Sivakamiyin Sabatham – Dramatis Personae

Sivakami: At the time the story opens, she is a 18-year-old girl, deeply and madly in love with Narasihmavarman, the Pallava prince and childhood playmate. She is impetuous and capable of great feeling. She is an extremely talented dancer. Kalki gives us one or two detailed descriptions of her dance, but besides, we have to rely on the testimony of the other characters. Kalki spends more time in discussing her inner life and feelings than those of anybody else. She is clearly the star and the central personality of the story. She is the daughter of one of the premier sculptors of the time, Aayanar. Having lost her mother at an early age and being brought up by her aunt, who cannot hear or speak and her father, an artist with his head in the clouds, she is a pretty lonely person. During most of the story, she hardly gets to meet her lover Narasimhavarman, and has no other friends, having to stay with her father in his house in the middle of the forest, where he lives in order to have some peace and quiet for his work. Her only companions are Rathi, a pet deer and Sukha Brahma Rishi, a pet parrot. We get to know most of her thoughts and feelings through monologues to these two pets.

Narasimhavarman/Mamallan – The Pallava prince. He is brave, hot-headed and a traditional Indian hero. He is obedient to his father and attached to his mother. He will marry for the sake of his family. He is also as loyal to his friends and followers as his circumstances allow him to be. We see his character developed slowly, but Kalki takes great pain to keep his character consistent. He is also shown to have certain very mid-20th Century Tamil traits, but that could be Kalki projecting. More about that later.

Mahendravarman – The Pallava emperor. Kalki gives free rein to his development of the character of a benevolent monarch. He is historically attested to be scholarly. He wrote a Sanskrit play called ‘Matta Vilasa Prahasana’, which, curiously enough, is a comedy about the drunken antics of a Kapalika. He is artistically inclined – evidenced from his title – ‘Chitrakar Puli’ or tiger among painters. Kalki depicts him as also being a great strategist and statesman. He is also a past master in espionage and expert in disguise. His main concerns are the preservation of the Pallava dynasty and the welfare of the people. He also has a great interest in sculpture and is interested in making Mamallapuram a sculptural record of the achievements of the Pallava empire. Kalki also shows him as a far-sighted thinker and idealist. He dreams of establishing a tripartite alliance between himself, Harsha and Pulakeshin. This, according to him, would result in a Pax Indica of sorts and the end of war in his generation.  He also claims to have converted to the Shaivite religion partially for political reasons. According to him, the Shaivite religion provides the greatest leeway in following practices and tolerance of other religions. Through him, Kalki offers an interesting explanation for the 5 cave temples at Mamallapuram. They are popularly thought to represent the 5 chariots of the Pandavas and there is a sixth with a Goddess statue, which is presumed be dedicated to Draupadi. Mahendravarman says that he has designed 6 rock temples, one each for the prevailing religions of the time, Devi, Siva, Vishnu, Mahavira and Buddha. The sixth one is planned for a new religion that Mahendravarman has heard of – about a prophet of peace – and he would dedicate it to this new God, as soon as he found out more!

For Narasimhavarman, he is obviously a tough act to follow and many of the leaders of later time seek guidance by asking themselves – What would Mahendra Pallavar do?

Aside: It would be interesting if someone analysed the parallels between Mahendra and Narasimha Pallavas and the other great father-son duo of Tamil history – Rajaraja and Rajendra Cholas.

Pulakesin II – The ambitious Chalukyan warlord. He is credited as being the Chalukyan ruler under whose reign the empire reached its greatest peak. He has stopped the advance of Harsha’s armies at the Narmada. His brother ruled the fertile Vengi region. The entire Deccan was under his direct control and the Eastern Ganga dynasty of Kalinga (modern Orissa) was restrained from expansion. At first, he is shown to be a fierce warrior with his focus only on territorial conquest. But, as the story progresses, he acquires more dimensions as a patron of the arts and a wise ruler who begins put in place the administrative structure of an empire.

Naganandhi – A Buddhist monk and the villain of the story. He is Pulakesin’s evil twin, Nilakesi, who is elder to Pulakesi by a few moments. The throne of Vatapi (Badami) is his by right, but he takes to the ochre robe of the monk and makes way for his brother. In Kalki’s view, he is the evil mirror image of Mahendravarman. He is a connoisseur of arts, master strategist, expert at disguise and espionage. He develops a love for Sivakami which spirals into a mad obsession. He has developed enormous physical strength, through secret occult practices. He has made himself immune to poison through regular ingestion of poisonous herbs and the smell of his sweat is supposed to drive away snakes! He has a secret trove of weapons – poisonous daggers and a nail on one of his little fingers which could kill a man with a single scratch or render a person permanently disfigured.

