Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 433

VERNACULAR POETS
393
Tamil poetry seems to have been chiefly cultivated by
the Sudras
and even Pariahs have been the authors of
various poems in that language.
The Tamil poets, how-
ever, while imitating the form and style of Sanskrit poetry,
have added so many rules of their own that it is difficult
;
to excel in the writing of
it.
Telugu and Canarese poetry
chiefly the
is
work
of
Brah-
mins.
Having acquired some knowledge of the most important
Hindu prosody, which, I think, are the same in all
rules of
the vernaculars of the country, Sanskrit not excepted, I will
try to describe them briefly here.
The subject seems to
me likely to interest philologists. I will, therefore, describe
(1) the different kinds of poetry
(2) the long and short
quantities
(3) the different feet
(4) the different metres ;
(5) the method of rhyme
(6) the composition of verses ;
(7) the style of their poetry generally.
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The Different Kinds of Poetry.
There are five kinds of poetry, namely, padam, padyam,
dwipada, dandaka, yakshakaram. Some add to these
another kind under the name of padia, but as this is,
properly speaking, poetical prose, it is not generally con-
sidered as belonging to the province of poetry.
The padam includes not only the odes in honour of gods,
princes, and other great personages, but also obscene and
amorous ditties, sprightly dialogues between gods and
goddesses, and other similar compositions, some of which
are called sringaram (ornament), because they describe the
women and their different methods of adornment.
erotic songs are also called sittinbam (pleasures of
the will).
Of this sort there is an infinite variety. They
beauty of
The
are sung, for the most part, by religious mendicants when
they go from house to house asking for alms. The more
coarse and indecent they are, the better they suit the
tastes of the hearers, whose generosity is manifested in
proportion to the enjoyment derived from them.
The hymns in honour of the gods are called kirthanam
(praise), a term which these compositions well deserve on
account of the high-flown eulogies with which they are
replete.
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