நிலத்தினும் பெரிதே - குறுந்தொகை ... முதலிய பாடல்கள்(Translated by A.K. Ramanujan)

A.K. Ramanujan

குறுந்தொகை 3,  இயற்றியவர்- தேவகுலத்தார்,  குறிஞ்சி திணை  -  தலைவி சொன்னது 

நிலத்தினும் பெரிதே வானினும் உயர்ந்தன்று
நீரினும் ஆரளவின்றே – சாரல்
கருங்கோற் குறிஞ்சிப் பூக் கொண்டு
பெருந்தேன் இழைக்கும் நாடனொடு நட்பே.

Kurunthokai 3, Poet Thevakulathār, Kurinji thinai
 – 
What She said 

Translated by A.K. Ramanujan

Bigger than earth, certainly,
higher than the sky,
more unfathomable than the waters
is this love for this man

of the mountain slopes
where bees make rich honey
from the flowers of the kurinci
that has such black stalks.

A.K. Ramanujan, the Tamil scholar –  (1929-1993)

Dr.  Ramanujan was born in 1929 to Tamil parents in Mysore.  He got his early education in Mysore. He got his Ph.d. in linguistics from Indiana University in 1962.  He taught at the University of Chicago from 1962, and lived in Chicago until he died in 1993. He also taught at other U.S. universities  including Harvard, University of Wisconsin, University of Michigan, University of California at Berkeley, and Carlton College.   In 1976, the government of India awarded him the ‘Padmashri’ title. He was a scholar in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Sanskrit.  He wrote incredibly beautiful English poems.  His translations of Sangam Tamil poems have no equal.  They help us unlock Sangam poems.  His passion for Sangam poems was special, as we can see from his writings.  He has taught Sangam Tamil to scholars George Hart,  Kamil Zvelebil and many others.

His wife Dr. Molly Daniels Ramanujan has authored many books.  Ramanujan credits her for his translations, in his books, ‘The Interior Landscape’, and ‘Poems of Love and War’.  This book has helped many of us get started in our Sangam poetry learning process.  His translations are gems.

What Ramanujan said about Sangam poems:

“Tamil, one of the two classical languages of India, is the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past”.

“These poem are ‘classical,’ i.e., early, ancient; they are also ‘classics,’ i.e., works that have stood the test of time, the founding works of a whole tradition. Not to know them is not to know a unique and major poetic achievement of Indian civilization”.

“In their antiquity and in their contemporaneity, there is not much else in any Indian literature equal to these quiet and dramatic Tamil poems. In their values and stances, they represent a mature classical poetry: passion is balanced by courtesy, transparency by ironies and nuances of design, impersonality by vivid detail, leanness of line by richness of implication. These poems are not just the earliest evidence of Tamil genius. The Tamils, in their 2,000 years of literary effort, wrote nothing better”.

Ramanujan writing about  about how he started to learn Sangam poems:

“Even one’s own tradition is not one’s birthright; it has to be earned, respossessed. The old bards earned it by apprenticing themselves to the masters. One chooses and translates a part of one’s past to make it present to oneself and maybe to others. One comes face to face sometimes in faraway places, as I did. In 1962, one one of my first Saturdays at the University of Chicago, I entered the basement stacks of the then Harper Library in search of an elementary grammar of Old Tamil, which I had never learned. The University had just acquired a large collection of books from a famous South Indian historian. It was still uncatalogued, and even undusted. As I searched, hoping to find a school grammar, I came upon an early anthology of classical Tamil poems, edited in 1937 by U. V. Cāminathaiyar. It carried his Tamil signature, dated 1937, on its flyleaf. That edition, I later learned, was a landmark in its own right. I sat down on the floor between the stacks and began to browse.  To my amazement, I found the prose commentary transparent; it soon unlocked the old poems for me. As I began to read on I was enthralled by the beauty and subtlety of what I could read. Here was a world, a part of my language and culture, to which I had been an ignorant heir. Until then, I had only hear of the idiot in the Bible who had gone looking for a donkey and had happened upon a kingdom.”

