Kamba Ramayana too is a story.We only are comparing similarities between both works,not dissimilarities.We compare the common themes like characterization,description,script,handling of controversial events etc.
Kalki fares better than kamban in many aspects.As Drsridhar Rathnam pointed out kalki created the whole story from his creative mind.His works reached masses and made even ordinary man to enjoy literature.I got interested in history only becasue i read Ponniyin selvan.Kamban's work remains in an ivory tower till date.
There are many people better than kamban in many aspects.Vyasa's charaectirization beats every other work in the world(as far as I know)The plots and twists he uses in mahabharatha with such huge number of characters and with giving unique nature and role to each of them and the coherence with which he moves the story is unparalleled.
The character of purichravas comes just in the last part.He has only 2 pages.But the importance purichravas gets in those two pages is mindboggling.Similiar is bhagadathan character ,a 90 year old man whose eyesight is blocked by wrinkles on his forehead.He ties up his wrinkles with a silkthread and sits on his elephent supradeepam and wreaks havoc in pandava army.
In end arjuna cuts off his silkthread and bhagadatha loses his eyesight.Then arjuna sends an arrow into the bowels of the elephent.Vyasa then narrates what happened as follows.
"The blind bagadatha not knowing what happened to his elephent supradeepam forced it to fight with arjuna.But like how a wife wont listen to the words of a husband who has lost the family fortunes,supradeepam for the first time in life refused to listen to the words of bagadatha"
I will write more on this in some other time.
I will write a bit on valmigi though.He wrote Ramayana through a funny incident.He was a saint.One day he saw two lustful birds copulating.He was very happy to see the two birds being happy.But suddenly an arrow killed the male bird.Seeing this the female bird also died.A hunter came to pick up the birds.Valmigi went mad in rage.He immediatly said in sorrow to the hunter as follows
"Oh the one equal to a tree,you killed a lustful creature.Till the sun and moon exists you will be remembered for this"
He did not curse the hunter though.He was very sad and came back home.He then thought of the words he said at the hunter.He thought on the first words "equal to a tree"(mara) He pronounced it continuously mara mara mara ....and it became rama,rama.
Then suddenly the verse he used to scold the hunter became the verse to praise rama.Rama was the hunter.The lustful male bird was ravana.The suffering female bird was mandothari.The hunter killed the lustful bird and for that he will be remembered till the sun and moon existed.
The verse suddenly had a new meaning
"Oh Rama,you killed the lustful creature.Till the sun and moon exist you will be remembered for it"
Thus was born the epic of ramayana.
Ofcourse I am not saying that Ramayana was a fictional creation of Valmigi.Legend has it that Valmigi wrote Ramayana only after god appeared before him and said that he wanted valmigi to write Ramayana and that is why this whole drama was played.
we compare works across time only to pay our homages to the dead authors and to be a guide to authors of future and to develop our literary knowledge.Some do it for ego serving too,which I dont blame. Without "vidhya garvam" a scholar isnt a scholar.But when it becomes "padicha thimir" he will be knocked down to earth sooner or later.
That is when literary meetings come in handy.They not only point out what the faults are with the authors but also point out the fault in the approach of the debaters.
When nakkerar said that "Even women from devalokam have no natural fragrance in their hair" he was knocked down by shivaperuman himself. Becasue nakkerar couldnt have known the fragrance of the hair of women in devalokam.He went to the extent of saying "Even the Uma devi whom I worship doesnt have a natural fragrance in her hair"
Here he was making an unsubstantiated claim.So he was knocked down by shivaperuman himself.This is just a legend though.Valluvan also wrote this as avaiadakkam.