I personally feel that the battle scenes of Vathapi in Sivagamiyin Sabatham gives us more horrible scenes.. However, more than that, the return of Pulikesi from Kanchi destroying every place & cutting the hand of every sculptor he comes across etc. was more horrible than the battle scenes of Vatapi. Pulikesi and his soldiers were depicted to be too cruel...So we never get to feel sorry when 'Vatapi war' was waged against him.
>> Pulikesi and his soldiers were depicted to be too cruel...So we never get to feel sorry when 'Vatapi war' was waged against him.
> Regards > Vardhini.
see the sugar coating???? how is the sufering of a kanchi man going to be different from the suffering of a vathapi man? technically vathapi suffers more than kanchi. was razed to the ground wasnt it.
so is blood thicker than water? or are we trapped by kalki's gentle manuovering.
Venkat, what you say is 100% true, I think you said once before also -we live in times when people want to be more aware of realities, and have higher standards for compassion than any other time in the world.
To give another example, compare an old war movie, say Guns of Navarone or even Bridge too far or something made in 60s to say, Saving Private Ryan. The latter has lots more gory violence, carnage and realistic battle scenes. Anyone who has any idea of battle knows Guns of Navarone to be a purely fantasy tale, yet thoroughly 100% enjoyable to this day. If I was given a choice between Saving Private Ryan and GON I would choose the latter without a second thought, although I know lots of people who would go for the former. Same perhaps with Schindler's List and Great Escape. My goal is entertainment, really not that different from reading PS. But on the other hand I cannot possibly say GON is a true depiction of WWII. In fact there are several people who lived through WWII who absolutely hate hollywood movies made on it (other than a few exceptions like Schindler's List).
There is no harm at all in enjoying a sugar coated version of anything. The problem is only when we under estimate or write off the real tragedy that must have happened in terms of loss of human life and carnage/destruction of villages and towns. I must admit I did not enjoy at all certain parts of PS especially when elderly Malayaman and AK talk on war and killing people. And a real challenge for anyone - the ultimate challenge to understand the realities of war - read the original translation of the Mahabharat by Ganguli. You cannot go past a few chapters after the war starts at best.
> > see the sugar coating???? > how is the sufering of a kanchi man going to be different from the suffering > of a vathapi man? > technically vathapi suffers more than kanchi. was razed to the ground wasnt > it.
When you watch a match of cricket, why do you feel happy when India wins and another team loses? When an opposing team had given our team a crushing defeat earlier and we give a crushing defeat in the next match would you be feeling sorry for the opposing team.
Siva, killing another human being is not like losing or winning a cricket match. Killing or even watching someone killed changes the human being in unalterable ways.
I understand that completely. But I thought we are just discussing a fiction and equated it to the cricket that's all. I understand the horrors of a war.
I am able to understand the destruction caused by the war and the after effects on the nation as a whole. Since you had asked about the horror scenes in Kalki’s writing, I had given my opinion.
No way is my thought that suffering of kanchi man is different from suffering of vatapi man.
But as per SS,Pulikesi turned out to be a traitor as he did not follow the peace treaty with Mahendravarman and he ended up destroying and murdering…
I was very much afraid when poongulali was enjoying with those kollivaai pisaasugal. I was reading that for the first time and also it was midnight when I read that chapter during my college days.
> But as per SS,Pulikesi turned out to be a traitor as he did not follow the peace treaty with Mahendravarman and he ended up destroying and murderingâ¦
Hi Vardhini.
absolutely no offense meant. i was just mentioning that as a master story teller kalki made us take the side of the pallavas. the same way in parthiban kanavu we hated the bullying pallavas.
> I was very much afraid when poongulali was enjoying with those kollivaai > pisaasugal. I was reading that for the first time and also it was midnight > when I read that chapter during my college days. >
Back to subj: Assuming that Parthiban was real and so was Vikrama.
the Parthiban war was stupid and uncalled for, it was more of an invite to suicide. What was Parthiban thinking? More importantly, we observe that Narasimha did not destroy Vikrama when he could have, does Kalki keep his options open by proving to the audience that Narasimha was saintly - jada mudi saami...
The Pulikesi war was real, there are atleast 3 known versions a. Original tamil based history b. Kalki's SS c. MK's Kanchi Thalaivan
Pulikesi war was a clean battle (not from a killing prespective), well planned, organized and perfectly executed.