Here are some of his beautiful translations, along with the original songs:

ஐங்குறுநூறு 113,  அம்மூவனார் – நெய்தல் திணை – தலைவி தோழியிடம் சொன்னது

அம்ம வாழி தோழி நென்னல்
ஓங்குதிரை வெண்மணல் உடைக்கும் துறைவற்கு
ஊரார் பெண்டென மொழிய என்னை
அதுகேட்ட அன்னாய் என்றனள் அன்னை
பைபய எம்மை என்றனென் யானே.

Yesterday,
some people of this town
said about me,
she is the woman
of that man from the seashore

where great waves break
on the white sands.

Mother heard it
and asked me,
“is it true?”
I said, under my breath,
“I’m burning.”

ஐங்குறுநூறு 192, நெய்தல் திணை – தலைவி தோழியிடம் சொன்னது

கோடுபுலம் கொட்பக் கடலெழுந்து முழுங்கப்
பாடிமிழ் பனித்துறை யோடுகலம் உகைக்கும்
துறைவன் பிரிந்தென நெகிழ்ந்தன
வீங்கின மாதோ தோழி என் வளையே.

Friend, his seas swell and roar
making conch shells whirl on the sands.
But fishermen ply their little wooden boats
unafraid of the cold lash of the waves.

Look, my bangles
slip loose as he leaves,
grow tight as he returns,
and they give me away.

குறுந்தொகை 68. குறிஞ்சி திணை – அள்ளூர் நன்முல்லையார் – தலைவி சொன்னது

பூழ்க்கால் அன்ன செங்கால் உழுந்தின்
ஊழ்ப்படு முதுகாய் உழையினங் கவரும்
அரும்பனி அற்சிரம் தீர்க்கும்
மருந்து பிறிதில்லை அவர் மணந்த மார்பே.

Kurunthokai 68 – Poet Allur Nanmullai, Kurinji thinai – what she said
The bare root of the bean is pink
like the leg of a jungle hen,
and herds of deer attack its overripe pods
For the harshness
of this season of morning dew
there is no cure
but the breast of my man.

குறுந்தொகை 74, விட்டகுதிரையார்,  குறிஞ்சி திணை – தோழி சொன்னது

விட்ட குதிரை விசைப்பி னன்ன
விசும்புதோய் பசுங்கழைக் குன்ற நாடன்
யாம் தன் படர்ந்தமை அறியான் தானும்
வேனில் ஆன் ஏறு போலச்
சாயினன் என்ப நம் மாண் நலம் நயந்தே.

Kurunthokai 74 – Poet Vittakutiraiyār, Kurinji thinai – what her friend said to her

Our man of the hills
Where the bent green bamboo springs back to the sky
with the spring of an unleashed horse
grows thin longing for our love,
like a tethered bull in summertime
not knowing that we are, wasting away
for his sake.

குறுந்தொகை 95 கபிலர்,  குறிஞ்சி – தலைவன் சொன்னது

மால்வரை இழிதரும் தூவெள் அருவி
கல்முகைத் ததும்பும் பன்மலர்ச் சாரல்
சிறுகுடிக் குறவன் பெருந்தோள் குறுமகள்
நீரோ ரன்ன சாயல்
தீயோ ரன்னவென் உரன்வித் தன்றே.

Kurunthokai 95 – Kapilar, Kurinji thinai – what he said

Where the white waters from the peak
crash through the mountain caves,
it flowers on the slopes;
and there, the little hill-town chieftain
has a younger daughter, a girl
with great arms, and she is tender as water;
fancy her quelling my fire!

குறுந்தொகை 99,  ஔவையார், முல்லை திணை – தலைவன் சொன்னது

உள்ளினென் அல்லனோ யானே உள்ளி
நினைத்தனென் அல்லனோ பெரிதே நினைத்து
மருண்டனென் அல்லனோ உலகத்துப் பண்பே
நீடிய மராஅத்த கோடுதோய் மலிர்நிறை
இறைத்துணச் சென்றற் றாஅங்கு
அனைப்பெருங் காமம் மீண்டுகடைக் கொளவே.

