Five Great Epics
Cīvaka Cintāmaṇi, Cilappathikāram, and Valayapathi were written by Tamil Jains, while the Manimekalai and Kundalakesi were authored by Buddhists.
Earlier works like the 17th-century poem Tamil vidu thoothu mention the great epics as Panchkavyams.
[4] These five epics were written between the 5th to 10th centuries and act and provide historical information about the society, religions, culture and academic life of Tamil people over that period.
It is a poem of 5,730 lines in almost entirely akaval (aciriyam) meter and is a tragic love story of a wealthy couple, Kannaki and her husband Kovalan.
[14] Kovalan sells it to a merchant who grows suspicious of the stranger and falsely accuses of theft of the queen' jeweled anklet which is also missing.
Kannaki curses the king and the people of Madurai, tears off her left breast and throws it at the gathered public.
The royal family of the Chera kingdom learns about her, resolves to build a temple with Kannaki as the featured goddess.
They go to the Himalayas, bring a stone, carve her image, call her goddess Pattini, dedicate a temple, order daily prayers, and perform a royal sacrifice.
One angel helps her magically disappear to an island while the prince tries to chase her, grants her powers to change forms and appear as someone else.
The king and queen learn of their son's death, order the arrest of Manimekalai, arrange a henchman to kill her.
She goes to goddess Kannaki temple in Vanci (Chera kingdom), prays, listens to different religious scholars, and practices severe self-denial to attain Nirvana (release from rebirths).
[18][19] Cīvaka Cintāmaṇi, an epic of the 10th century CE was written by Thiruthakka Thevar, a Jain monk.
[10][20] The epic begins with the story of a treacherous coup, where the king helps his pregnant queen escape in a peacock-shaped air machine but is himself killed.
He excels in war and peace, kills his enemies, wins over and marries every pretty girl he meets, then regains the kingdom his father had lost.
After enjoying power, sex and begetting many sons with his numerous wives, he renounces the world and becomes a Jain ascetic.
[10][21] The Kundalakesi epic has partially survived into the modern age in fragments, such as in commentaries written centuries later.
[25] The available content and the commentaries that mention Valayapathi, suggest that it was partly a jain text that disputed and criticized other Indian religions,[26] that it supported the ideologies found in early Jainism, such as asceticism, horrors at meat consumption, and monastic aversion to women.
[27] Cilappatikāram, the Tamil epic is defined by Atiyarkkunallar as Iyal icai nāṭaka poruḷ toṭar nilai ceyyuḷ (இயல் இசை நாடக பொருள் தொடர் நிலை செய்யுள்), poems connected by content that unites with elements of poetry, music and drama.
In Mayilainathar's commentary (14th century CE) on the grammar Naṉṉūl, there is the first mention of aimperumkappiyam, the five great epics of Tamil literature.
[33] Swaminatha Iyer faced difficulties in interpretation, missing leaves, textual errors and unfamiliar terms.
[19] The story of Maṇimēkalai with all its superficial elements seems to be of lesser interest to the author whose aim was pointed toward spread of Buddhism.
Maṇimēkalai criticizes Jainism and preaches the ideals of Buddhism, and human interest is diluted in supernatural features.
[35] There are effusions in Cilappatikāram in the form of a song or a dance, which does not go well with the Western audience as they are assessed to be inspired on the spur of the moment.
[36] Calcutta review claims that the three works on a whole have no plot and insufficient length characterization for an epic genre.
[35] They believe plot of Cīvaka Cintāmaṇi is monotonous and deficient in variety in strength and character and does not stand the quality of an epic.