Lets take a moment to acknowledge Pulikesi's prowess.The emperor made Harsha back out. To win that man over that terrain takes some planning and execution, we give Narasimha that credit.
Yes, the war was brutal, so much bloodied that the very war gave us a Nayanmar. So are all wars, there will be collatral damage.
Kalki has polished that horror so much that we hardly see it, the war alone can be movied similar to Leonidas 300.
> > Pulikesi war was a clean battle > > Kalki has polished that horror so much that we hardly see it, the war alone can be movied similar to Leonidas 300.
no way ravi he talks of a river of blood in which dismembered legs and hands are floating.....
and then immidietly perhaps having realised he has overstepped from his image backs off and says only homer, kalidasa or kambar can describe it better.
I had the same thought regarding the Pulikesi War. For Narasimha to have won over Pulikesi who defeated the mighty Harsha, he should have definitely waged the most bloodiest of the wars. As Narasimhavarman was the story's hero, Kalki could have had the problem of having to picture him as a very noble person and not like an anti-hero. Fine no problem! Accepted as per the unwritten story writing rules.
But was Pulikesi really that bad? Was he that much a hater of art? I feel that since a story needs a Villain he was painted so. He could have been bad. But in that aspect of annexing other kingdoms which king is not bad.
The invasions are a kind of preventive measure so that the enemy king is subdued even before he takes a march towards ones kingdom. This is exactly what RRC did with respect to Kandhalur salai. Contemporarily this is what Israel is doing to Palestine.
So in my humble opinion, be it Narasimhavarman or RRC or RJC or Pulikesi, all were good and equally terrific. There is no single hero or villain among them. It is only from the perspective in which we see them, we think of them as either a hero or a villain. If we ask a Chera nAttu fellow, he may say that RRC is a villain. Would we accept it? Similarly a Chalukya region guy would term Narasimhavarman as a villain obviously.
If we want a balanced depiction of villians and war we need not look further than Valmiki and Vyasa for inspiration. Neither Ravana or Duryodana are depicted as villains - only high achivers who got too egoistic and made mistakes. Ravana is a sanskrit scholar and skilled in playing veena - in fact Valmiki devotes moer than one chapter describing Ravana's talents and abilities. Duryodhana very strong hadnsome man and great warrior, the Devas shower flowers on him when he passes on. Neither of them were easy to kill - special prayers were needed for Ravana and deceit had to be used for Duryodhana.
This business of black and white classification of hero vs villain might have started much later, when people started demanding it perhaps. Kalki does an ok job does not 'villify' as much as other writers did, his 'villans' do have some humanity left. Both Nandi and Naganandi are eligible for some reader sympathy - for example. And you do get Pallavas side also in Parthiban Kanavu although not directly. Don't think he tried enough for Pulikesi.
Venkat, the veena is mentioned in the RAmayana not once but several times - in Bala Kanda when young Rama and Laksman enter Mithila melodies strains of veena, then Ravana played 'vipanchi veena' which is 8 stringed veena I think, and 'vallakhi veena' or the hand harp that his sons lava and kusa played. Ravana is also very famous for his Rudra veena, with which he invokes Shiva, when his regular veena strings break, he tears open his intestines and uses them as chords in Rudra Veena. Of course we don't have any rudra veenas!! Ravana liked even the sounds of battle to Veena and music concert to his ears. The ramayana also has 'dundubhi' - war drums, and 'mridanga'.
It might be the first reference - I dont' know about that. I regard the Ramayana as about 7000 years old. According to Manusmriti (chapter 1/69-71), one cycle of the four yugas-Sat, Treta, Dwapar and Kali-together called chaturyugi, consists of 12,000 years. This period involves the defining 10,000 together with 1,000-year transition periods at the beginning and the end. Accordingly, the individual lifespan of the four yugs is 1,200, 2,400, 3,600 and 4,800. All agree Ram was born towards the close of Tretayug, and Krishna's Dwarika drowned towards the end of Dwapar Yug. The gap between the two is 3,600 years. The Ramayan period thus could be said to date back to 7103 years (3,600 years of Dwapar and 3503 years of Kalyug). This analysis was performed by one Saroj Bala - the article was under discussion here sometime ago.