Defining a song:Perspectives in Līlātilaka

Abstract

The long lost and later found Līlātilaka of anonymous authorship addresses the linguistic spectrum and literary manifestations of medieval Kerala following the classical idioms of Sanskrit tradition using the sῡtra/vṛtti style and tropes of classical poetics. Though focussed on the linguistic and literary aspects of the newly developed manipravāla literature of the fourteenth century, the insightful work makes a passing reference to  the pāṭṭu genre, which retains many interesting features of the ancient Tamil tradition. The definition given in the Līlātilaka thusinsists that thephonic structure of the pāṭṭu ,should make use of only the “Dravidian’ letters(dramiḍākṣara) , thereby drawing a sharp line of distinction between the indigenous  song tradition and  the Sanskritised manipravāla. The definition also makes an important reference to two alliterative devices characteristic of pāṭṭu , consisting of etuka(uniformity of the second in the feet)and mona(uniformity of the first letter n the feet). The definition further stipulates that the pāṭṭu should have certain specific metrical structure and the gloss specifies that these are different from metres like vasantatilakā. The present paper will explore thesociolinguistic, cultural, and aesthetic implications of the definition and address some important issues raised by it like (a) whether it covers all the pāṭṭu literature of thetime,(b)whether the linguistic restrictions imposed on  the pāṭṭu literature  in the Līlātilaka were flouted in later practice  and (c) if the alliterative features in the definition recur in the pāṭṭu literature   of later times as of Kathakali and other performing arts.