the question is - actually can't be asked in this forum - we need to check with others - what is the impact of kalki on our views of these great kings. maybe before we read kalki's work - did we look at them and their works - for eg, the big temple - did it have the same impact - or did kalki build the grandiose stuff in our brains which get amplified when we visit now.
to me - yes, big temple was always a vitta korai thotta korai - a strange feeling of having been there, walked there - a sense of belonging. ( Writer Balakumaran sir has said the same in his foreword to Udayar) even before i read PS. But after reading PS - standing in front of peruvudayar - it was a stong connection, feeling a presence. Is it just the mind acting funny for me
when i suggested on similar lines of larger than life image of RRC presented by Kalki, i got brickbats..Vandhiyadevan being not being anything above than veetoda maapillai, i got dharma adi...that was long back..
was and is branded as "loosu payal"...
nyabagam varuthey nyabagam varuthey....
as sps sir pointed out, we need to go by hearts in this group and not by minds
Defenetly Kalki had contributed to this feeling. But that is like a parimelalagar writing urai for thirukkural . Ithelped more people to understand the greatness.I always feel that had kalki lived some more time, he would have given fine books on Pandyas and Vijayanagar. Those two did not get their due form us.
Sir ellam venaam, vj is fine. the question is kalki wrote about AMV during a period when nothing is known about him. It is a writers dream, to get a clean slate - but then he could still manage to paint such an endearing picture of him. How much of his later achivements did Kalki stitch into the plot - the soodamani viharam grant, seeing the towering buddhists stupas in lanka and wanting to do similar ...
Kalki ( some times with manian) visited all the places he refers to in his novels - srilanka, kodikarai, ajanta, vatapi etc. I remember our Venkat alludes to this in his book on Kalki.Sampath
i beg to differ... kalki would not have glorified pandyas and vijayanagar...
though he wrote about pallavas in SS , they were not glorified to the extent of Cholas..
i recall in parthibhan kanavu, people saying that mahendra and narasimha pallava are great and nobody can match them in future.. the next line he sarcastically mentions that "how can people know that a few centuries down the line, thre would be a father and son duo , who would overshadow them"...
Pallavas were great rulers and during their time kanchi- the capital of cholas was admired by whole of present day India.. "nagareshu kanchi " by bharavi (correct me if iam wrong) is a proof.. now a bard can exaggerate things..iamnot getting into that argument anyway...
not to belittle chozhargal achievement, i can safely say that kalki being from the delta , had more affinity towards cholas, and my feeling is that he would not have glorified pandyas who were dreaded enemies of chozhas and vijayanagar emperors who were very late entrants..
kalki knew vijayanagar's achievement also, but the line in parthiban kanavu is a definite pointer towards kalki's obsession with chozhas and projecting a larger than life image of cholas...
iam not highly intellectual to answer this question... but possibly, as u said, he might have got some information of these and would have stitched into the plot to give a larger than life image of RRC...
something like "thala" and "thalapathi" movies of today..
Kalki did bring in a small incident - not connected to the storyline at all. But he did bring it in. maybe he thought of writing about it later. Mangaiyarkarasi in SS
but whether kalki would have written or glorified the way he had glorified the cholas is a big question mark sir and with the little knowledge that i have, i find the answer to the in the negative..
as you said, might be possible.. but the way references were made in Parthiban kanavu, which i mentioned earlier, my view is biased that kalki would not be glorifing the pandyas or others for that matter..his obsession with chozhas was great...
Any reason why Kalki to have mixed up these? KAN Shastri's COLAS was first published in 1937. SO Kalki must have had the reference rt? Or is it possible that the first edition was ambigious in these lines