On August 31st, on Podigai TV, a speaker discussing the Tamil epic Manimagalai claimed that Madavi, in an effort to protect her daughter from ‘evil work’ (Tiithozhil), encouraged her to become a Buddhist nun rather than getting married. This speaker, whose name I unfortunately forgot but who is a professor, also stated that Sithalai Sattanar, the author of Manimagalai, advanced women’s rights more than Ilangovadigal, the author of Silappadhikaram. It was noted that despite being a prostitute who lured Kovalan away from Kannagi, Madavi sought to prevent her daughter from inheriting the same profession by promoting celibacy. The speaker suggested that ‘Thithozhil’ in Tamil referred to a profession like sex work rather than marriage. If it referred to marriage, it would imply Sithalai Sattanar was against the institution itself. Considering the social context of the time, where prostitutes (often temple women or ‘devadasis’ who were concubines rather than engaging in modern prostitution) were not allowed to marry, Madavi would have preferred her daughter become a nun if marriage was not an option. I am not sure whether Madhavi’s intention was for her daughter to avoid spoiling a family as her relationship with Kovalan did. It’s possible that Madhavi, having heard of Kovalan’s death at the hands of the King of Madurai, might have encouraged her daughter to become a nun out of a spirit of penitence. However, we cannot be certain of her exact intentions. It’s important to note that she would not have considered marriage itself as an evil institution.
Although I have not read Manimagalai, interpreting ‘Thithozhil’ as sex work seems reasonable given Madhavi’s background. It is troubling how some Tamil speakers interpret ancient texts with such liberties. Many people who do not engage deeply with Tamil literature may accept these interpretations without questioning their accuracy.
This issue was highlighted again by the same speaker in his retelling of the story of Solomon settling a dispute between two mothers claiming the same child. He claimed the original mother, being poor, gave her child to another woman and later sought to reclaim her child upon seeing the other woman become wealthy. However, the Muktiveda does not include these details about poverty and wealth. This indicates that such speakers often add personal interpretations or embellishments to make stories more engaging, but this practice undermines their credibility.
This problem of ‘text torture’ is widespread in Indian literature, where oral traditions often overshadow textual fidelity. The Indian approach values the truth or principle over the precise details or the context in which they were said. This allows speakers and writers considerable freedom to distort texts.
While Velcheru Narayana Rao’s critique of Pauranikas’@ interpretations is insightful, modern speakers, who are well-versed in historical and textual contexts, should be held to higher standards. Even if text manipulation is part of the tradition, care should be taken when interpreting texts from other faiths, respecting their original context and interpretation.
Dayanand Bharati, Gurukulam, September 4, 2010.
Notes
@ PURANA, Velcheru Narayana Rao. Pp. 97-115 in Sushil Mittal & and Gene Thursby, The Hindu World, New York, [2004] Reprint 2018,
….no Purana text is ever read from cover to cover and that a Purana performer chooses sections and interprets them appropriately to the occasion and the audience. This also underscores the fact that part of the problem modern readers face in tnterpreting the Puranas is that protocols of reading have changed, and we read every page and every line subjecting them to a uniform valence based on one-dimensional textual linearity….—p. 105
…As serious classical scholars trained in Latin and Greek, the colonial scholars expected the Puranas to be concrete written texts with the usual corruption that result from centuries of use. Little were they prepared to encounter a tradition whose result concept of text is very different from their own, where texts interact with their oral discourses and where pauranikas move through these texts with unfathomable conventions, and whose practices appeared to Western eyes to be verging on forgery, interpolation and textual manipulation. Lack of communication between the two groups of scholars—the Western Indologists and the native panditas-developed into irresolvable suspicion of each other’s methods. As for the colonial scholar, ancient India was great, it was only contemporary India that was rotten. This belief led to their perception that the texts deteriorated in the hands of ignorant transmitters. The ancient texts were magnificent, but the Purāņas we have at hand are corrupted.—p. 110 [Indologist, oral tradition, India]
…The textual activities of this culture- production, transmission, performance, and reproduction, which includes the training of the pauranikas, the principles and methods of text creation they employed, and the rules governing such activities-need to be properly understood. In the absence of such an understanding, texts collected from their original locations and stacked in the air-conditioned rooms of libraries and studied in isolation could only give a distorted picture. The Purana culture where hundreds and even thousands of paurāņikas served as silent authors without claiming individual recognition-all speaking in the voice of the revered Vyasa over such a long period of time in the history of India awaits to be properly understood.—p. 115 [Indologist, Purana, text]
