Like the family
that intercepts the couple
and attacks the bull in its path,
the people of
victorious Maturai city
intercept the river
to bathe in its stream.
Along the river,
standing in rows,
some whirl shining pith swords,
others wield glittering pith lances.
Lines 83–104
Some mount strong chariots
decorated with flags
driven by charioteers
holding sticks,
others muddy the waters
with their horses, swift as birds,
and elephants adorned with gold.
Some splash coloured water,
others squirt those
shooting them with water-funnels.
Some spray water from
roughly chiselled animal horns
at those swirling fragrant garlands.
Women in crafted garlands frolic with their friends.
If this beautiful sight
were to be described,
the Vaiyai’s centre
would be the battlefield
of the one who captures horses
with his leaping chariots.
Men with bathing ornaments,
women with breasts like mountains
Lines 105–26
wear fragrant garlands dripping with honey
and matching adornments.
Women wear finely crafted chains
fastened with clasps;
sipping fresh, sweet liquor,
intoxicated, their desire growing,
they make love like the Naka people
who perform good deeds
that yield riches,
drinking in each other’s beauty
with their eyes,
their aroused ears sated
by sweet music set to meter.
In the twinkling sky
the dwelling place of the celestials,
the chariots are on the move,
reflected in your waters.
O Vaiyai, it is your nature
to be muddy in the rains
and clear in the summer.
In the early winter mist,
people tremble in the cold;
Lines 127–48
the clouds no longer
resound with thunder.
In the chilly month of Pirkulam,
during the final rains,
the sun does not scorch.
On the day of Atirai,
when the specked moon
becomes large
the priests
who know the vast books
begin the festival.
The Brahmins,
with their tied threads,
hold golden offering plates.
Young girls with well-crafted bangles
pray, ‘May the wide world not wither with heat,’
as they bathe beside their mothers—
the elderly women showing them how to practise the rites.
Bathing at cold daybreak,
chilly winds blowing along
the river’s sandy banks,
Lines 149–69
they proceed to circle the fire
whose flickering flames bend,
tended according to the scriptures
by the Brahmins, reciters of the Vedas,
who dwell on the banks.
There, the lovely women dry their clothes.
O Vaiyai, may this oblation serve you well.
Little boys play in the river,
with ink-stained palm leaves,
pretending they are poets.
Seeing this,
little girls, with their friends,
mimic the older girls in love,
frolicking in make-believe.
O Vaiyai River,
is it their penance
by the burning fire,
subduing their senses,
that now allows
these young women,
to bathe beside their mothers
in the month of Tai?
Lines 170–91
Tell me.
In this place,
she whose shoulders
are more beautiful than bamboo
places dark blue flowers
behind her ear.
She stares at another lovely woman.
The other woman places
colourful shoots of acoku
behind her ear.
The colour of the shoots
makes the other woman’s
dark blue flowers
light up like the morning sun.
She says,
‘That one, whose ears
are decorated with earrings,
appears like she has
another pair of eyes.’
Hearing this,
another woman marks her forehead with tilakam
so she looks like Korravai,
the fierce goddess with many eyes.
Seeing a woman wearing coral bangles,
another woman fashions a bracelet out of
fresh stalks of the kuvalai.
Seeing a woman braid a garland of white kallakaram flowers,
another woman braids a garland of neytal flowers,
interspersed with mallika,
as if telling the other, ‘Stop!’
In the rushing Vaiyai waters,
he holds the stalk of a banana tree as a raft.
Seeing her,
the rapid waters sweep away his hands,
just like she sweeps away his heart;
his raft sweeps him away even further.
His eyes
are mesmerized by the spot where
the beautifully adorned one stands;
Lines 211–30
but the water, flowing as it pleases,
sweeps him away
from the place that keeps him riveted.
She breaks away from her friends, to follow him.
But her mother,
not knowing of her daughter’s love,
stops her, saying,
‘Do not be alone, go back to your friends.’
The rushing red Vaiyai waters,
in the midst of the rains,
make her cry.
