¹Fò ðÂõ™ ªî£°F 02 Þî› 04 Ü‚.

2010

K annagi’s Pl
uck e d Bre ast: A Ge nde r
Pe rspe ctive
SEETH A VIJAYA K UM A R
“The greatness of Cilappatikâram lies in the fact that every time one reads it,
one finds new areas for analysis and understanding”.1
“You can’t talk of a female sexuality, uniform, homogenous, classifiable into
codes.” 2

Kan@n@aki- the heroine of the Cilappatikâram is hailed as the symbol of

chastity in Tamil culture. The Cilappatikâram is the story of Kan@n@aki, the
daughter of a wealthy merchant from Pukār, who was married to Kôvalan\,
the son of another trader in the same city. Written probably in the fifth 3
century BC by Il@an^kô At@ikal@ (Ascetic Prince), a Jain monk, it is regarded as
the first literary work of epic stature in Tamil. This epic is divided into three
books (Kān@t @ams) and each book in turn is divided into Cantos (kātais) with
a total of 57304 lines. The first book describes the life of the hero Kôvalan\
Kan@n@aki- the heroine of
and the heroine Kan@n@aki in the city of Pukār, the capital of the Chola
the Cilappatikâram is
country. Hence it is called Pukārkāndam, or The Book of Pukar. The second
hailed as the symbol of
book, Maturaikānt@am, or The Book of Maturai, deals with the catastrophic
chastity in Tamil culture
events in their life in the city of Maturai, the capital of the Pandya Kingdom.
The third book Va n~c ikāndam, or The Book of Va n~ c i, portrays the
consecration of the shrine of Ka n@ n@ a ki/Patti n\ i by the Chera king
Sen^kut@t @uvan in Van~ci, the capital of the Chera country. In the Pukārkānt@am
or the book of Pukār, Kan@n@aki appears in the role of a wife; good,
benevolent, dutiful and controlled. But in Maturaikānt@am, or The Book of
Maturai, she plucks her breast and burns the city of Maturai into ashes.

What is the real motive behind Kan@n@aki’s action of plucking her breast?

If it is a symbolic gesture, then how will we understand/theorize it from a

gender/feminist point of view? This gesture of Kan@na@ ki’s is of immense
interpretative potential mainly because of two reasons: Firstly, in the epic
Cilappatikâram, Kan@n@aki is attributed with all the qualities of a perfect and
faithful wife who never even dares to question Kōvalan\’s adulterous
behaviour. The epic portrays her as “Lakshmi of praise worthy form, seated
on the lotus, and her excellence is that of the faultless northern star
(Arundhati)”.5 Secondly, then how can we understand an ideal wife openly
expressing her sexual energy after her husband’s death, at the most critical
moment of her life? Kan@na@ ki reacts violently:

I curse this capital who did wrong to my beloved husband. I am not

to blame…Then she twisted off her left breast with her hand, and
 Se e th a Vijayak um ar ¹Fò ðÂõ™ 70

going round the city of Madurai thrice making this vow, in deep
anguish, she threw that beautiful breast whirling into the fragrant
street. Before this illustrious lady who had made this vow, appeared
the god of fire, with flames6

I consider this one of the most startling and unique scenes from an
ancient text or in Indian mythology. Here we have a woman who is praised
for extreme devotion to her husband and for ideal forms of behaviour, but at
the same time uses female energy to question the mistakes of an unjust king.
Our Ancient Sanskrit texts, vernacular writings, and oral traditions describe
the ideal woman as the one who does not endeavor to break the bonds of
control; who never conveys her sexuality in whatever context. We are also
familiar with the popular notion of the ideal wife as someone who does
household chores like a servant, gives counsel like a minister, is as beautiful
and charming as the goddess Lakshmi, is as patient as the earth-goddess,
bestows love and tenderness like a mother, and gives pleasure like a
courtesan. She could attain moksha or salvation only through her unflinching
service and support to her husband, irrespective of his unacceptable
Here we have a woman
behaviour. Chastity for women is clearly defined and explained by patriarchy
who is praised for extreme
while the institution of extramarital relationships for men is open and permitted.
devotion to her husband
As Foucault observes in The History of Sexuality, sexuality must not be
and for ideal forms of
seen as a drive but “as an especially dense transfer point for relations of
behaviour, but at the
power”.7 Here too, Kôvalan\ abandons Kan@n@aki and begins to live with
same time uses female
Mātavi, a beautiful and talented dancer. In those heartbreaking moments of
energy to question the
hers, she follows the footsteps of our pativratas, does nothing but resorts
mistakes of an unjust
to ‘waiting’! The ‘waiting woman’ has been one of the dominant stereotypical
king
images of ancient stories, songs and anecdotes and serves as a watchdog in
differentiating pure/impure woman.