On August 31st, on Podigai TV, a speaker discussing the Tamil epic Manimagalai claimed that Madavi, in an effort to protect her daughter from ‘evil work’ (Tiithozhil), encouraged her to become a Buddhist nun rather than getting married. This speaker, whose name I unfortunately forgot but who is a professor, also stated that Sithalai Sattanar, the author of Manimagalai, advanced women’s rights more than Ilangovadigal, the author of Silappadhikaram. It was noted that despite being a prostitute who lured Kovalan away from Kannagi, Madavi sought to prevent her daughter from inheriting the same profession by promoting celibacy. The speaker suggested that ‘Thithozhil’ in Tamil referred to a profession like sex work rather than marriage. If it referred to marriage, it would imply Sithalai Sattanar was against the institution itself. Considering the social context of the time, where prostitutes (often temple women or ‘devadasis’ who were concubines rather than engaging in modern prostitution) were not allowed to marry, Madavi would have preferred her daughter become a nun if marriage was not an option. I am not sure whether Madhavi’s intention was for her daughter to avoid spoiling a family as her relationship with Kovalan did. It’s possible that Madhavi, having heard of Kovalan’s death at the hands of the King of Madurai, might have encouraged her daughter to become a nun out of a spirit of penitence. However, we cannot be certain of her exact intentions. It’s important to note that she would not have considered marriage itself as an evil institution.
Although I have not read Manimagalai, interpreting ‘Thithozhil’ as sex work seems reasonable given Madhavi’s background. It is troubling how some Tamil speakers interpret ancient texts with such liberties. Many people who do not engage deeply with Tamil literature may accept these interpretations without questioning their accuracy.
This issue was highlighted again by the same speaker in his retelling of the story of Solomon settling a dispute between two mothers claiming the same child. He claimed the original mother, being poor, gave her child to another woman and later sought to reclaim her child upon seeing the other woman become wealthy. However, the Muktiveda does not include these details about poverty and wealth. This indicates that such speakers often add personal interpretations or embellishments to make stories more engaging, but this practice undermines their credibility.
This problem of ‘text torture’ is widespread in Indian literature, where oral traditions often overshadow textual fidelity. The Indian approach values the truth or principle over the precise details or the context in which they were said. This allows speakers and writers considerable freedom to distort texts.
While Velcheru Narayana Rao’s critique of Pauranikas’@ interpretations is insightful, modern speakers, who are well-versed in historical and textual contexts, should be held to higher standards. Even if text manipulation is part of the tradition, care should be taken when interpreting texts from other faiths, respecting their original context and interpretation.
Dayanand Bharati, Gurukulam, September 4, 2010.
Notes
@ PURANA, Velcheru Narayana Rao. Pp. 97-115 in Sushil Mittal & and Gene Thursby, The Hindu World, New York, [2004] Reprint 2018,
….no Purana text is ever read from cover to cover and that a Purana performer chooses sections and interprets them appropriately to the occasion and the audience. This also underscores the fact that part of the problem modern readers face in tnterpreting the Puranas is that protocols of reading have changed, and we read every page and every line subjecting them to a uniform valence based on one-dimensional textual linearity….—p. 105
…As serious classical scholars trained in Latin and Greek, the colonial scholars expected the Puranas to be concrete written texts with the usual corruption that result from centuries of use. Little were they prepared to encounter a tradition whose result concept of text is very different from their own, where texts interact with their oral discourses and where pauranikas move through these texts with unfathomable conventions, and whose practices appeared to Western eyes to be verging on forgery, interpolation and textual manipulation. Lack of communication between the two groups of scholars—the Western Indologists and the native panditas-developed into irresolvable suspicion of each other’s methods. As for the colonial scholar, ancient India was great, it was only contemporary India that was rotten. This belief led to their perception that the texts deteriorated in the hands of ignorant transmitters. The ancient texts were magnificent, but the Purāņas we have at hand are corrupted.—p. 110 [Indologist, oral tradition, India]
…The textual activities of this culture- production, transmission, performance, and reproduction, which includes the training of the pauranikas, the principles and methods of text creation they employed, and the rules governing such activities-need to be properly understood. In the absence of such an understanding, texts collected from their original locations and stacked in the air-conditioned rooms of libraries and studied in isolation could only give a distorted picture. The Purana culture where hundreds and even thousands of paurāņikas served as silent authors without claiming individual recognition-all speaking in the voice of the revered Vyasa over such a long period of time in the history of India awaits to be properly understood.—p. 115 [Indologist, Purana, text]
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