Maṇimēkalai (, ), also spelled Manimekhalai or Manimekalai, is a Tamil Buddhist epic composed by Kulavāṇikaṉ Seethalai Sataṉar probably somewhere between the 2nd century to the 6th century. It is an "anti-love story", a sequel to the "love story" in the earliest Tamil epic Cilappatikaram, with some characters from it and their next generation. The epic consists of 4,861 lines in akaval meter, arranged in 30 cantos.
The title Manimekalai is also the name of the daughter of Kovalan and Madhavi, who follows in her mother's footsteps as a dancer and a Buddhist nun. The epic tells her story. Her physical beauty and artistic achievements seduces the Chola prince Udayakumara. He pursues her. She, a nun of Mahayana Buddhism persuasion, feels a commitment to free herself from human ties. She rejects his advances, yet finds herself drawn to him. She hides, prays and seeks the help of her mother, her Buddhist teacher Aravana Adikal and angels. They teach her Buddhist mantras to free herself from fears. One angel helps her magically disappear to an island while the prince tries to chase her, grants her powers to change forms and appear as someone else. On the island, she receives a magic begging bowl, which always gets filled, from Manimekhala. Later, she takes the form and dress of a married woman in the neighborhood, as the prince pursues her. The husband sees the prince teasing her, and protects "his wife" – Manimekalai-in-hiding – by killing the prince. The king and queen learn of their son's death, order the arrest of Manimekalai, arrange a guard to kill her. Angels intervene and Manimekalai miraculously disappears as others approach her, again. The queen understands, repents. Manimekalai is set free. Manimekalai converts the prison into a hospice to help the needy, teaches the king the dharma of the Buddha. In the final five cantos of the epic, Buddhist teachers recite Four Noble Truths, Twelve Nidanas and other ideas to her. She then goes to goddess Kannaki temple in Vanci (Chera kingdom), prays, listens to different religious scholars, and practices severe self-denial to attain Nirvana (release from rebirths).
The Manimekalai is one of the Five Great Epics of Tamil Literature, and one of three that have survived into the modern age.Mukherjee 1999, p. 277 Along with its twin-epic Cilappatikaram, the Manimekalai is widely considered as an important text that provides insights into the life, culture and society of the Tamil regions (India and Sri Lanka) in the early centuries of the common era. The last cantos of the epic – particularly Canto 27 – are also a window into then extant ideas of Mahayana Buddhism, Jainism, Ajivika, and Hinduism, as well as the history of interreligious rivalries and cooperation as practiced and understood by the Tamil population in a period of Dravidian–Aryan synthesis and as the Indian religions were evolving.
Author There is no credible information available about the author or the date of its composition. Late sources suggest that the author Seethalai may have been a Buddhist grain merchant and Tamil writer.
The Manimekalai has been variously dated between the 2nd-century and early 9th century by Indian and non-Indian scholars, with early dates favored by Tamil scholars generally allied to the Tamil tradition. A part of the complication is that the Manimekalai contains numerous Hindu Puranic legends, references to gods and goddesses in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, as well as the epic's author's summary sections on various schools of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain philosophies some of whose authors are generally dated to later centuries.
The colonial era Tamil scholar S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar proposed in 1927 that it was either composed "much earlier than AD 400" or "decisively to be a work of the fifth century at the earliest".S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Maṇimekhalai in its Historical Setting, London, 1928, pp. xxvi-xxvii In 1974, Kamil Zvelebil – a Tamil literature and history scholar, proposed mid 6th-century as the most informed dating, based on the linguistics, internal evidence, the dating of its twin-epic Silappadikaram, and a comparison to other Tamil literature.Paula Richman, "Cīttalai Cāttanār, Manimekhalai" summary in Karl H. Potter ed.,The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Buddhist philosophy from 350 to 600 A.D. New Delhi, 2003, pp.458. In his 1989 translation, Alain Daniélou suggests that the text was composed after the first Tamil epic Silappadikaram, but likely in the 2nd- or 3rd century. According to Hikosaka, if some of the events mentioned in the epic partially related to actual historic Chola dynasty events, some portions of the Manimekalai should be dated after 890 CE. According to Paula Richman, the 6th-century dating by Kandaswami and Zvelebil are the most persuasive scholarly analysis of the evidence within the epic as well as the evidence in other Tamil and Sanskrit texts.
The Epic The Manimekalai builds on the characters of the oldest Tamil epic Silappatikaram (). It describes the story of Manimekalai, the beautiful daughter of Kovalan and Madhavi, in 30 cantos. The Manimekalai is the anti-thesis of the Silappadikaram in focus, style and the propaganda in the two epics. The Silappadikaram is a tragic love story that ultimately becomes supernatural. The Manimekalai is an anti-love story that starts off with supernatural elements. The Silappadikaram builds on human emotional themes and includes some sections praising Jains, while the Manimekalai is Buddhist propaganda that "attacks and ridicules Jainism", according to Kamil Zvelebil.
Notable characters Manimekalai - The daughter of Kovalan and Madhavi, who was a Buddhist nun. Udayakumara - The Chola prince, who was madly in love with Manimekalai. Sudhamati - Manimekalai's most faithful and trustworthy friend. Manimekalā - The sea goddess who protects the heroine. Aravana Adikal - The Buddhist ascetic teacher (Adikal means "revered/venerable ascetic, saint")
Cantos I-VII: Manimekalai in Puhar Canto I The annual festival in the honor of Indra begins; a description of the Chola city, people and the festival.
