Cilappadikaram: The Anklet as the Hero/Villain in an unusual epic-play in Tamil

Speaker: Professor Indira Parthasarathy, noted Tamil writer and playwright. He is best known for his plays, "Aurangzeb", "Nandan Kathai" and "Ramanujar".  Awarded the Saraswati Samman (1999), Sahitya Akademi Award (1999) and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (2004) and Padma Shri (2010) 

 

Chair: Shri P.A. Krishnan, retired Government office and an eminent writer and columnist

 

‘Cilappadikaram' (5th century ACE) is an unusual work in the sense it is an epic, play and a cultural document. The title of the play (' The anklet story') is not named after the protagonist of the story but after her anklet. It proves to be the agent of destiny for the protagonist, her husband, the Pandya king of Madurai and also for all the North Indian kings, who had earlier insulted the three Tamil kings of Chera, Chola and Pandya kingdoms. Perhaps, it is one of the earliest  political epic-play in the Indian literary history