valmiki's ‘Ramayana’ into Malayalam closely following the metres used by Valmiki. Kunhukuttan 'Thampan of the Cranganore Royal family had already begun a translation of the ‘Mahabharata’ on the same plan. It was this work that brought Vallathol to the forefront, although this is not the work for which he is known as a great poet in Malabar. He wrote an epic called ‘Chitrayoga’ on the model of Sriharsha's ‘Naishadha.’ All these were preliminary stages that led to his being crowned as the ‘Sarvabhouma’ or Emperor in the field of Malayalam Poetry.

It was about this time that the name of Rabindranath Tagore reached Malabar. His poems attracted the attention of the literary celebrities of Malabar. His ‘Gitanjali,’ ‘Fruit-gathering,’ ‘Crescent Moon’ and other works were being translated into Malayalam as they appeared in English. It was the poems of Tagore that directed the attention of Vallathol to lyrical poetry. I do not suggest the Vallathol is only an imitator, that he turned his attention from ‘Naishadha’ to ‘Gitanjali,’ ever remaining an imitator, only changing the model from the old Sriharsha to the modern Tagore who has more glamour about him in the modern world. Tagore's poetry was only an occasion for Vallathol to see his own soul, his real genius. The political movement in India at the same time had also a great influence on Vallathol. He began to take a great interest in the political movement of the country though he did not identify himself with any particular party, but only inspired the political movement in general, like Tagore. Till then the learned few were the audience for whom poetry was intended by the poets; their poetry was modeled to suit their tastes. Nature with all her variety and beauty, the people with their aspirations and emotions were as nothing to the poets. They were completely ignored. The political movement with the accompanying factors of social reform and the development of local industries, local institutions and the welfare of the common people, brought Vallathol into direct contact with life, instead of his seeing the world merely from the picture drawn of it by the ancient Sanskrit poets. From that time forwards, he relegated Sriharsha to the ground and he took interest in Nature, in the fields and in the meadows, in the forests and in the woods, in the flowers of the fields, in the clouds of the sky, in the birds of the air and in the beasts of the earth, in the changing seasons, in the ordinary people with their unsophisticated beautiful life, in the feelings, in the emotions, in the aspirations of man instead of in the intellects of the prodigies;

I give below the titles of some of the poems written by Vallathol in recent years and these titles are expressive enough, so that one can judge of the great change that he has brought about in Malayalam Literature without any long comment from me.

‘Somagrahanam’ (in ‘keka’ a Dravidian metre) on "lunar eclipse".

‘Motiram’ (in ‘pana’ another Dravidian metre) on "that ring"

‘Karshakajivitam’ (in ‘makandamanjari’ another Dravidian metre) on "the peasant life."

‘Onapputava’ (in keka) on "the presents during the ‘onam’ festival."

‘Kochumarappu’ (‘kakali’ still another Dravidian metre) on that small bundle."

These few are some specimens selected at random from some of his recent publications. One can search the whole of the Malayalam Literature for the last thousand years of its existence, and he will be sorely disappointed if he expected one single piece of poetry of this type, The ’Ramayana’ and the ‘Mahabharata,’ and ‘Kathasaritsagara’ were the chief sources from which poets drew their material as in Sanskrit, and no one even dreamt that they need not go to a second-hand dealer for materials for their poems but that there is Nature from whom they can get the things they want for their poetry direct and first-hand. It is the catholicism of his spirit that distinguished Vallathol from the earlier poets in another very marked way. He selected his subjects from the Christian Bible and from the Koran, he never restricted his choice to the stories centering round Sri Krishna and Sri Rama. He wrote a poem called ‘Magdalana Maria,’ being the story of Mary Magdalene, taken from the Bible. He has a poem on Allah. His poems are about the world and about life in the world, and his poems are for man. He never tired the reader by the monotonous repetitions of the classical enmity between the lotus and the moon. The flowers that he saw with his own eyes and whose beauty he appreciated and enjoyed were the real thing for him, and he expressed in poetry the beauty in Nature that he realised and enjoyed. I give certain lines below in English translation to show the contrast between his poetry and the poetry of the old classical school:

‘Let the news spread, the owls will listen to it with their humming.’

‘Has the mercy of 1he guardian deities of my land, the cow, ceased to yield milk?’

‘Hot water at the base of the flower-growing plant, my aspirations.’

‘Is it the burial ground that lies beyond this place of affection fragrant with attractive snow?’

I can multiply instances, if instances will strengthen the point. It is the quality and not the quantity that is the chief thing in poetry, and one instance is enough. I have made certain selections at random to show how Vallathol draws his inspiration from Nature. That he has written his poems in Malayalam, a language not accessible to the world at large, is a misfortune of the world, not a defect of Vallathol. Although his poems may be unintelligible to the world, his spirit must be a source of inspiration to the whole of the modern world. He has given to Malabar what the greatest of men have ever given to the world. It is a handicap of every genius that his genius is not appreciated by the whole world, and linguistic and other limitations cloud the issue, though the genius is above all these limitations. It is the common people that create an artificial fog around them and say that the work of the genius is defective and cannot be seen. It is only through articles like the present that one nation can understand the spirit that moves the life of another nation, and through this exposition of the present tendency in Malayalam Literature, I believe I have contributed some-thing to a correct understanding of the present spirit of Malabar represented by this great poet, to those outside Malabar.