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Wilden, Eva: *The Three Early Tiruvantātis of the Tivyappirapantam*. Annotated Translation and Glossary. With the collaboration of Marcus Schmücker. Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient / Pondicherry: Institut français de Pondichéry 2020. XIV, 556 S. 8° = Collection Indologie 143. NETamil Series 7. Hardbd. € 38,00. ISBN 978-2-85539-238-7.

Besprochen von Herman Tieken: Den Haag / Niederlande, E-Mail: H.J.H.Tieken@hum.leidenuniv.nl

https://doi.org/10.1515/olzg-2022-0157

The main part of the book (pp. 53–358) consists of the texts and English translations of the three so-called *Tiruvantātis* belonging to the corpus of Vaiṣṇava Tamil Bhakti poetry, the *Tivyappirapantam*, Sanskrit *Divyaprabandham*. The three *Antātis* (*tiru* corresponds to Skt *śrī*) are ascribed to the Ā[V]ārs (poet-saint devotees of Viṣṇu/Kṛṣṇa) Poykai, Pūtam and Pēy respectively. Each *Antāti* consists of a hundred stanzas, each of which begins (*āti*, Skt *ādi*) with the word with which the preceding stanza ends (*anta*), with the final, hundredth, stanza ending with the word with

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which the first one begins. The text and its translation are preceded by an introduction (pp. 1–51) and followed by a glossary (pp. 381–517), a list of words of Indo-Aryan origin (pp. 518–531), and three appendices, one of which, Appendix 2, lists the incarnations and mythical episodes referred to in the poems (pp. 542–549). All this is the work of Eva Wilden, while Marcus Schmücker is responsible for an essay (pp. 359–380) on the presentation of God in the three *Antātis*, though initially he was also involved in producing the translations, together with the members of the so-called NETamil Vaiṣṇava group.

Despite the involvement of this collective, I find the result overall disappointing: many translations do not speak for themselves, helpful information is rarely provided and grammatical problems are glossed over. But before going into these matters in more detail I would like to comment on the date Wilden assigns to the *Tiruvantātis*, namely the late sixth and early seventh centuries (p. 19), which date is presented as a hard fact. Elsewhere, however, she herself has admitted that there is no hard evidence of Tamil being a literary language before the ninth century.<fnref n="1" /> As the leader of the current project of editing and translating the Tamil Vaiṣṇava Bhakti texts she might, therefore, have considered it her task to create clarity on the knotty issue of the date of this poetry, if only because dating these texts affects the important question of which Sanskrit texts come into consideration as sources of this Tamil tradition. However, this turns out to be a topic which Wilden does not consider: the bibliography of the book contains not a single North Indian Sanskrit text. It does include Vettam Mani's *Purāṇic Encyclopaedia*,<fnref n="2" /> but the usefulness of that is limited because for consulting this encyclopaedia one needs the Sanskrit names of the main figures of the mythological scenes referred to in the poems, which names are not systematically mentioned in Appendix 2. To take a random example, one has to know that the bird in the motif described in that appendix as “tearing the bird’s mouth” is called Bakāsura.

I have already mentioned that a large number of the translations do not speak for themselves. Thus, in Poykai<fnref n="3" /> 29 we read of “red-eyed Māl [= Viṣṇu]<fnref n="4" />, who warded off with care the misery suffered by the green-eyed big elephant”. If for enlightenment on the story behind this brief

reference we turn to Appendix 2 (p. 545), all we find are references to other poems. Turning to one of these, Pūtam 13, we learn that the elephant in question was saved after having entered a pond (*kayam*), from which it becomes clear that we have to do with the elephant Gajendra here (actually a king cursed to become an elephant), which was caught by a crocodile while diverting itself in a pond. In desperation Gajendra turned to Viṣṇu, who subsequently rescued him. To obtain this information we have to turn to a footnote to poem Poykai 78, which describes how Viṣṇu's feet kicked away “a very cruel crocodile that clung to the bull elephant”. However, in Appendix 2 this feat is presented by means of an independent entry, titled “attacking the crocodile”. More seriously in fact, both deeds are ascribed in the appendix to Kṛṣṇa instead of Viṣṇu. In the above-mentioned footnote to Poykai 78, moreover, Wilden likewise mixes up the names Viṣṇu and Kṛṣṇa, writing about a few more detailed references to Kṛṣṇa protecting the elephant. However, the description in Poykai 78 of a god resting on a bed formed by a snake leaves no doubt as to the fact that we are dealing with Viṣṇu;<fnref n="5" /> in the Sanskrit Purāṇas it is indeed invariably Viṣṇu who rescues Gajendra.