When Kôvalan\ leaves, Kan@n@aki waits for him patiently as expected from
a chaste and obedient wife:

But Kan@n@aki was sad at heart. Her anklet was no more on her
charming feet; the girdle no longer graced her soft waist-cloth; her
breasts were no more painted with vermilion paste; no jewel other
than her sacred tâli did she wear; no ear-rings were visible on her
ears; no perspiration adorned her shining moon-like eyes; no more
was there the tilaka on her beaming forehead; her milk-white teeth
were not revealed to Kôvalan\ in a loving smile; nor was her dark hair
softened by oil.8

Our ancient texts like Râmâyanâ and Mahâbhâratâ are full of passive,
submissive female characters, who hardly find chances to express themselves.
We have many examples to illustrate how female identity or dignity is
 Se e th a Vijayak um ar ¹Fò ðÂõ™ 71

suppressed and censored by means of patriarchal ideology, male standards.

We have Si$tâ, U$rmilâ, Draupati, S$urpanakhâ, Ambâ and many more
examples to illustrate this point. In the Râmâyanâ, Si$ta epitomizes the conduct
of the proper Hindu wife, devotedly following Râmâ into exile for twelve
years. But as a token of gratitude, she is asked to prove her purity through
the test by fire! When she remains unharmed by the flames and the gods
shower her with flowers, Râmâ happily accepts her back into the royal family.
Si$tâ, the embodiment of devoted wife, represents the ‘ideal’ towards which
all women are expected to strive in their lifetime. On the other hand,
S$urpanakhâ being a ‘râkshasi’ meets with Râmâ’s injustice that ends up in
the mutilation of her breasts/nose/ears by Lakshmana. What is
S$urpanakhâ’s crime? That she expresses her desire to marry the savarna
Râmâ! Or why does Ambâ have to endure such embarrassment all of her life?
In her case, it needed a rebirth for her as Shikhandi to aevenge her humiliation
and kill Bhishma during the Kurukshetra war.

The Cilappatikâram is one of the literary, mythical and performative9

masterpieces of the world. Professor A.L. Basham in The Wonder that was
India comments that the Cilappatikâram has ‘‘a grim force and splendour
a grim force and
unparalleled elsewhere in Indian literature - it is imbued with both the ferocity
splendour unparalleled
of the early Tamils and their stern respect for justice, and incidentally, it
elsewhere in Indian
throws light on early Tamil political ideas.’’10 Kan@n@aki is extolled as the
literature - it is imbued
epitome of chastity and is still worshipped as a goddess in different parts of
with both the ferocity of
the world. Kan@na@ ki is mainly worshiped as goddess Pattini in Sri Lanka by
the early Tamils and their
the Sinhalese Buddhists, as Kan@na@ ki Amman by the Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus,
stern respect for justice
as Man^kala De$vi Kan@n@aki in Tamil  adu and as Kodungallur Bhagavathy
in Kerala. As a chaste and faithful wife, Kan@na@ ki is cast in a traditional mould
- up until Kôvalan\’s death, she stays behind in the background, suffering
without complaint the indignity of her husband’s neglect. With Kôvalan\’s
death, Kan@n@aki finds her voice and rises to full stature in her encounter with
the Pandya king. She exposes the hollowness of the king’s justice and extracts
the ultimate price from him. Her motivation is the removal of an unjust king.
In the Book of Pukâr she is the young and nubile wife of Kôvalan\; in the
Book of Maturai she metamorphoses into the custodian of Justice; the
Book of Van~ci recognises the power of chastity and starts worshiping her as
the goddess Pattin\i. Kan@na@ ki’s life is both a physical and symbolic journey.
Through her actions, Kan@na@ ki transgresses those traditional qualities of
behaviour attributed to women and transforms into a revengeful female; full
of power and glory. Kan@na@ ki’s transformation within the Cilappatikâram
explains the possible reason for the multilayered nature of the epic.
 Se e th a Vijayak um ar ¹Fò ðÂõ™ 72