Kurunthokai 99 – Poet Auvaiyār, Mullai thinai – what the hero said

O did I not think of you?
and thinking of you,
did I not think and think again of you?
was I not baffled
by the world’s demands
that held me to my work?
O love, did I not think of you,
and think of you till I wished
I were here to sate my passion
till this flood of desire
that once wet the branch of the tall tree
would think
till I can bend and scoop a drink of water
with my hands?

குறுந்தொகை 221, உறையூர் முதுகொற்றனார், முல்லை திணை – தலைவி சொன்னது 

 
அவரோ வாரார் முல்லையும் பூத்தன
பறியுடைக் கையர் மறி இனத்து ஒழியப்
பாலொடு வந்து கூழொடு பெயரும்
யாடுடை இடைமகன் சென்னிச்
சூடிய வெல்லாம் சிறுபசு முகையே.

Kurunthokai 221- Poet Uraiyur Mutukotran, Mullai thinai – what she said

My lover has not come back:
the jasmine has bloomed.
A goat-herd comes into town
with goats and milk
to take some rice to others
waiting outside,
palmyra rain-guards in their hands,
herds of young ones in their care:
in his hair
nothing but buds of tiny jasmine.

– What her friend said to the unfaithful hero

உடுத்தும் தொடுத்தும் பூண்டும் செரீஇயும்
தழையணிப் பொலிந்த ஆயமொடு துவன்றி
விழவொடு வருதி நீயே இஃதோ
ஓரான் வல்சிச் சீரில் வாழ்க்கை
பெருநலக் குறுமகள் வந்தென
இனி விழவு ஆயிற்று என்னும் இவ்வூரே.

 Your mistresses wear the green leaf
for skirt, earring and garland; they even
sport leaves in their hair.

You play with whole gangs of them
and come home with relics
of your water carnivals
all over you.

This town has begun to say,
once this fellow lived off
a single writeched cow;
now, since the windfall
his little woman brought him

he has carnivals.

குறுந்தொகை 312 – இயற்றியவர் – கபிலர்,  குறிஞ்சி திணை – தலைவன் சொன்னது

இரண்டறி கள்வி நம் காத லோளே
முரண்கொள் துப்பில் செவ்வேன் மலையன்
முள்ளூர்க் கான நாற வந்து
நள்ளென் கங்குல் நம்மோர் அன்னள்
கூந்தல் வேய்ந்த விரவுமலர் உதிர்த்துச்
சாந்துளர் நறுங் கதுப்பு எண்ணெய் நீவி
அமரா முகத்த ளாகித்
தமரோர் அன்னள் வைகறை யானே.

My love is a two-faced thief.
In the dead of night
she comes like the fragrance
of the Red-Speared Chieftain’s forest hills,
to be with me.
And them, she sheds the petals
of night’s several flowers,
and does her hair again
with new perfumes and oils,
to be one with her family at dawn
with a stranger’s different face.

Kalithokai 19 – Poet Kapilar – Kurinji Thinai – what she said to her friend

“O your hair,” he said,
“It’s like rainclouds
moving between
branches of lightning.
It parts five ways
between gold ornaments,
braided with a length of flowers
and the frangrant screwpine.

“O your smiles, your glistening teeth,
words sheer honey,
mouth red as coral,
O fair brow,
I want to tell you
something,
listen, stop and listen,”

he said, and stopped me.

Came close,
to look closer
at my brow, my hands, my eyes
my walk, my speech,
and said, searching
for metaphors:
Amazed, it grows small, but it isn’t the crescent.
Unspotted, it isn’t the moon.
Like bamboo, yet it isn’t on a hill.
Lotuses, yet there’s no pool.
Walk mincing, yet no peacock.
The words languish, yet your’e not a parrot,”

On and on he praised my parts,
with words gentle and sly,
looked for my weakening
like a man with a net
stalking an animal.

watched me
as my heart melted,
stared at me
like a butcher at his prey,

O he saluted me, saluted me,
touched me O he touched me,
a senseless lusting elephant
no goad could hold back.

