The Future of Tamil Literature

When a nation is struggling to be free and is passing through all the strife and turmoil incidental to such struggle, it is apt to ignore the fundamental fact that national life is a vast and many-sided entity and covers very much more than mere political activity. It must be remembered that no nation can be called great that has no great living literature of its own, for literature is the imperishable record of the thought and genius of a race and hence a sure index of its vitality.

What is the future of Tamil literature? This is the question that must confront every thinking Tamilian. So far as the literary and cultural heritage of the Tamils is concerned, it can stand comparison with the ancient and medieval literature and culture of any people in the world, notwithstanding the absence of Prose, or Dramatic literature. But if we take modern literature into account, the Tamils cannot make a similar claim, for the output of creative literature in Tamil is very small indeed. The very mass and brilliance of the ancient heritage of the Tamils have become dead-weights, impeding progress.

It is only natural that this state of affairs should have stimulated lovers of Tamil to some activity and made them furiously think. It is a good sign so far as it reflects a will to strive and improve. But conferences and organisations cannot do anything considerable unless a sound and discriminating public opinion is created in the world of Tamil letters on matters pertaining to literary and cultural tastes, standards, and judgments. No improvement in modern Tamil literature is possible until we have a new race of Tamil scholars who can add, to an erudition in Tamil literature, a completely assimilated knowledge of any modern European language and literature. Unless this is boldly recognised nothing can be done. This can never imply any disparagement of the pandits and scholars of the old type who have preserved and transmitted intact to us, by their laborious toil and prodigious memory, the literary treasures of countless generations of the Tamils and whose masterly learning and erudition are worthy of great admiration.

The modern age which, for Europe, began in the fifteenth century with the Renaissance and invention of the art of printing, has, for us, the Tamils, begun only very recently. Though we live in the twentieth century and are chronologically abreast of the modern nations of the West, and though we have a full view of the magnificent triumphs of the modern spirit in the realms of Science, Art, and a new Religion of Humanity, we are only just beginning to shake off the dust of the medieval age. The transformation from the medieval to the modern has presented great difficulty, so far as our temperament, ideals, outlook on life, and mental make-up are concerned, though the process has been comparatively easy in the matter of the externals of life. It appears that the time is far, when there will be a complete efflorescence of the modern spirit in the life of the Tamils.

The application of the modern spirit to, and its reflection in, literature must be the mission of all men of letters of the present age in our country; this must give direction to all creative talent; the awakening of the modern spirit in the people must be their religion. In what does this awakening exactly consist? Matthew Arnold, whose contribution to the general principles of literary criticism is far more valuable than his application of the same in assessing poets and men of letters, answers the question thus: ‘Modern times find themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, rules, which have come to them from times not modern. In this system their life has to be carried forward; yet they have a sense that this system is not of their own creation, that it by no means corresponds exactly with the wants of their actual life, that, for them, it is customary, not rational. The awakening of this sense is the awakening of the modern spirit. While dealing with modern Tamil literature, one must keep this in view and take into account only that portion of our literature in which the modern spirit has found expression, in however imperfect a form it may be.

Literary criticism, in its modern development, is practically unknown to Tamil literature, though the grammar, the range and rules of the technique of literary compositions, and the laws of prosody have attained a high degree of development. The hold of authoritarianism, which was very powerful in the literary, as in other aspects of the life of the community, was fatal to the growth of independent thinking and an intelligent development of likes and dislikes on the basis of a highly cultivated aesthetic taste. The tendency to subordinate literature to religion, which became dominant in the hymnal period and has continued to be so ever since, was also another important factor that hindered the development of correct conceptions and a table of pure literary values.

Half a century of the labour of Tamil scholars has not resulted in literary criticism of a high order. The work of bringing to print the classics of Tamil literature is a very indispensable one and that has been achieved with a success and thoroughness on which the Tamils can congratulate themselves. Besides this, the only work that the scholars have taken upon themselves is that of research into the names of authors, their dates, and other particulars about their lives and works. In spite of great labour spent by a host of scholars, the positive and certain results achieved in this direction have not been considerable. Nothing definitely historical has been unearthed about the greatest Tamil poets. Genuine historical materials have been very scanty; and what little of history we have, has come down to us adulterated beyond recognition, with a large volume of legends and myths from which it is extremely difficult, if not thoroughly impossible, to extract indisputable Facts. Naturally, a good deal of speculation and guess work have been indulged in, in the name of research and this has passed muster for the genuine coin. A severe application of a strict rational method is essential if the results of research should carry weight. A tendency to dismiss all legends, myths, and miraculous incidents regarding the lives of poets and the origin of their works ought to be promoted with religious zeal in the literary world. Scholars ought to turn their attention towards literary criticism, in its aspect of the study of the fundamental principles of literature and the judgment of all classics according to modern principles of criticism.