Paranjyothi – Narasimhavarman’s general. The early part of the story is narrated through his eyes, but he recedes to the background after the first book. He is brave and loyal to Narasimhavarman, and proves it through his courage and his frequent role as the voice of reason to balance Mamallan’s volatile temper. He is not above twinges of jealousy when the king develops a friendship with the Prince of Sri Lanka. When the story starts, he is a young man who is sent from his village in the Chola country to acquire learning at the school established by the saint Appar at Kanchi. This never comes to be, as he ends up saving Sivakami from a rogue elephant on his first day at Kanchi. He later comes under the tutelage of Naganandhi, for a while, before being taken under the Pallava royal family’s wing. He rises rapidly to become the commander of the Pallava forces in battle, after the death of General Kalipahaiyar. In later life, he achieved everlasting fame as Siruthondar, one of the 63 Nayanmars of Shaivism.

The character of Paranjyothi, a commoner, provides a nice foil to the great historical events unfolding. Kalki would  later use this technique to greater effect through the character of Vandiyathevan in his magnum opus, Ponniyin Selvan.

Aayanar – Sivakami’s father, who is present through the book, but whose character is, however, not very well-developed. He is a master sculptor and a doting father. His great dream is to discover the secrets of the paintings at Ajantha, which are painted with dyes that never fade. Over time, this dream becomes an obsession, with terrible consequences.

Shatrugnan and Gundodharan – Shatrugnan is the head of Mahendravarman’s and later, Narasimhavarman’s secret service. His apprentice is the master spy, Gundodharan, who is supposed to be a brilliant spy under his cloak of a common country yokel. He frequently surprises all who know him with his sudden flashes of brilliance. Again, this is the type of character which Kalki uses to better effect in Ponniyin Selvan. Many of the characteristics of Azhwarkadiyan Nambi are seen in Gundodharan in a rudimentary form.

Kamali and Kannan – Kannan is Narasimhavarman’s charioteer and his wife is Kamali, Sivakami’s best friend. They are a young couple who fell in love and got married. Kannan is the go-between for Narasimhavarman and Sivakami’s romance. They are simple people who have a great affection for the two lovers. Kannan’s wise-cracks and his domestic life with Kamali provide most of the comic relief in the story. Kalki’s introduction of this type of humour was quite novel for a Tamil writer of the time, since serious writers would never dilute the content of their writing with humour.

South India of the 7th Century CE

We saw the two major empires of South and Central India earlier, the Badami Chalukyas and the Pallavas of Kanchi.

Their major bone of contention between these two powers was the fertile Krishna-Godavari coastal region on the East Coast, with it’s capital at Vengi.

While the rulers of Vengi were closer culturally to the Chalukyan empire, they had established marital relations with the Pallavas.

Besides the agrarian wealth of Vengi, it also afforded a seaboard to the predominantly land-based territory of the Chalukyas. The Western coast was well protected by the Western Ghat mountains, which offered a natural barrier to any power trying to establish itself on the Western Coast and the central Deccan.

The Pallavas were not really concerned with Vengi for its own sake, but mostly as a counterweight to the Chalukyan might.

At the time the tale begins, the Chalukyan armies had already occupied Vengi and Pulakesin II’s younger brother, Kubja Vishnuvardhana, had been crowned King of Vengi.

For their part, the Pallavas, too, had a few strategic projects underway. An earlier Pallava ruler, Simhavishnu, had already brought the stretch of the Kaveri from the sea to Uraiyur ( modern-day Trichy) under his direct control. He had made minor branches of the Chola dynasty pay tribute to him. He had established marital relations with the Western Ganga dynasty who ruled from Ganguvadi, and diplomatic relations with the Kadambas. The Kadambas and Gangas ruled the borderlands between modern-day Karnataka and Tamil nadu, which positioned them as front-line states in the Chalukya-Pallava power struggle.

The other neighbours of the Pallavas were the Pandya rulers, who ruled the entire stretch of old Tamilaham from the Kollidam (Coleroon) to the southern tip at Kanyakumari. When the story opens, there was neither direct conflict nor any positive relationship between these two pre-dominant powers of the Tamil country.

The Pallavas had established diplomatic relations with the Kings of Sri Lanka, but at the time of the story, a succession struggle was underway there, which made any intercession from Sri Lanka in the political affairs of South India impossible.

During the reign of Mahendravarman, the port at Mahabalipuram was first developed. The earlier ports on southern Coromandel coast were Poompuhar/Kaveripatnam ( near today’s Nagapattinam, at the mouth of the Cauvery delta) and Korkai, further south, closer to modern Tuticorin. A possible explanation for the active development of this new port was the need to have a trading port closer to the capital of Kanchi, rather than Kaveripatnam (traditionally Chola country) and Korkai ( never left the hands of the Pandyas). Why they selected Mahabalipuram, in spite of the presence of a natural harbour 60 km to the North (today’s Chennai) is an interesting mystery to us.

