Reminding the respective works of Aeschylus and Shelley, an important page in the history of Tamil literature appeared when a poet from Kongunadu penned an antithesis to Ramayana on the title 'Ravana Kaviyam'
Prometheus, a titan of the Greek religion, suffered an eternal punishment of being nailed to a mountain in the Caucasus, and Zeus, the supreme God of the religion sent an eagle to eat the immortal liver of Prometheus, which constantly replenished. But, the 'crime' committed by Prometheus was that he stole fire from Zeus’ chamber and gave it to the mortals. Aeschylus, a playwright of ancient Greece, penned the drama 'Prometheus Bound' based on this myth. Still, it was after many centuries from the play, Romantic English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley replied to Aeschylus by writing his antithesis - Prometheus Unbound, a lyrical drama in 1820.
Reminding the respective works of Aeschylus and Shelley, an important page in the history of Tamil literature appeared when a poet from Kongunadu penned an antithesis to Ramayana on the title 'Ravana Kaviyam'
Bards of the yore Valmiki, Tulsidas, and Kambar, who glorified the mythological King Rama in their grand epics, could not have imagined that one day, a renowned Tamil scholar named Pulavar Kuzhanthai would pen a similar grand epic, but in praise of their villain Ravana!
When Kuzhanthai wrote Ravana Kaviyam in 1946, the then Congress government, which ruled the Madras state, imposed a ban on it for its pro-Dravidian views. Nevertheless, the ban was lifted in 1971 after the DMK captured power in Tamil Nadu.
Praising the book and commending Kuzhanthai’s poetic sense and erudition in Tamil, DMK founder C.N. Annadurai noted that Ravana Kaviyam, which consists of 3100 songs, was equal in all literary merits in comparison with Ramayana. But, he also underlined that Kuzhanthai’s epic differed only in the central idea.
A close associate of the Dravidian stalwarts Periyar E.V. Ramasamy and C.N. Annadurai, Kuzhanthai was a staunch atheist, rationalist, and an ardent lover of Tamil.
Born at Olavalasu near Erode in the then Coimbatore district in 1906, Kuzhanthai learned the Tamil alphabets by writing them on a heap of sand at a Thinnai Pallikoodam (Pyol School). He had a passion for composing conventional Tamil poetry even while he was a 10 -year old boy. He mastered the elements in Tamil prosody all by himself, as there were few Tamil scholars in his village.
Kuzhanthai, who later worked as a Tamil teacher at Bhavani Board High School between 1941 and 1962, is an author of various other books including Arasiyalarangam, Kamanjari, Nalathambi Sarkarai Thalattu, Vellakovil Vazhinadai Sindhu, Thirunana Siledai Venba and Nerunchi Pazham. He also wrote detailed commentaries on Thirukural and Tholkappiyam, besides authoring the Tamil grammar books Yaappathikaram and Thodayathikaram.
Kuzhanthai penned his grand epic Ravana Kaviyam to register his opposition against the ideas in Ramayana, which praised the Aryan practices of sacrificing animals in Yagnas, dividing mankind into four varnas and demeaning the Tamil race as Rakshasas and Asuras. Glorifying Ravana as a Tamil king, Pulavar Kuzhanthai describes the Aryan settlement in the northern parts of the ancient Thamizh land as Sage Vishwamitra performing Yagnas and sacrificing animals in the fire until the Lankan king Ravana stopped the merciless practice.
The pages in Ravana Kaviyam have turned yellow over time. Now, Rama fires his golden arrows at Ravana. The arrows turn into venomous serpents to prey on his heads. Like the immortal liver of Prometheus, Ravana's heads keep replenishing after every shot of the arrow. Finally, Rama takes his Brahmastra and targets again at him. But down through the ages, millions of men in Ravana's race look like him. Rama is now baffled as to which one he should aim at.