The world of Tamil letters is just now emerging out of one of its darkest periods; it has, for long, fortified itself by a comforting and deceptive satisfaction in the fullness of past achievement and glory and shut its doors against the modern spirit and ideas; but the spirit of the age is at work and is shattering this snug self-complacency. The impact of modern civilisation has awakened in the people a new spirit that is slowly, but steadily, spreading and making itself felt, though it is still groping in the dark for fullness of artistic expression. The freedom and the richness of national life, so indispensable for the birth of creative art, are wanting.

The Tamil Muse that once held the kings of this land captive under her spell and inspired her bards to the most sublime heights of expression in Poetry seems to have now fallen on evil days; her glory and power to inspire seem to be gone for ever. She is suffering, on the one hand, from the blind adoration of the old-world pandits who keep her in chains and enthuse over her wrinkled visage, withered charms, and lost splendour, and, on the other, from the cold neglect of people who have had the benefit of modern education, who simply ignore her. The voice of those who belong to neither group, who are neither Philistines nor scoffers, who want to assess, with legitimate pride, our literary heritage at its proper worth and make it a fountain of never-failing inspiration to modern effort, who feel the need of a living growth and a modern orientation in Tamil literature, does not go forthwith authority and prestige sufficient to compel respectful attention.

The time has come when the method of study of Tamil literature has to be drawn away from its old moorings. Tamil literature and the Tamil poets have to be studied from the standpoint of the principles of modern literary criticism and evaluated afresh. To make this possible a wide diffusion of modern culture through the medium of Tamil is absolutely essential. It is clear that the Tamil pandits of the present day, most of whom are, in spite of their erudition, strangers to modern culture, cannot make any effective contribution to bring about this consummation.

It has been an accepted view with Tamil scholars and poets that scholarship in Tamil will not be perfect and fruitful without proficiency in Sanskrit literature and culture. This is a perfectly sound view. Extending this idea, I should like to add that, in the present age, Tamil pandits who have scholarship only in Tamil, or even in Tamil and Sanskrit together, will not do and that sound scholarship in Tamil literature is now impossible without proficiency in any modern Western language and literature. For us in India, English has taken this place. The teaching of Tamil in schools and colleges, therefore, should be entrusted to scholars who have a good grounding in English literature and modern culture.

The appearance of great poets and geniuses is not governed by any known law, but it is clear that when they do appear the atmosphere must sustain them and be congenial for their development. The deepest energies and impulses of a people, from which flow the springs of all great creative art, must be ever active. The impulse to creation is inherent in geniuses and will manifest itself under any circumstances; yet, it can find its greatest scope only if the life is rich and the atmosphere dynamic, For instance, Subrahmania Bharati, the only great name in modern Tamil literature, was a genius of rare gifts and creative power. In his work, the modern spirit has found as full and artistic an expression as is possible among a people whose creative activity has fallen low during an age of transition from the medieval to the modern. If the life of the Tamils had been richer, and their culture more vivifying, he would have left us poetical work of the highest kind and gained an assured place in the very summit of Tamil poetry. As it is, he has left us some of the finest lyrics and small poems, which are, like the smaller lyrics of Shelley whom he resembles most in several respects, absolutely imperishable. These, however, fall short of that measure of quality and quantity required of the poets of the very highest class, a class to which Kamban and Kalidasa belong.

The Tamils are undoubtedly passing through a period of Renaissance. It may take a long time for their life to find fullness of expression and achievement. The speed can, however, be accelerated by organised movements to kindle the dormant literary and cultural conscience of the people. Scientific literature and literature on modern thought, artificially produced, without the Tamilian spirit and outlook on life becoming modern and rational, will be a failure. Will lovers of Tamil recognise this and try to create a sound public opinion in the literary world, and help the modernising of the literary and cultural outlook of the Tamils by weaning it away from its medieval moorings?