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The Cilappatikaram of Ilanko Atikal, An Epic of South India. Translated, with an introduction and postscript, by R. PARTHASARATHY. New York: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1993. Pp. xix + 426. $17.50 (paper).
The Cilappatikaram of Ilaiiko Atikal ("the Young Prince") is the earliest, major Tamil example of a kind of literature that is, or has become, pan-Indian. Based on Tamil folk poetry and differing greatly from Sanskrit kavya ("ornate epic"), the work nevertheless shares a certain stylistic connection with the Sanskrit form in that the flow of "small lyrics"-the ongoing ornamental texture of the poem-is at least as important as the narrative spine. But like most of the methods and details of its style, the theme and psychological reverberations of the "Story of the Anklet" are thoroughly Tamil: the tale of an ideal marriage within a merchant caste (more or less ordinary people rather than the gods and emperors of...