‘Unlike those red waters,
you, waters of the Tai month,
are clear and good,’
they say.
‘May we attain excellence,
so that our lovers will never
remove the arms
they place around
our necks
to embrace us,’
they say.
Lines 231–52
‘May our lovers never leave us,
like bees seeking other flowers.
May we not be lonely, but happy always,’
they say.
‘May we reach the twilight of our days with our husbands.
May the world never call us old, may we stay young,
our family and fortune close to us,’
they say.
‘Look at the beautiful woman,
who smites those who behold her.
‘Look at her.
‘Look at her eyes—
the love god’s treasure trove
and his weapons,’
they say.
‘Listen,
the sound of the bees
resembles the music of the yal.
‘They swarm around
flowers laden with blue honey
decorating women’s hair,
Lines 253–73
‘flying undeterred,
even though the women
flick them away,’
they say.
‘The colourful bees sing songs
whose melody is like
the music of the pālai
but whose meaning is unclear.
‘Listen,’
they say.
‘Look
at the dance of teeming bees,
their wings spread out,
singing the yama melody
to accompanying rhythms,’
they say.
‘Look,
the black bee approaches
the flower it desires,
‘but another bee,
with an angry heart,
and much hissing,
Lines 274–95
rushes towards it
with burning rage.
‘Look,’
they say.
O Vaiyai,
praised by Paripāṭal,
the song of
graceful, sweet music.
In your abundant fragrant waters, beloved of the people,
that produce desire
for girls with glittering ornaments
and lustrous foreheads
who are not yet ripe for love,
we relish our bathing rites
in the month of Tai
because of our past virtue.
May we continue
to relish these rites
in you
again.
Lines 296–315
Paripāṭal XII
‘More Lovely Than Their Words Was the River, With Its Bathers’
Winds strike the clouds
creating lightning
and darkness.
Cloud clusters
surround the western mountains,
raining relentlessly.
Carrying flowers
scattered on the slopes,
waters afflict
nakam, the tree named for the snake
fearsome with its shiny spots,
fragrant akaru,
valai, ñemai and aram.
Carrying takaram, ñalal and taram
waters rush
like wind,
like vast
approaching
waters of the ocean.
Lines 1–19
Men
hear the beautiful Vaiyai has come,
crashing against Maturai’s city walls,
bringing flowers,
wearing ornaments glittering like lightning
and gold engraved with flowers.
They remove sandalwood paste from their bodies;
they smear, instead, well-smoked akil paste.
Women
braid their locks of hair, dark as clouds,
adorned with flowers tied with fragrant roots,
garbed in saris,
necks laced in strung necklaces with clasps.
In a mirror
cleaned with fragrant ghee and fine powders,
they glimpse themselves.
Their reflections reveal
natural beauty,
well-tended faces
and the glow
that comes from making love.
They eat scented betel nut.
Other women wear crafted bangles,
armbands on their shoulders,
Lines 20–43
anklets
and garlands of flowers
dripping with honey.
They sprinkle their bodies
with perfumes whose scents
travel one ocanai.
Women mount gentle trotting horses
or, like swans, sit atop female elephants;
Men mount chariots with clear-sounding bells,
drawn by horses goaded by prods,
or sit atop male elephants.
Crowds and crowds,
rushing, rushing,
frolicking so beautifully
everywhere.
The Vaiyai waters arrive, ushered by the praises of the people
of Kutal.
The crowds that have gathered appear like the banks of the
river.
Waters rise above the banks
as if drinking the flood
of love
Lines 44–63
overflowing from the hearts
of those watching.
In the shallow waters
of Munrurai,
people in clusters
speak at the same time
unrelated words.
Who, indeed, could hear them all clearly?
As for us, we could only catch snippets.
Look at the dancing women,
accompanied by flute music,
measuring rhythms of the
mattari drum
tatari drum
tannumai drum
mulavu drum
with their slender hands;
none prepared to stand in another’s shadow.
‘O friend, where is her pride?