Cilappatikâram means the story of an anklet. Whose anklet the title is

speaking about? This is Kan@n@aki’s anklet, a symbol of her firm chastity that
later on transforms into an instrument of vengeance. cilambu means anklet
and the epic is called Cilappatikâram because the story centers around the
anklet worn by the heroine Kan@n@aki. The Cilappatikâram is Kan@n@aki’s
story, the story of her conjugal life; the story of its ups and downs and how
far she travells to reclaim justice and purity. Kan@n@aki is the quintessence of
two opposing qualities. It is true that she is supportive of Kôvalan\’s infidel
conduct that fits her well into the traditional mould of pativrata or ideal wife.
Her actions, in one way or the other, are focused on the wellbeing of Kôvalan\.
And she never tries to infringe upon the boundaries drawn according to
conservative family rules. She behaves out of the box only at a crucial
situation after Kôvalan\’s beheading in the Panidyan court.

Kan@n@aki is described thus:

She is not the deity Kor@r@avai, the goddess of victory, holding in her
Kan@n@aki is the hand the victorious spear, and standing upon the nape of the buffalo
with an unceasing gush of blood from its fresh wound.   or is she
quintessence of two
An@anku (Bhadrakâl@i), youngest sister of the seven virgins, who made
opposing qualities. It is Sivâ dance; nor even is she the kâl@i of the forest, which is the
true that she is residence of ghosts and goblins; nor again is she the goddess that
supportive of Kôvalan\’s tore up the mighty chest of Dârukâ. She appears to be filled with
infidel conduct that fits resentment. She seems to swell with rage. She has lost her husband;
her well into the she has in her hand an anklet of gold, and she waits at the gate.11
traditional mould of Kan@n@aki signifies the archetypal ‘female’ in Hindu ideology who
pativrata or ideal wife represents an essential duality. On the one hand, she is fertile, benevolentN
the bestower; on the other, she is aggressive, malevolentNthe destroyer.
Kan@n@aki is a woman of Kar@pu12 in the beginning and transforms into a
woman of sakti13. In ‘The Paradoxical Powers of Tamil Women’ Susan S.
Wadley writes “Tamil women are believed to have extraordinary powers,
powers that can lead to life and prosperity or to destruction and even death.
–espite the drudgery and subordination of women’s everyday lives, Tamils
believe that Tamil women can save their husbands from death; they can
destroy whole towns; they can bring wealth and health to their kinfolk…”14
When placed in a feminist framework what is Kan@na@ ki’s importance?
Kan@n@aki moves away from the biologically romanticized notion of
womanly body functions to an active feminine identity and her breast/body
functions as the locale for social role playing. She is someone who has asked
for her individual rights; she is somebody conscious of her social role.
Kan@na@ ki’s social consciousness is to be appreciated more than anything.
The idea of Kan@na@ ki as an eloquent and stubborn woman who argues for
 Se e th a Vijayak um ar ¹Fò ðÂõ™ 73

