War-Songs from the Tamil Classics

(Rendered from Tamil by Vidwan K. P. V. Krishnamacharya and S. Rangaswami)

[The following translations from the Pura-Nanuru, an ancient Tamil classical anthology, compiled many hundred years ago, illustrate the martial qualities of the Tamil-speaking races in Southern India, and may be read with interest in these war-ridden days.]

I

The o'erflowing floods, no sluice can stop;

The devastating fire, no safe refuge can avoid;

The stormy wind, even the mightiest cannot bear:

Even so is the red anger of the Pandya King’s warfare.

That the Tamil country is common land (to all the three kings) he will not accept.

Before his advancing host, only chiefs who yield tribute are bereft of fear.

They that have refused and lost his mercy are indeed to be pitied-for they resemble the winged white-ants escaping out of their red-ant hills for a brief day’s respite.

(Pura-Nanuru, Stanza 51)

II

Resting thine arm on a fine pillar in my little house,

Thou art asking me, "Madam! where is your dear son?" Wherever my son might be, I know naught of it.

The mountain-cave where the tiger had once sojourned knows as much now of the tiger’s haunt as my womb about my son.

In the battlefield only may’st thou meet him.

(Pura-Nanuru, Stanza 86)

III

Once the spouse of a bright-faced girl, the lamp of her house, This tall warrior stood with his conquering spear at the battlefield’s front.

His stone-image now brightens the war-camp, covered o’er with leaves,

In the small village whose dry fields show but the slender ‘nelli’ trees.

Himself subject and king alike of that barren hamlet,

He stands guard o’er the disarrayed forces, bearing their banner aloft.

A leader still he seems!

(Pura-Nanuru, Stanza 314)