Thus, at this point time, there was a even balance of power. Slight shifts could tilt the balance either way.

So much for the political conditions of the time.

Let’s look at the other common historical reason for wars – religion.

There was an even balance in number of adherents and state sponsorship for various dominant religions of the time – Jainism, Buddhism and Vedic religion. Besides these, there were many sects and cults such as the Bhagavata, Shakta and Pashupata. All of these would merge together to form the complex amalgam of Hindu belief, but that would come some centuries later. At this time, each of these had their own separate adherents who would be surprised to see all of their beliefs clubbed together today under the label of Hinduism.

The earlier Tamil rulers, an obscure dynasty(oligarchy?) called the Kalabhras( Kalappirar in Tamil) were Jain. So was Mahendravarman I, the Pallava ruler of the time, until the Tamil Shaivite saint Appar converted him to Shiva worship.

Kalki portrays Buddhism as being under retreat at the time, due to the disorganized nature of the Buddhist Sangha. The rock edicts of the Kind Ashoka and the chaityas established under his rule, are shown to be in dis-repair. The order of bhikshus is also depicted as being too involved in political affairs and in seeking political patronage.

The pre-dominant faiths in the Chalukyan region were Buddhist and Jain. There was no state sponsorship for any religion. However, the Jain monks are supposed to have left Kanchi after Mahendravarman’s conversion and gave their support to Pulakesin, who was nominally Jain, though lapsed.

Pulakesin II was naturally ambitious, and the Pallava king’s conversion was his pretext for launching an invasion.

First got here

Well, after one failed attempt on blogspot, finally got to start another blog on WordPress. Hope this one works out better.

I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to write, before it dawned on me that there’s never going to be a time to find something worthwhile. So, here goes…

Thought I’d start off my first post with my impressions of the book I just finished reading (or re-reading, if a desultory attempt at reading a decades-old bound novel during a lazy summer vacation counts).

Tararara- (drum roll)சிவகாமியின் சபதம்

I know most of you are going – huh! So, let me transliterate and then translate. It’s a novel called Sivakamiyin Sapatham or Sivakami’s Vow, a historical novel by the Tamil writer, ‘Kalki’ Krishnamurthy.

The novel is mainly about a particular period of Indian history that interests me the most, the period of transition from the Ancient to the medieval period of Indian history. The story spans a decade or so in the middle part of the 7th Century CE. It is a pretty long novel, with many characters and stories running through it.

It’s broken into 4 parts, with a specific theme running through each of them. Each of them cannot really be read as a separate story, though.

The chief protagonists are the eponymous Sivakami, a young women who happens to be the master Bharatanatyam exponent of the time and one of the beauties of the age and Narasimha Varman, the young Pallava king. Their young love and the way their love story plays out is the primary theme of the novel.

The novel is set against the backdrop of the time. It was a time of great empires in the Indian sub-continent and of the transition from a period of intense religious discourse and ferment. Buddhism and the Jaina faith were far more prevalent at the time in India. The great religious schisms within Hinduism, Shaiva, Vaishnava and the earlier Vedic religion were being reconciled and the time was full of new thoughts, new ideas and much intellectual curiosity.

The entire Gangetic plain,which had emerged a millenium ago as the centre of the political power in India, had been united, after many centuries of incursions from the North-West. The Shakas, Yavanas, Yaudheyas, Abhiras and Hunas had gradually been assimilated into the main stream of Indian culture.

The Uttara-Patha Chakravartin or Emperor of the Northern Path, Harsha Vardhana had established his rule at Kanauj. The monastries established during Mauryan times were actively creating new scholars. The Vedic schools at Kanyakubja were turning out the new insights into ancient scriptures, among which would be the seminal commentry on the Mandukya Upanishad by Gaudapada, which would break new paths in Vedantic thought.

The central region of India – Madhya Bharata – had been consolidated into a single political structure under the rule of the first Chalukyas. For the first time in Indian history, the two major agrarian regions of central India, the fertile Krishna-Godavari Vengi region and the Raichur doab, had been united under Chalukyan rule.

The southern part of India – Dakshina Bharata – had been mostly brought under the reign of the Pallava dynasty. They had emerged in the early years of Christian Era and had gradually brought the traditional chieftains of the South -Ganga, Kadamba – and the three kings of old Tamilaham – Chera, Chola, Pandya – under their overlordship.

Their capital, Kanchi had emerged as a center of learning and culture to rival the great centers of Kashi, Nalanda and Takshashila. Their core power center was Tondaimandalam, the region comprising the northern districts of present-day Tamil Nadu.

We will go on to discuss a little bit more of this period, which was the beginning of a millenium-long struggle for supremacy in the South. The struggle would always be between the rulers of the Raichur Doab, who controlled the fertile plain between Krishna and Tungabhadra, and the overlords of the lower Kaveri plain.

Until then….