justice is the evidence of her social responsibility. She makes the king
understand his fault of killing an innocent person. Kan@n@aki plays the role of
stimulating the king’s conscience, thereby forcing him to acknowledge his
guilt. The King laments: “Am I a ruler NI who have listened to the words of
a goldsmith? It is I who am the thief? The protection of the subjects of the
southern kingdom has hailed in my hands for the first time. Let me depart
from this life”. 15
Kan@n@aki is an independent female force capable of multiplying into a
plethora of female forms like the placid house wife, ferocious custodian of
justice and the all powerful, omniscient goddess. We can identify two
prominent symbols, both functioning as an extension of Kan@n @aki’s
personality in the epic tale: Breast and anklet. Dsually, the jingling anklet of
a beautiful woman is associated with amorous experiences or fancies. It is
one of the celebrated stereotypical symbols in our literature and culture.
Here too, the anklet adds to her physical beauty while breasts are symbolic
of her “femaleness”, both biologically and psychologically. She recreates
Ka n@ n @ a ki is an them into terrible instruments of vengeance against the king for his unjust
independent female force execution of Kôvalan\. Since the breast is seen as the symbol of female
capable of multiplying power, the act of destroying it symbolizes both a woman’s greater control
into a plethora of female over her body and her socio-political participation. Both breaking the anklet
forms like the placid and plucking her breast signify confident execution of the female role/power.
house wife, ferocious This is the depiction of a female figure in symbolic and conceptual context,
custodian of justice and representing feminine fertility and inner strength. The fire also helps her in
the all powerful, performing the ritual cleansing necessary for the restoration of justice.
omniscient goddess Kan@na@ ki’s silence in the beginning turns into vengeance and again modifies
into subjectivity in the later part of the epic. Perhaps, Kan@na@ ki is the only
epic heroine/female character with such an intriguing multilayered identity.
She should be perceived as a submissive/faithful wife who encompasses
and transgresses those gender-marked boundaries through physical,
emotional and spiritual action. These layers such as an ideal wife to a
revengeful, responsible social being to a ubiquitous deity of the land could
definitively be understood from a possible gender conscious perspective.
Her’s definitely is a radical journey from being passive to exploring one’s
‘female’ subjectivity, finally towards an absolute symbolic/mythical
abstraction.
Note s
1 Uvelebil, Kamil, The Smile of Muruagan, p. 92.
2 Helene Cixous, Laugh of the Medusa.
3   o uniformity of opinion regarding the publication date. Scholars broadly
fix it from 2-6th BC.
Se e th a Vijayak um ar ¹Fò ðÂõ™ 74

4 Z. Parthasarathy, The Tale of an Anklet, p. 5.

5 R.Z. Zamachandra – ikshitar, The Silappadikâram P. 88.
6R.Z. Zamachandra – ikshitar, The Silappatikâram, p. 253.
7 Foucault, History of Sexuality, p. 103.
8 R.Z. Zamachandra – ikshitar, The Silappadikâram, P. 108.
9 Cilappatikâram provides with enormous and detailed information on
music, dance (both classical and folk), stage setting etc.
10 A. L. Basham, The Wonder that was India, p. 67.
11 R.Z. Zamachandra – ikshitar, The Cilappatikâram, P. 247.
12 In Tamil culture Kar@pu is described as marital fidelity.
13 Sakti is Hindu conceptualization of cosmic female energy. Vvery woman
has inherits Sakti from the de$vis or goddesses.
14 Susan Wadley, The Paradoxical Powers of Tamil Women, p. 154.
15 R.Z. Zamachandra – ikshitar, The Cilappatikâram, p. 247.

R e fe re nce s
Adigal, Ilango (1939), The Cilappatikâram, trans. R.Z Z amachandra
– ikshithar, Madras: ODP.
Basham, A.L. (1968), The Wonder that was India: A Survey of the History
and Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent Before the Coming of the
Muslims.   ew York: Taplinger.
Cixous, Helene (1983), “The Laugh of the Medusa”. In The Signs Reader:
Women, Gender and Scholarship, eds. Vlizabeth Abel and Vmily K. Abel,
p. 279. Chicago: Dniversity of Chicago Press.
Foucault, Michel. (1981), Introduction. The History of Sexuality. Rol.1.
Harmondsworth: Pelican.
Wadley, Susan and Sheryl B. – aniel (1980), The Powers of Tamil women.
  ew York: Syracuse Dniversity.
Uvelebil, Kamil. R. (1989), Classical Tamil Prosody: An Introduction. Madras:
  ew Vra.
EE E E E (1968), “The Lay of the Anklet”, in Mahfil: A Quarterly of
South Asian Literature 4.3 and 4: pp. 5-12.
E E E E E (1979). “The   ature of Sacred Power in Old Tamil Texts”, Acta
Orientalia, 40: 157-92.
Se e th a Vijay ak um ar
Re se arch Sch ol ar
D e pt of A rts A nd A e sth e tics
Jaw ah arl alNe h ru Unive rsity
Ne w D e lh i - 11