Parimelalhagar
Parimelalhagar (c. 13th century CE), sometimes spelled Parimelazhagar, born Vanduvarai Perumal, was a Tamil poet and scholar known for his commentary on the Thirukkural.
[2][3] He was also among the five oldest commentators whose commentaries had been preserved and made available to the Modern era, the others being Manakkudavar, Pari Perumal, Kaalingar, and Paridhi.
[8] Parimelalhagar was born Vanduvarai Perumal[9] in Kancheepuram in the erstwhile Tondai state in a Vaishnavite Brahmin family and is believed to have lived during the late 13th century CE.
[14] In his venpa verse named "Valluvar seer", Umapathi Shivachariyar, a poet from the late 13th century, lists Parimel's commentary as one of the six greatest works ever in the Tamil language.
[10][14] In the introductory section of his commentary to Book III of the Kural, Parimel mentions King Bhoja (reigned c. 1010–1055 CE) from the Paramara dynasty and his work Shringara-Prakasha, which has been dated to early 11th century.
"[13] Additionally, an inscription on a plaque dating back to 1271 CE, which was erected in the 22nd year of the rule of the Telugu Chola King Vijayakanda Gopalan, mentions a land transaction done by Parimelalhagiya Dhadhan.
According to another tradition, Parimel is said to be a native of Kadayam in Tirunelveli district and that his master was Jenana Vira Iyer, who made his pupil a guru to the Nadar sect and gave him the name Parimelalhagar.
[16] Verses 1547 and 1548 of the Perunthirattu indicate that he was a political figure in the town of Okkur near Madurai in the Pandya Kingdom,[13][17] for which he was known as "Okkai Kavalan" (lit.
[16] The word usage that he employed in his Kural commentary (as in couplet 650) appears to be the colloquial version of the language spoken in Tirunelveli district even today.
[18] He had a good understanding of Agama, Siddhanta and Vedanta, which are considered vital to unravel the riches of the Tirukkural, which helped him do justice to his commentary.
[19][20] When Parimel chose to write a literary criticism, he analysed in depth the works of the previous nine commentators who lived before his time and eliminated the flaws found in those earlier commentaries.
[13][17] While a staunch devotee of Vishnu, Parimel practiced religious tolerance and treated other religions of his time with equal respect.
[24] Parimel was highly successful in reflecting all the poetic nuances found in Valluvar's thought in prosaic form in his commentary.
In Chapters 77 (Army) and 78 (Valour) of Book II, Parimel explicates the puram (outer actions or objective) genre of Tamil literature, which can be observed especially from his elaborations to kurals 771, 773, and 774.
[34][35] His expertise spanned across fields such as ethics, linguistics, philosophy, mathematics, poetry, logic, metaphysics, theology, politics, music, and medicine.
[39] The following table depicts the variations among the early commentators' ordering of, for example, the first ten verses of the Tirukkural.
[42] Spelling, homophonic, and other minor textual variations between Manakkudavar and Parimelalhagar commentaries are found in several verses such as couplets 139, 256, 317, and 445.
[47] The following table lists the variations between ordering of chapters in Book I by Manakkudavar (the oldest of the Medieval commentators) and that by Parimelalhagar (the latest).
[47][48] Being the last of the Ten medieval commentators, Parimel had the unique opportunity to study in depth all the previous commentaries and imbibe the ideas in them.
[45] His grammar notes and linguistic explanations found in his commentary on couplets 2, 6, 11, 15, 16, 17, 22, 29, 36, 39, 41, 43, 48, 49, 66, 141, 147, 148, 167, 171, 177, 178, 180, 261, 378, and 381 are but examples of his extraordinary command of the Tamil language.
[56] The Sanskrit works that separately deal with the dharma, artha, and kama aspects of the Purushartha are appropriately mentioned across his commentary.
[11][26][79] This led to several scholars writing more simplified commentaries to Parimel's exegesis in order to bring the work to the general audience.
[26][79] Some of these "commentaries to the Commentary"[6] include Nunporulmaalai by Thirumeni Rathna Kavirayar;[26][80] the works of Saravanaperumal Iyer,[80] Murugesa Mudaliyar,[80] and Ramanuja Kavirayar;[26] and the explanatory notes by K. Vadivelu Chettiar (1919),[26][80] Arasan Shanmuganar,[80] Krishnampettai K. Kuppusamy Mudaliar (1924),[18] V. M. Gopala Krishnamacharya,[80] and Chinnasamy Rajendiran (2018).
[21] Sundaram also hints that Parimel begins each chapter of the Kural in his commentary by citing a reason for its placement in the sequence by him.
[84] Parimel is criticised by some Dravidianists of the contemporary era for interpreting certain verses of the Kural text in a more Brahmanical way.
[87] Critics consider Parimel's way of defining aram (virtue) in the earlier parts of his work as flawed[88] and denounce his explanations to couplets 37 and 501, accusing him of imbibing more ideas from the Sanskrit literature.
Scholars opine that the content and structural integrity of the Kural literature remained unsullied over the centuries chiefly because of Parimel's commentary to the text.
[85] T. P. Meenakshisundaram stated that without the "boat" of Parimel's commentary, the import of the Kural text would not have made it to the modern era "past the dark seas of the intervening centuries".
[8] According to Mohan and Sokkalingam, the subtlety of the Parimel commentary is such that not a single word can be added or removed from it without tampering with its literary richness and clarity.
[81] In the words of Chinnasamy Rajendiran, author of one of the simplified commentaries on Parimel's exegesis, while the Tirukkural is an "awe-inspiring mountain", Parimelalhagar is "a kindly guide who offers his hand to seekers to help them scale its peaks".
