When Blame Turns into Praise
Sisupala’s Soliloquy in Villiputturar’s Paratam
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.24405Keywords:
Śiśupāla, Villiputtūrār, Pāratam, MahābhārataAbstract
This article examines how Villiputturar’s fourteenth-century Paratam, the most important Tamil retelling of the Mahabharata, focuses on Sisupala’s tirade against Krsna at Yudhisthira’s sacrifice. This passage, which has fascinated many poets across the subcontinent over many centuries, is dealt with interestingly by Villiputturar, an erudite Srivaisnava scholar and possibly a court poet. While his knowledge of the Sanskrit texts clearly shows in his verses, there is also something very peculiar in his treatment of Sisupala and his speech that is unique, and which could be the result of the Alvars’, and perhaps even the Srivaisnava Acaryas’, compositions. This article will examine the words of Villiputturar’s Sisupala in light of a selection of texts, and will also assess his impact on the later Tamil poets, notably on the two poets who rendered the Bhagavatapurana into the vernacular language barely a century or two later.
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