Dating from the early decades of the third century C.E., the Ainkurunuru
is believed to be the world's earliest anthology of classical Tamil love
poetry. Commissioned by a Cera-dynasty king and composed by five
masterful poets, the anthology illustrates the five landscapes of
reciprocal love: jealous quarreling, anxious waiting and lamentation,
clandestine love before marriage, elopement and love in separation, and
patient waiting after marriage.
Despite its centrality to literary and intellectual traditions, the
Ainkurunuru remains relatively unknown beyond specialists. Martha Ann
Selby, well-known translator of classical Indian poetry and literature,
takes the bold step of opening this anthology to all readers, presenting
crystalline translations of 500 poems dense with natural imagery and
early examples of South Indian culture. Because of their form's short
length, the anthology's five authors rely on double entendre and
sophisticated techniques of suggestion, giving their poems an almost
haikulike feel. Groups of verse center on one unique figure, in some
cases an object or an animal, in others a line of direct address or a
specific conversation or situation. Selby introduces each section with a
biographical sketch of the poet and the conventions at work within the
landscape. She then incorporates notes explaining shifting contexts.
Excerpt:
He has gone off all by himselfbeyond the wasteswhere tigers used to
prowland the toothbrush trees grow tall, their trunks parched, on the
flinty mountains,
while the lovely folds of your loins, wide as a chariot's seat, vanish
as your circlet worked from gold grows far too large for you.