Maṇimēkalai: Text, Transliteration and Translations in English Verse and Prose

Maṇimēkalai, one of the masterpieces of Tamil literature, gives us, a delightful insight into the ways of life, the pleasures, beliefs, and philosophical concepts of a refined civilization. The story relates to the adventures of a dancing girl who becomes a convert to Buddhism. Maṇimēkalai calls into question many of our received ideas concerning ancient India as well as our interpretation of the sources of its present-day religion and philosophy. In its clear accounts of the philosophical concepts of the time, the Maṇimēkalai presents the various currents of pre-Aryan thought (mainly preserved by the Ajivika ascetics and Jain monks) which gradually influenced the Vedic Aryan world and became an essential part of it and, through Buddhism, spread over the whole of the Far East and Central Asia.

The society in which the action of the Maṇimēkalai takes place has little to do with the Aryanized civilization of the north which we know from Sanskrit texts. Although important cultural exchanges between the Aryan and Dravidian worlds had already taken place by this time, the latter was still able to maintain its independence, some of its features continuing even to our own times. The centre of religious and political power is the king. As in ancient China, the god’s favour and the country’s prosperity depend on the King’s virtue. Spiritual and religious life is guided by sages, seers (rishis), who lead an ascetic life, living in the mountains or in secluded places. It appears that Dravidian society did not originally possess a priestly caste.