References to mythology in the book are in fact treated as mere, randomly distributed embellishments. Take the translation of Poykai 39 (with the mythological contexts added by me in footnotes):

*iṭantatu pūmi eṭuttatu kuṇṇram
kaṭantatu kañcaṇai muṇ añca kiṭantatuvum
nīr oṭam mā kaṭalē niṇratuvum vēṇkaṭamē
pēr oṭam vaṇṇar peritu.*

Digging up the earth,<fnref n="6" /> lifting the mountain,<fnref n="7" /> prevailing over Kaṃsa,<fnref n="8" /> once to be feared, lying on the great ocean with water floods and standing on Vēṇkaṭam is what is great in the one of the colour of the great flood.

The poem revolves around two contrasting aspects of the same god, namely that of undertaking frightening actions (note *iṭantatu, eṭuttatu, kaṭantatu*) and that of complete inactivity (*kiṭantatu, niṇratu*). In the translation this contrast should have been made more explicit.

<footnote n="1">1 Eva Maria Wilden: *Manuscript, Print and Memory. Relics of the Caṇkam in Tamilnadu*. (Studies in Manuscript Cultures 3.) Berlin: de Gruyter 2014, p. 7.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 *Purāṇic Encyclopaedia. A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Purāṇic Literature*. Delhi/Patna/Varanasi: Motilal Banarsidass 1975.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Each individual *Antāti* is cited according to its author.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4 Here and in the following, my own explanatory additions stand in square brackets.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">5 See also Pūtam 13, 73 and Pēy 99. As already noted by Friedhelm Hardy, Periyāṅvār, another Vaiṣṇava Bhakti poet, is exceptional in including “the episode among the [Kṛṣṇaite] Vṛndāvana myths. Other Āvārs, like the *Purāṇas*, treat it separately from the whole *Kṛṣṇa-ca-rita* or even the *avatāra-cycle*” (Friedhelm Hardy: *Viraha-Bhakti. The Early History of Kṛṣṇa Devotion in South India*. Delhi: Oxford University Press 1983, p. 373; see also p. 637).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6 This refers to Viṣṇu's boar Avatāra, in which he rescued the goddess Earth from the sea.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">7 This refers to Kṛṣṇa's lifting of Mount Govardhana to shelter the cowherds against the rain.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">8 This refers to the tyrant Vṛṣṇi king in Mathurā whom Kṛṣṇa killed.</footnote>
Another example is Poykai 18:

nāṇra mulai talai nañc'uṇṭu<fnref n="9" /> uri venṇney
tōṇra uṇṭān venri cūl kaṇḍrai ūnri
porut'uṭaivu kaṇṭānum puṇṇin vāy kiṇṭānum
marut'iṭai pōy maṇ aṅlanta māl.

Wilden provides the following translation:

The one who ate poison from the drooping breast [of Pūtanā] (and) ate the butter when it appeared in the netting,<fnref n="10" /> he who, pressing down (and) fighting the bull elephant [= Kaṃsa's elephant Kuvalayāpīda] intent on victory, (finally) saw (it) break, and who tore the bird's [= Bakāsura's] mouth, is Māl [= Viṣṇu] who went between the myrobalan trees (and) measured the world.

The poem opens with references to five episodes from Kṛṣṇa's life as a small child and a youngster in Vṛndāvana and Mathurā, to conclude with describing how Viṣṇu covered the whole world in three steps (as Trivikrama). By linking the verbal participle phrase *marut'iṭai pōy*, “who went between the myrobalan trees”,<fnref n="11" /> to maṇ aṅlanta, “(and) measured the world”, instead of to *puṇṇin vāy kiṇṭānum*, “who tore the bird's mouth”, Wilden spoils the switch from Viṣṇu's Child-Kṛṣṇa Avatāra to another of his Avatāras, in which he covered, and took possession, of the whole world.

The two translations discussed here are exemplary of Wilden's approach: she combines the individual words as they come, with no eye for the narrative qualities of the texts. But her presentations of bare words produce problems of their own; see Poykai 38:

ūrum vari aravam oṭ kuṛavar māl yāṇai
pēra erinta peru maṇiyai kār uṭaiya
min enru puṛ'r'aṭaiyum věṅkaṭamē mēla curar
em ennum mālat' iṭam,
Věṅkaṭam, where the crawling striped snake perceives the big gem [maṇi], thrown by the illustrious hill people, so that the big elephant moves on, as lightning of the monsoon rain (and) reaches the ant hill, is the place of Māl of which the gods above say “ours”.