Canto II Manimekalai, her delicate beauty and extraordinary talents introduced in the epic; Kovalan and Kannaki remembered; Manimekalai's mother Madhavi and grandmother Chitrapati learn that Manimekali insists on being a nun, lead a religious life and that she will not dance or otherwise attend the festival; more description of the Chola city, people and the festival.
Canto III Manimekalai goes to a city garden, away from the festival center, with her friend Sutamati; continued description of the Chola city, people and the festival, mentions a "Jain monk, naked and waving a fly-whisk to avoid hurting unseen fragile insect" as well as "Kalamukhas [a subtradition of Shaivism] wearing oleander flower garlands and rudraksha mala, body smeared with ashes, acting madly".
Canto IV Manimekalai enters crystal pavilion of the garden; Prince Udayakumara introduced, brave and beautiful; he is told about Manimekalai the dancer and her beauty; the prince heads to find her in the garden; he finds her, pursues her, her friend Sudhamati tries to block him, and he then asks why is she not in a monastery, why in the garden; Sudhamati says, body is simply a vessel of vices, born due to karma of past births; the prince tries to meet Manimekalai, she hides in the crystal pavilion.
Canto V According to the epic, Manimekalai's beauty rivaled that of the goddess of fortune, Lakshmi as she hid in the crystal pavilion full of statues. Udayakumara sees her, falls for her instantly, wonders if she is real or a perfectly crafted statue. The more she avoids him, the more he wants her. Sudhamati reminds him that Manimekalai is not interested in handsome men like him, because both Manimekalai and she are nuns. Sudhamati describes she is from Bengal, her father a Brahmin who tended fire [Vedic], and they came to the south on a [Hindu] pilgrimage towards Kanyakumari, related to the journey of Rama in the Ramayana. There she joined a Jain monastery. Her father joined her, but one day after an accident her father was bleeding badly. The Jains kicked them both out, afraid that the blood will pollute them. She then became a nun at a Buddhist monastery, and that is where she met nun Manimekalai. The prince left unconvinced, resolving to meet Manimekalai's family to put pressure on her. Manimekalai then confesses she is confused because she wants to be a nun, yet she feels attracted to the prince. The goddess of the seas, Manimekhala, appears. She praises the Buddha, his wheel of dharma, meets the two Buddhist nuns.
Canto VI A description of Goddess Manimekhala and her powers; she advises the nuns to go to the Chakravala-kottam, that is "Temple of Heaven" – monk gathering spaces with Buddhist mounds – to avoid being chased by the prince. A history of the "Temple of Heaven" follows along with their then-popular name "City of the Dead"; the epic recites the story of a Brahmin named Shankalan enters the mound by mistake at night and is confronted by a sorceress with a skull in her hand accompanied by screaming jackal-like noises, the Brahmin flees in terror, then dies in shock in front of his mother Gotami. The mother goes to the Champapati temple and prays, "take my life, let my son live". Champapati appears and says this was fate, his karma and he will be reborn. The mother questions the four Vedas, the goddess explains the Buddhist theory of samsaras, mount Meru, and realms of rebirth. According to the epic, the feeble mind of Sudhamati barely understands but she feels that Goddess Manimekhala is right. The goddess then casts magic, plunges the two nuns into sleep, thereafter instantly transports Manimekalai alone through air to the island of Manipallavam where her oaths of being a nun would not be threatened by the prince's charms.
Canto VII The goddess meets the prince and tells him to forget about Manimekalai because she is destined to live a monastic life; She then awakens and meets Sudhamati, tells her Manimekalai is safe on a distant island and to remind her mother Madhavi not to search and worry about her daughter; the goddess then disappeared into the sky; a description of the ongoing festival continues, along with a mention of upset women, infidelities of their husbands, the tired and sleeping young boys and girls who earlier in the day had run around in their costumes of Hindu gods (Vishnu) and goddesses (Durga); Sudhamati walked through the sleeping city, when a stone statue spoke to her and told her that Manimekalai will return to the city in a week with a complete knowledge, like Buddha, of all her past births as well as yours. Sudhamati froze in fear seeing the stone statue talk and what it told her.
Cantos VIII-XI: Manimekalai on Manipallavam island Canto VIII Manimekalai wakes up on the Manipallavam island. She finds herself alone, is confused and afraid. She weeps while walking on the beach, recalls her friend, her father Kovalan who was unjustly executed in Madurai, her mother and all loved ones. Then Manimekalai sees Buddha's footprint pedestal, shining with jewels. She sees some people fighting near it. Buddha appears, orders them to cease fighting, to remember that the pedestal is for him alone and should be worshipped by sages and the powerful.
Canto IX Manimekalai's fear and worries vanished near the Buddha's footprints. Tears of joy rolled down her cheeks. She suddenly and miraculously remembers all her past lives along with the circumstances, and saddened by her numerous rebirths, her fathers and husbands. The epic mentions she meeting a sage named Brahma Dharma, being a Buddhist in the last birth, of Gandhara, Naganadu, the north city of Avanti, and other locations significant to Indian Buddhism.
Canto X