Cilappatikaram

Cilappatikāram (IPA: ʧiləppət̪ikɑːrəm, lit. "the Tale of an Anklet"), also referred to as Silappathikaram or Silappatikaram, is the earliest Tamil epic. It is a poem of 5,730 lines in almost entirely akaval (aciriyam) meter. The epic is a tragic love story of an ordinary couple, Kaṇṇaki and her husband Kōvalaṉ. The Cilappatikāram has more ancient roots in the Tamil bardic tradition, as Kannaki and other characters of the story are mentioned or alluded to in the Sangam literature such as in the Natṟiṇai and later texts such as the Kovalam Katai. It is attributed to a prince-turned-jain-monk Iḷaṅkō Aṭikaḷ, and was probably composed in the 5th century CE (although estimates range from 2nd to 6th century CE).

The Cilappatikāram is an ancient literary masterpiece. It is to the Tamil culture what the Iliad is to the Greek culture, states R. Parthasarathy. It blends the themes, mythologies and theological values found in the Jain, Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions. It is a Tamil story of love and rejection, happiness and pain, good and evil like all classic epics of the world. Yet unlike other epics that deal with kings and armies caught up with universal questions and existential wars, the Cilappatikāram is an epic about an ordinary couple caught up with universal questions and internal, emotional war. The Cilappatikaram legend has been a part of the Tamil oral tradition. The palm-leaf manuscripts of the original epic poem, along with those of the Sangam literature, were rediscovered in monasteries in the second half of the 19th century by UV Swaminatha Aiyar – a pandit and Tamil scholar. After being preserved and copied in temples and monasteries in the form of palm-leaf manuscripts, Aiyar published its first partial edition on paper in 1872, the full edition in 1892. Since then the epic poem has been translated into many languages including English.