Instead of adding a footnote, in which she writes that there seem to be no parallels to the picture of hill people throwing jewels at elephants to scare them away from

their fields, Wilden might have had a closer look at the Tamil dictionaries. If she had, she would have discovered that maṇi does not only mean “gem, jewel” but also “bell”. It refers here to the bell hanging from the elephant's neck. Admittedly, the syntactical structure of the poem is far from simple. The snake (*aravam*) mentioned in the first line is the subject of the participle *aṭaiyum* in the third line, which concludes a passage describing Mount Věṅkaṭam. On this mountain a snake seeks shelter in an anthill when it sees the bell hanging from the neck of an elephant of the illustrious(?) (*ol*) hill people, which when it moves (*pēra*) produces a terrifying (*erinta*, literally “destroying”) noise.<fnref n="12" /> Snakes are believed to be afraid of thunder and lightning. The presumably metal bell hanging from the dark elephant's neck is compared to lightning (*min*) against the background of dark rain clouds (*kār*).

With the same ease with which Wilden creates a world with poor hill people throwing precious gems at elephants she creates her own grammar. According to her, the infinitive *ariya* “to know”, in Poykai 45 is actually a participial noun of the negative neuter plural, “things that are not known”, and *pātamattāl* would be an exceptional formation of *pātam*, in which the oblique suffix *-ttu* (*pātattu*, instrumental *pātattāl*) was added after *m*, instead of replacing this. Poykai 45 reads:

āmē amararkk'ariya atu nirka
nāmē arikīrpōm nal neñcē pūm mēya
mā tavattōn tāl paṇinta vāl arakkaṇ nīl muṭiyai
pātamattāl enṇiṇān paṇpu.

For this Wilden provides the following translation:

There are things not known to the immortals. Let that rest. We, we can know (them), good heart — (those) qualities of the one who counted with (his) feet the tall heads of the Rākṣasa with a sword who had humbled himself at the feet of the one with great penance who resides in the flower.

However, *ariya* is, and functions as, an infinitive<fnref n="13" /> and *pātamattāl* is not a word but a phrase *pātam attāl*, consisting of the noun followed by the third person singular pronoun, which carries the instrumental case ending. The pronoun

<footnote n="9">9 The apostrophe, corresponding more or less to an avagraha, has been introduced by Wilden in her transcription and retained here in citations from her book. Note that she has also dissolved sandhis (e. g., on p. 92 she writes *oṭ kuṛavar* where the Tamil text has *oṇ kuṛavar*), and has removed the glides y and v.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10 The “netting” (*uri*) is a kind of string bag holding a pot with milk or butter.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11 More accurately: “having gone between the [pair of] myrobalan trees”.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">12 Wilden translates the participle *erinta* before maṇi as “thrown”, which has led to her picture of thrown gems. However, the verb *eri* as used here should be compared with *eri* in *Purāṇūrī* 366,3: *araverīyu-rum* “thunder which destroys snakes”, and *eriyum* in *Purāṇūrī* 211,2–5: *araviṇ aruntalai tumiya ... eriyum aravam pōla muracu* “the sound of a *muracu* drum, like a terrifying (< destroying) noise, causing the hoods of snakes to split”. Obviously, Wilden has not looked for such parallels.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">13 Compare *āmē amararkk'ariya* with *enṇatūm ariya ākumō*, “what is there to know?” (*Aiṅkuṭurūrī* 366).</footnote>
attu is an alternative form to aḥtu (compare pattu/paḥtu “ten”), which is an alternative form of atu. Other instances of such phrases are on̆r̆um ataṇai (Pūtam 2) and pūmi ataṇai (Pēy 43) (at(u) + empty morph aṇ + accusative case ending):

The immortal gods are bound to know. That speaks for itself. But we [mortals] know it too, how with his feet he counted the elon-gated heads of the demon with the sword [= Rāvana] who bowed down before the feet of the great ascetic seated on the [lotus] flower [= Brahmā].

Because of such careless treatment of grammar Wilden seems ill-prepared for dealing with variant readings. In Poykai 36 things have gone wrong:

muraṇai vali tolaitaṛkʻām enrē muṇṇam
taraṇi taṇat' āka tāne iraṇiyaṇai
puṇ niranta vaļ ukirāl poṇ āli kaiyāl nī
maṇ irantu konṭa vakai.