Salute and touch,
and touch again he did,

but believe me, friend,
I still think he is not really
a fool by nature.

http://sangampoemsinenglish.wordpress.com/sangam-tamil-scholar-a-k-ramanujan/

ASIAN 226: Poetries of Asia



Tamil sangam poetry (translations by A.K. Ramanujan)

 http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/226.sangam.html


What She Said

Bigger than earth, certainly,
higher than the sky,
more unfathomable than the waters
is this love for this man  
   of the mountain slopes
   where bees make rich honey
   from the flowers of the kuriqci
   that has such black stalks.  
        
    Te:vakulatta:r (Kuruntokai 3)

What the Passers-By Said

This bowman has a warrior's band
on his ankle;
the girl with the bracelets on her arm
has a virgin's anklets
on her tender feet.

 They look like good people.

In these places
the winds beat upon the va:kai trees
and make the white seedpods rattle
like drums for acrobats
dancing on the tightropes.

Poor things, who could they be?
and what makes them walk
with all the others
through these desert ways
so filled with bamboos?     
    Perumpatumana:r (Kuruntokai 7)


What She Said

It looks as if the summer's glowing
new blossom on the dark neem tree
will not stay for his coming.

These cruel women's tongues
are working on me,
now that he is gone,
grinding me to paste
like the one fig
of the white tree rising by the waterside,
trampled on by seven ravenous crabs.  
     Paranar (Kuruntokai 24)

What the Concubine Said

You know he comes from
where the fresh-water sharks in the pools
catch with their mouths
the mangoes as they fall, ripe
from the trees on the edge of the field.

At our place
he talked big.

 Now back in his own,
when others raise their hands
and feet,
he will raise his too:

like a doll 
in a mirror
he will shadow every last wish
of his son's dear mother.  

    A:lankuti Vankana:r (Kuruntokai 8)


What She Said

On his hills,
 the ma:nai creeper that usually sprawls
 on large round stones
 sometimes takes to a sleeping elephant.

At parting,
 his arms twined with mine
 he gave me inviolable guarantees
 that he would live in my heart
 without parting.

Friends, why do you think 
 that is any reason for grieving?  

     Paranar (Kuruntokai 36)


What Her Girl-Friend Said

O long white moonlight,
you do him no good at all
as he comes stealing
through the night in the forest

where the black-stemmed ve:nkai
drops its flowers
on the round stones
and makes them look 
like tiger cubs
in the half-light! 
    Netuvennilavina:r (Kuruntokai 47)


What Her Friend Said to Him

Even if passion should pass,
 O man of the hills
 where
  after the long tempestuous rains
  of night
 the morning's waterfalls
 make music in the caverns,
would our love also pass
with the passion?  
    Kapilar (Kuruntokai 342)


What He Said

What could my mother be
to yours? What kin is my father
to yours anyway? And how
did you and I meet ever?
  But in love our hearts are as red
earth and pouring rain:
  mingled beyond parting.   

    Cembulappeyani:ra:r (Kuruntokai 40)


What She Said

Don't they really have
in the land where he has gone
such things
as house sparrows

dense-feathered, the color of fading water lilies,
pecking at grain drying on yards,
playing with the scatter of the fine dust
of the street's manure
and living with their nestlings
in the angles of the penthouse

and miserable evenings,

and loneliness?  
    Ma:mala:tan (Kuruntokai 46)


What He Said

As a little white snake
with lovely stripes on its young body
troubles the jungle elephant
 this slip of a girl
 her teeth like sprouts of new rice
 her wrists stacked with bangles
 troubles me.     
    Catti Na:tana:r (Kuruntokai 119)


What She Said

Will he remember, friend?
Where the curve of the parrot's beak
holds a bright-lit neem
like the sharp glory
of a goldsmith's nail
threading a coin of gold 
for a new jewel,

he went across the black soil
and the cactus desert

Will he remember?  
    Allu:r Nanmullai (Kuruntokai 67)


What Her Friend Said to Her

Our man of the hills

 where the bent green bamboo springs back to the sky
 with the spring of an unleashed horse

grows thin longing for our love,
like a tethered bull in summertime,

not knowing that here we are, wasting away
for his sake.      
    Vittakutiraiya:r (Kuruntokai 74)

What He Said

Her arms have the beauty
of a gently moving bamboo.
Her eyes are full of peace.
She is faraway,
her place is not easy to reach.