After enjoying her beautiful shoulders,
her husband left her for a graceless mistress.
Lines 64–84
‘Yet, with no dignity left,
she mounted the tall black elephant
with him, her dear one,
in the fresh, abundant waters,’
they say.
‘In the crowds,
he sees the slender woman’s
round breasts.
‘What a fickle-minded fellow
with a tender heart,’
they say.
‘She rejected his gifts and words
yet she blushes and loses her heart
to another—a wayfarer she does not know.
‘Even if she is in love,
we cannot accept this,
fearing for our chastity,’
they say.
‘Saying he wanted to see
her necklace,
he stared at her breasts.
‘Yet, this woman
is not ashamed,’
they say.
Lines 85–108
A beautiful woman gives him a sweet look.
His wife, seeing this happen,
strikes him with her fragrant garland
as if it were a stick.
With the chain around her neck
she ties up his hand
twisting tightly, tightly,
saying, ‘You have done wrong.’
They say, ‘Look at the one who cannot see his own
mistake.’
So, his wife explains,
‘She looked at you—
you must have given her
a false promise of your love.’
He retorts,
‘I do not know her,
who looked at me,
whom you say
I deceived with words.’
The soft-natured one says, ‘Promiser of lies.’
She stands sullenly,
refusing his embraces
as he tries to placate her.
Lines 109–30
To stop her sulking
he rebukes her in anger.
So she throws her squirt,
full of fragrant coloured water,
on his chest.
With a troubled mind,
and an aching heart,
he falls to the ground
covered in blood-like water.
It flows like a wound
caused by a vel
on his chest,
the target of her
piercing eyes,
lined with collyrium.
His wife fears she has
wounded him—
suddenly, her wrath is gone.
She runs back to her
husband’s beautiful chest.
The Vaiyai’s waters, always strong, make this happen.
And there,
the waters crash against the banks,
Lines 131–53
fragrant with
mallika, mauval,
fragrant canpakam,
alli, kalunir, aravintam and ampal,
kullai, vakulam, kurukkatti and patiri,
nakam with clusters of flowers,
naravam and cu
rapunnai.
The waters
contained in
the wide rocky dam
are muddy.
In the enchanting,
thick, dark evening,
the waters become clear again,
reflecting the celestial worlds above.
When the night is vanquished
by the breaking dawn,
the waters become murky
like blood
in the river
that belongs to the one
whose armies are victorious in battle.
Wearing the shining
red mastwood flower
behind her ear,
Lines 154–78
like a crafted earring
smelted in fire
glowing deep red,
quivering like a creeper
with blooming flowers,
she walks over his footprints,
then steps aside,
raising her slender arms,
adorned with bracelets,
to adjust the flowers
on her head.
Look at the good woman and her lover.
The old city was filled with their words:
‘Waters brimmed with aqueous gems
as if they were flower patterns on cloth.’
More lovely than their words
was the river, with its bathers—
each one uniquely beautiful.
The sand is slushy
from sandal paste
dripping from chests.
Lines 179–99
Water drips from their clothes.
The banks look like the rains have come.
In these festivities, the Vaiyai is so beautiful,
heaven appears to lose some of its charm.
Joy and beauty
in the tumultuous old city;
goodness
goodness
goodness!
O Vaiyai, this wide world cannot contain your glory.
Lines 200–09
Paripāṭal XVI
‘The Vaiyai Makes Her Blush’
The banks:
upon it, the river scatters many good things
like a benevolent king
whose hands are strong in giving.
Pepper and sandalwood
from mountain peaks that caress the clouds
that foam like curds churning into butter;
many good things
littered everywhere.
The shallow waters:
the cloudy waters, swirling to the right,
bring ornaments,
strings of jewels enlaced with pearls—
pearls from headdresses
glittering with gold and gems—
and headdresses of children
with tender heads
who have left their homes,
Lines 1–18
until they reach the place
where the women
with lined eyes
bathe with their lovers.
The fields:
full of water,
blooming flowers float in the flow,
resembling the stage on a festival day,