Was it in order to destroy the strength of hostility, once when the earth was his alone, the manner you asked for yourself the earth, with (your) hand (that holds) the golden discus, with the sharp nails that had wounded Hiraṇya?

For *muraṇai*, one of the sources consulted has *muraṇa*. Whatever reasons Wilden may have had for preferring *muraṇai*, the accusative of *muraṇ* “opposition, fight”, above the infinitive *muraṇa* of the verb *muraṇ* “to be opposed”, it is the wrong choice. In this connection it should be noted that *tolaital* (*tolaitaṛku*) is an intransitive verb and therefore does not mean “to destroy” but “to be lost”. Another word in the text which deserves attention is *enrē*. Wilden did not know what to do with it. In a footnote she mentions three possibilities: an emphatic question mark (this is how she translates it, though in the glossary (p. 417) it is entered as the quotative particle), interrogative “when?” or a corruption of *anrē* “was it not?”. To this I would like to add a fourth, namely the use of the quotative particle meaning “especially, specifically”, found in particular after datives.<fnref n="14" /> For taking on Hiraṇyakaśipu Viṣṇu had assumed the ‘specific’ form of half man and half lion because the demon could not be beaten by either man or animal:

The way in which you asked Hiraṇya to hand over the earth to you, with sharp nails [on your paws] causing wounds and a golden discus in your hand, was specifically so that this demon's power (vali) to resist (muraṇa) — at that time he possessed the whole earth — was reduced (tolaitaṅku).

Wilden's translation of *yār mukappum* in Pūtam 50 with “before all people” is of the same order (my bolding):

aṇaippaṇ tirumālai aṅk'avarkaļ conṇa
pīlaipp'il perum peyarē pēci iļaipp'ariya
āyavaṇē yātavaṇē enr̆avai yār mukappum
māyavaṇē enr̆u matittu,

I invoke Tirumāl, saying the great names without fault, (as) spoken by those there — envisioning him who is addressed “o cowherd difficult to scrutinize, o Yātavan,” as Māyavaṇ **before all people**.

If I understand Wilden correctly, she takes “inclusive” *-um* (compare Skt *api*) in *mukappum* with *yār* to arrive at *yārum*, “everybody, anybody”: “before (*mukappu*)”<fnref n="15" /> all people (*yār* ... *um*), as if *yār mukappum* would be a construction similar to, for instance, *ellāt tolīlālarkaļum* “all workers,” *iru pālum* “(at) both sides”, or *evvuyirum/enta uyirum* “all living beings”, which it is not. It should furthermore be noted that the final *m* of *mukappum* is a reconstruction. The original Tamil text reads *mukappu māyavaṇ*, in which the *m* is supposed to have been lost due to Sandhi before the *m* of following *māyavaṇē*. However, if the construction *yār mukappum* does not exist, how do we fit in *yār mukappu* “before whom(?)”?

As I see it, with *yār mukappu* the poet indicates his wil-lingness to adapt his text to the tastes or linguistic agility of his imagined audience. If it is indeed about choices, it should be noted that the poet uses altogether three different names for Kṛṣṇa with three different origins, namely Tamil *āyavaṇ*, Sanskrit *yātavaṇ* and Tamil and Sanskrit *māyavaṇ* (see below). At the same time, while producing a Tamil text for Tamil speakers he pledges to use only names for Kṛṣṇa which were used by “the people there” (*aṅk'avarka*), evi-dently the people from mythical Vṛndāvana in North India, that is, Sanskrit country. This means that it would not do to use *āyavaṇ*, a pure Tamil name. Sanskrit *yātavaṇ*, on the other hand, would hurt the ears of the Tamil speaking audience. Compared to *māyavaṇ* it is a poor substitute, the latter being both Tamil (an alternative formation of Tamil *māyōṇ* “the god with the dark body”) and Sanskrit (via Tamil *māyam* it goes back to Sanskrit *māyā*, “illusion, magic”).<fnref n="16" />

