Dear friends, A young of mine has sent me a question for which adiyane is unable to give a ready response. It is a question related to use of Tamil idiom and poetic 'rasanai' (flavour) and perhaps knowledgeable ones amongst you might be able to clarify. In the TiruvoimOzhi decad on Tiruvengadam, NammAzhwar sings as follows: vaNNa maruLkoL aNimEga vaNNaa!* maaya ammaanE,* eNNam pugundhu thiththikkum amuthE!* imaiyOr athipathiyE,* theNNal aruvi maNipon muththalaikkum* thiruvENGkadaththaanE,* aNNalE! un adisEra* adiyERku aavaa vennaayE! 6.10.3 The phrase "thiththikkum amuthE!", my correspondent says, sounds rather unusual. "thiththikkum" means "sweet" and "amuthE" means ambrosia, the divine nectar, the elixir of immortality in God's world. Nectar or "amutham" is said to be naturally "sweet" ("thiththippu"). No such thing as a bitter ("kassappu") or sour ("puLippu") ambrosia exists. In such a case isn't NammAzhwAr's use of the adjective "thiththikkum" to qualify "amutham" rather redundant or tautological -- from a strictly literary/grammatical standpoint? It sounds a bit like saying "O sweetening sugar!". The AzhwAr might have easily said "eNNam pugundha amuthE!" or something similar, and still have conveyed the same degree of delight savoured in the thought of 'tiruvengadatthAn'! Did NammAzhwAr add "thiththikkum" merely for the purpose of ensuring poetic metre/rhyme or is there some other subtle message he sought to convey through the seeming redundancy of phrase? Comments/views welcome. Thanking you, Regards, dAsan, Sudarshan __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com
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