Politically Powerful Must Face Punishment
By Veluppillai Thangavelu –August 14, 2016
Veluppillai Thangavelu
Those Who Wield Political Power Will Be Punished If They Deviate From Righteous Principles!
Cilappathikaram or the story of Jewelled Anklets is one of the great epics in Thamil literature written about first century AD and authored by Ilango Adikal a Jain monk. It narrates the ordinary lives of early Thamils. The story begins in the Chola Kingdom, then moves on to Pandya Kingdom and finally ends in Chera Kingdom. The epic describes the presence of King Viyabahu at the invitation of Cheran Senkudduvan propitiating a temple for Kannagi (Goddess Paththini) the heroine of the epic.
Kovalan the son of a wealthy merchant marries Kannagi the daughter of an equally wealthy merchant and the parents find them a separate house to live. However, Kovalan falls in love with a dancing girl called Madhavi leaving Kannagi to live alone. After some l years and squandering his family wealth he returns to Kannagi and apologises profusely for his shameful conduct. Penniless, Kannagi offers her precious pair of anklets filled with rubies to be sold and with the proceeds to restart his trade. Ashamed to live in the city of his birth and unable to face his parents and in-laws, Kovalan asks Kannagi to accompany him to the great city of Madurai, capital of Pandyan Kingdom.
On arrival at Madurai they found shelter in a cottage, and Kovalan went to the market to sell one of Kananga’s anklets. But the queen of Neduncheliyan, king of the Pandyas, had just been robbed of a similar anklet by a wicked court goldsmith. As fate will have it, the king was told that the thief who robbed the queen’s anklet was waiting in the market to sell it. The king without a second thought gave orders to slay the thief and bring the anklet forthwith.
There were bad omens on that day and when the news was brought to Kannagi that her husband was mistaken for a thief and was killed by guards on the orders of the king. She then goes out in search of her husband into the town. After weeping, sobbing and crying over her husband’s dead body she hastens her way to the palace addressing the king as “an unenlightened” king. By dashing the anklet to the floor and breaking it Kannagi proved to the king’s discomfiture that the anklet seized from Kovalan is filled with rubies while the anklet stolen from the queen is filled with pearls. Ilango describes the court scene thus:
When he saw it the parasol fell from his head and the sceptre trembled in his hand.