<footnote n="14">14 Thomas Lehmann: *A Grammar of Modern Tamil*. Second edition. (Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture Publication 1.) Pondicherry: Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture 1993, p. 377; S. Ramakrishnan (ed.): *Kriyāviṇṭaṅkālati* *tamil-akarāti* (*tamil-tamil-aṅkilam*). Cre-A Dictionary of Contemporary Tamil (Tamil-Tamil-English). Second edition. Chennai: Cre-A Publishers 2008, p. 262. The occurrence of expressions known from Modern Tamil in classical texts obviously needs further study. Here, I may refer to *mēl* in *matiya* *mēl* “more than the moon” in *Puranāṇūru* 293,2, discussed on p. 293 of Herman Tieken: “Translating Tamil Caṇkam Poetry: Taking Stock”, *Orientalistische Literaturzeitung* 115 (2020): 287–303.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">15 For *mukappu* “before”, compare *naṇ kaṇ mukappē* “before our eyes” in Pūtam 69. See also verses 1, 4, and 6–9 in *Tēvāram* 7,25.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">16 Another instance of *māyavaṇ* is found in Poykai 80, where, as pointed out by Wilden (note 158 on p. 135), a reference to Kṛṣṇa's dark</footnote>
Then, whatever *ilaippu* is supposed to mean here, it is not Kṛṣṇa who is a “cowherd difficult to scrutinize”, but it is the very word *āyavaṇ* which is “difficult to / for *ilaippu*”.<fnref n="17" /> Furthermore, *ilaipp'ariya* would not only apply to *āyavaṇ*, but to *yātavaṇ* as well.

The situation as I understand it, may be summarised as follows: the poet intends to invoke Kṛṣṇa with names used by the people of Vṛndāvana. On the other hand, his audience consists of Tamil speakers. Given his aim to use Sanskrit/North-Indian names for Kṛṣṇa, on the one hand, and the fact that he is a Tamil poet addressing speakers of Tamil, on the other, he came up with the name *māyavaṇ*.

Unfortunately, it is not easy to produce a new translation of the poem which accounts for each and every word. However, the main point I want to make is that *yār mukap-pum* in Wilden's reconstructed text is a ghost formation.

In the following case, Poykai 35, one does not require any knowlegde of Tamil at all to see that Wilden's translation misses the point:

> Don't take amiss what has been said with affection by (your) servants of undiminished love. Was the hostility shown by the one with twice five heads [= Rāvaṇa] not clearly in order to reach the feet of you, Tall one?

In this translation there is a clear mismatch between the first and second parts. In the second part, the parable, Rāvaṇa's hostility is presented as a form of devotion, ending as it did with the defeated demon bowing down at Rāma's feet. It follows that the “servants” in the first part must likewise have acted in a way one does not expect of real devotees, which Viṣṇu is then asked to consider as an act of devotion.

The present volume is the third in a series of editions and translations of Tamil Vaiṣṇava Bhakti poetry published by the École française d'Extrême-Orient and Institut Français de Pondichéry, the first by Suganya Anandakichenin<fnref n="18" /> and the second by Lynn Ate.<fnref n="19" /> If both Anandakichenin and

Ate are reluctant to deal with philological matters,<fnref n="20" /> they are now outdone by, of all people, the editor-in-chief of the series. The present volume shows little interest on the part of the author in the poetic skills of the poet-saints, and in making the poetry accessible to the reader; it also applies too much of what I would call ad-hoc-ism, which eschews the labour of philological investigation.<fnref n="21" /> One may wonder how the publication in this form has managed to take the hurdle of peer-reviews.

<footnote>colour by *māyavaṇ* is preempted by the preceding *mā mēṇi* (*mā mēṇi māyavaṇukku*).</footnote>

<footnote n="17">17 The verb *ilaai* (*ilaittal*) underlying the noun *ilaippu* expresses a number of concrete activities such as “to spin, to construct, to grind into fine powder”, which are also used to describe mental activities such as “to deliberate, to turn over in one’s mind”. Possibly, *ilaippu* refers to the activity of analysing here. Compare Sanskrit *cūrṇi* – “pulverising”, used to refer to a certain type of commentary on Jaina canonical texts.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">18 *My Sapphire-hued Lord, my Beloved! A Complete, Annotated Translation of Kulacēkara Ālvār's Perumāl Tirumoli and of its Medieval Manipravāla Commentary by Periyavāccān Piññai with an Introduction.* (Collection Indologie 136. NETamil Series 2.) Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient / Pondicherry: Institut français de Pondichéry 2018.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">19 *Tirumaṅkai Ālvār's Five Shorter Works: Experiments in Literature. Annotated Translations with Glossary.* (Collection Indologie 140. NE-</footnote>

<footnote>Tamil Series 4.) Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient / Pondicherry: Institut français de Pondichéry 2019.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">20 See my comments on Anandakichenin's book at <https://web.archive.org/web/20200922165416/https://hermantieken.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/anandakichenin-perumal-tirumoli.pdf>. For Ate's book, see my review in *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland* Third Series 32 (2022): 487–493.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">21 A most illustrative case is that given in note 12 above.</footnote>