Extraordinary Child: Poems from a South Indian Devotional Genre

Chapter One Extraordinary Child

3 c h a p t e r o n e E X T R A O R D I N A R Y C H I L D The South Indian devotional poetry called the pillaittamil is a genre built of multiples: multiple verses, multiple sections, multiple poems, and multiple religious affiliations. This genre always contains a particular sequence of poetry found again and again, but never in quite the same way. In a pillaittamil, the poet assumes a maternal voice to praise an extraordinary being (deity, prophet, saint, or hero), envisioning him or her in the form of a baby. The pillaittamil moves through ten sequenced sections, each of which usually contains ten verses, adding up to one hundred (or slightly more) verses. What has made this genre so attractive for nearly eight hundred years? In A. K. Ramanujan’s description of patterns within Tamil literary tradition, he notes that often “poems do not come singly, but in sequences often arranged in tens, hundreds, and thousands.” Such genres bring together poets and audiences “sharing motifs, images, and structures, yet playing variations that individuate each poem. Every poem resonates with the absent presences of others that sound with it,”1 says Ramanujan, in words that aptly describe pillaittamil poetry. This book sketches the ways in which the pillaittamil genre produced a corpus of diverse and sophisticated poetry over many centuries . Approximately sixty-nine million people, located primarily in the modern state of Tamilnadu, South India, speak Tamil as their mother tongue.2 The Tamil language possesses an unbroken poetic tradition whose origins lie in the first centuries of this millennium; the first extant pillaittamil dates from the twelfth century, and pillaittamils continue to be written today. The religious pluralism of the pillaittamil tradition reflects the religious pluralism of the Tamil-speaking how to read a pillaittamil 4 population. Although the genre began within the Tamil Hindu literary tradition, later Muslim and Christian poets have adopted it as well.3 Now poets also write pillaittamils in praise of political figures and movie stars. The genre demands adherence to specific—and highly stylized— poetic conventions. Despite such potentially stultifying restrictions, more than two hundred and fifty pillaittamils have been written.4 In other words, poets have composed thousands of distinctive pillaittamil verses of vivid variety. Pillaittamil poets have written in different historical periods, belonged to diverse religious communities, sought varied forms of patronage, and addressed several kinds of audiences. The genre’s apparently rigid conventions seem to have nurtured literary invention and communities of pillaittamil connoisseurs sensitive to the nuances of poetic creativity. Praising the Child and Depicting Domesticity The idea of venerating a deity in the form of a child has a long history in Hindu literature. For example, one influential Sanskrit bhakti (devotional) text lists five relationships through which devotees can relate to their chosen deity: 1. as one humble before the supreme deity 2. as a slave serving a master 3. as a friend 4. as a lover 5. as a parent caring for a child.5 This last relationship, which tradition labels vâtsalya, emphasizes the affection of a parent toward an adored offspring.6 The first relationship , viewing one’s chosen deity as one’s master, emphasizes the distance between the human and the divine, foregrounding the remote power of the deity. In contrast, viewing the deity as a baby emphasizes the nearness and intimacy of the human to the divine, foregrounding the accessibility of the deity. The pillaittamil genre can be viewed as an elaboration of this parental mode of worship that developed (initially) in the Hindu Tamil literary tradition. The name of the genre, a compound of pi∏∏ai and tamil, testifies to the centrality of the subject of childhood. Pi∏∏ai extraordinary child 5 means “child” or “baby,” so the title can be understood and translated simultaneously as “Tamil [poetry] for a child” and “Tamil [poetry] to a child.”7 Although poets envision, address themselves to, and praise an extraordinary child, they also praise the grown child’s powerful and salvific acts. Each verse of a pillaittamil juxtaposes praise of this baby with praise of this adult. Thus, pillaittamils can express closeness to one’s chosen deity, conceived of as accessible and responsive to devotion, while simultaneously praising the adult deity’s awesome and miraculous powers. Pillaittamil writers do more than adopt the role of parent; they take on a specifically...