My heart is frantic
with haste,
 a plowman with a single ox
 on land all wet
 and ready for seed.    
    O:re:ruravana:r (Kuruntokai 131)

What She Said

Once: if an owl hooted on the hill,
if a male ape leaped and loped
out there on the jackfruit bough in our yard
my poor heart would melt for fear. But now
 in the difficult dark of night
 nothing can stay its wandering 
 on the long sloping mountain-ways
 of his coming.    
     Kapilar (Kuruntokai 153)

What He Said

O did I not think of you?
and thinking of you,
did I not think and think again of you?
and even as I thought of you
was I not baffled
by the world's demands
that held me to my work?

O love, did I not think of you,
and think of you till I wished
I were here to sate my passion
till this flood of desire
that once wet the branch of the tall tree
would thin
till I can bend and scoop a drink of water
with my hands?     
     Auvaiya:r (Kuruntokai 99)


What She Said

Look, friend,
fear of scandal will, only thin out passion.
And if I should just give up my love
to end this dirty talk,
I will be left only with my shame.

My virgin self of which he partook
is now like a branch half broken
by an elephant,
bent, not yet fallen to the ground,
still attached to the mother tree 
by the fiber of its bark.    
         A:lattu:rkira:r (Kuruntokai 112)


What Her Girl-Friend Said

The sands are like heaped-up moonlight.
Right next to it stands all by itself,
as if all night were crammed into it,
the cool dense shade of a flowering grove
of the black punnai.

 Our man has not come back.

 Only our brothers' fishing boats
 will return from their hunt
 of many kinds of fish.
  
    Aiyu:r Mutavan (Kuruntokai 123)


What She Says (about her friend's sympathy)

This is worse than the sleepless agony
of thinking about him, far away,
wandering long among trees
through difficult branching pathways.

This is much worse: I cannot bear to think
of my friend's grief for me,

 it's like the deaf-mute's
 when he sees at night the suffering
 of a dun cow fallen into a well.  
      
    Ku:van Maintan (Kuruntokai 224)


What She Said

Before I laughed with him
 nightly,

 the slow waves beating
 on his wide shores
 and the palmyra
 bringing forth heron-like flowers
 near the waters,

my eyes were like the lotus
my arms had the grace of the bamboo
my forehead was mistaken for the moon.

 But now...       

  Maturai Erutta:lan Ce:ntampu:tan (Kuruntokai 226)


What Her Friend Said

Will he not really think of us
when he passes the clumps of milk-hedge
with their fragrant trunks
and hears the redlegged lizard call
to his mate
in cluckings that sound like
the highway robber's fingernail
testing the point of his iron arrow,
will he not really think of us, friend?
      
   Pa:laipa:tiya Perunkatunko: (Kuruntokai 16)


What She Said

People say, "You will have to bear it."
 Don't they know what passion is like,
 or is it that they are so strong?

As for me, if I do not see my lover
 grief drowns my heart,

 and like a streak of foam in high waters
 dashed on the rocks

 little by little I ebb
 and become nothing. 
  
      Kalporu Cirunuraiya:r (Kuruntokai 290)

What She Said

Only the thief was there, no one else.
And if he should lie, what can I do?

 There was only 
   a thin-legged heron standing
 on legs yellow as millet stems
 and looking
   for lampreys
 in the running water
   when he took me.  

     Kapilar (Kuruntokai 25)


What Her Foster Mother Said

Let no sun burn
may trees shade the little ways on the hill
may the paths be covered with sand
may cool rain
cool the desert roads
 for that simple girl
 her face the color of the new mango leaf
 who left us
 for a man
 with the long bright spear!   
     Kaymana:r (Kuruntokai 378)


What Her Girl-Friend Said

In the seaside grove
where he drove back in his chariot
the neytal flowers are on the ground,
some of their thick petals plowed in
and their stalks broken

by the knife-edge of his wheels' golden rims
furrowing the earth.    
     O:ta Qa:ni (Kuruntokai 227)