Sugarcane (kan2n2al)

[Jean-Luc CHEVILLARD]

A 17:16 19/05/99 PDT, vous avez écrit :
>Dear Dr. Jean-Luc,
>
>Does 'paravai' in akam 44.16
>    *pazam pal nellin2 pal kuTi paravai*
>      refer to the land/field or not? Thanks.
>

Dear Dr. Ganesan, I would like to oblige ...,
but (un)-fortunately, I am not a native speaker of CT  :-)

All I can say is that

*C.E. Ramachandran, in his 1974 book _Ahananuru in its historical setting_,
  gives a draft translation of Akam-44, that is rather imprecise 
  but reads like this:
 <<[...] azhumpil of perum-pUT-cen2n2i has thick forests, tanks in which
  elephants rest, and many households having stocks of old paddy.
  The town is known for its ever increasing prosperity. [...]>>

*VMS, in an unpublished translation, kept in the French Institute Library,
  translates the same lines as:
 <<[...] never ceasing income like azhumpil (a place in pANTiya country) [15]
  old paddy in abundance, dense and spreading population [16]
  deep tanks in which elephants immerse themselves for bathing [17]
  and a deep forest for defence [17] [...]>>

As you know, we are lucky to have these texts because Sangam literature
was rescued in XIXth cent. by people like UVS (you remember chap.88
in his autobiography: "en2n2a pirayOcan2am?", don't you?).
But, first of all this means that
the tradition of UNDERSTANDING these texts is NOT UNBROKEN.
This is why there are so many things we don't know for sure...
I am always surprised to see people from time to time
uncritically quoting meanings given for words in OTL.
They seem to believe these words have all these meanings
on an intemporal basis. I believe OTL is based on Tamil Lexicon (TL),
but the quotations have been removed. There is no point in giving
a meaning without quoting from a text. Some remark also has to me made
on the relationship between DED (and DEDR) and TL. A dictionnary
for a classical language (like CT) is a tool that is COMPILED.
It does not substitute itself to the primary data
(which should be critical editions and translations?) ...

As regards "paravai", I have been able to find only TWO occurrences
in the whole Sangam corpus. The second one is naRRiNai 378-4:
 "[...] teN kaTal
 "muzhaGku tirai, muzhavin2 pANiyin2, paipaya,
 "pazham puN uRunarin2, paravaiyin2 Alum"

I know of 3 translations:
*[A] G.Hart (1979:105, Princeton)
  <<The crashing waves of the cool sea // move in measured time //
  like the beat of a drum // slowly, like a man limping with an old wound>>
*[B] A.V.Subramanian (1989:419, Thanjavur)
  <<The roaring breakers on the clear sea //
  like a drum being beaten to keep time in music //
  slowly rolls over the surface of the water //
  like those with a long-time running sore //
  tossing about in their restless beds.>>
*[C] N.Kandaswamy Pillai (1970, French Institute, unpublished)
  <<the roaring waves of the clear sea, like the time scale of the drum
   slowly & slowly sound, groaning like people of chronic suffering,
   in the wide expanse>>

I do not know which one you will prefer. "Wide expanse" seems fitting. 

Coming back to Tevaram, the word "paravai" occurs 43 times there.
 If we remove the 10 occurrences in the phrase "paravaiyuL maNTaLi" (7-96),
 we still have 33 to examine, but I do not have time now to do that. 
 We hope to release the Tevaram-concordance-cum-english-gloss next year
 (it will be Digital Tevaram 2000!) on a CD-Rom.
 I hope you can wait till that time :-)

One last point: you asked

>How does VMS translate "curakkum pun2al cUz taru kAzi"?

Answer:  <<K. which is surrounded by gushing water>>

I hope this is useful.
Regards.

-- Jean-Luc CHEVILLARD (Paris)