page_title: Silappatikaram
section_title: Author
hierarchical_section_title: Silappatikaram / Author
caption_attribution_description: English: Sculpture of Ilango in Poompuhar [Puhar] - TamilNadu - India
context_page_description: Cilappatikāram, also referred to as Silappathikaram or Silappatikaram, is the earliest Tamil epic. It is a poem of 5,730 lines in almost entirely akaval meter. The epic is a tragic love story of an ordinary couple, Kannaki and her husband Kovalan. The Silappathikaram 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 Naṟṟiṇai and later texts such as the Kovalam Katai. It is attributed to a prince-turned-monk Iḷaṅkõ Aṭikaḷ, and was probably composed about 5th- or 6th-century CE.
  The Cilappatikaram is set in a flourishing seaport city of the early Chola kingdom. Kannaki and Kovalan are a newly married couple, in love, and living in bliss. Over time, Kovalan meets Matavi – a courtesan. He falls for her, leaves Kannaki and moves in with Matavi. He spends lavishly on her. Kannaki is heartbroken, but as the chaste woman, she waits despite her husband's unfaithfulness. During the festival for Indra, the rain god, there is a singing competition. Kovalan sings a poem about a woman who hurt her lover. Matavi then sings a song about a man who betrayed his lover.
context_section_description: The Tamil tradition attributes Silappatikaram to the pseudonym Iḷaṅkõ Aṭikaḷ ("the venerable ascetic prince"), also spelled Ilango Adigal. He is reputed to be the brother of Chera king Cenkuttuvan, whose family and rule are described in the Fifth Ten of the Patiṟṟuppattu, a poem of the Sangam literature. In it or elsewhere, however, there is no evidence that the famous king had a brother. The Sangam poems never mention Ilango Adigal, the epic or the name of any other author for the epic. The Ilango Adigal name appears in a much later dated patikam (prologue) attached to the poem, and the authenticity of this attribution is doubtful. According to Gananath Obeyesekere, the story of the purported Silappadikaram author Ilango Adigal as the brother of a famous Chera king "must be later interpolations", something that was a characteristic feature of early literature.
  The mythical third section about gods meeting Kannaki after Kovalan's death, in the last Canto, mentions a legend about a prince turned into a monk. This has been conflated as the story of the attributed author as a witness. However, little factual details about the real author(s) or evidence exist. Given the fact that older Tamil texts mention and allude to the Kannaki's tragic love story, states Parthasarathy, the author was possibly just a redactor of the oral tradition and the epic poem was not a product of his creative genius. The author was possibly a Jaina scholar, as in several parts of the epic, the key characters of the epic meet a Jaina monk or nun. The epic's praise of the Vedas, Brahmins, inclusion of temples, Hindu gods and goddesses and ritual worship give the text a cosmopolitan character, and to some scholars evidence to propose that author was not necessarily a Jaina ascetic.
  According to Ramachandra Dikshitar, the ascetic-prince legend about Ilango Adigal as included in the last canto of Silappadikaram is odd. In the epic, Ilango Adigal attends a Vedic sacrifice with the Chera king Cenkuttuvan after the king brings back the Himalayan stone to make a statue of Kannaki. If the author Ilango Adigal was a Jain ascetic, and given our understanding of Jainism's historic view on the Vedas and Vedic sacrifices, why would he attend a function like the Vedic sacrifice, states Ramachandra Dikshitar. This, and the fact that the epic comfortably praises Shaiva and Vaishnava lifestyle, festivals, gods and goddesses, has led some scholars to propose that author of this epic was a Hindu.
  Ilango Adigal has been suggested to be a contemporary of Sattanar, the author of Manimekalai. However, evidence for such suggestions has been lacking.
caption: Statues and reliefs of Ilango Adigal are found in India and Sri Lanka. He is believed to be the author of Silappatikaram.[19]
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:11:04 15:12:20", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4951", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1800"}