Ezhuthachhan

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Malayalam literature passed though a tremendous process of

development in the 15th and 16th centuries. Cherusseri's

Krishnagatha bore witness to the evolution of modern Malayalam

language as a proper medium for serious poetic communication.

 

Alongside there flourished numerous Sanskrit poets who were very

active during this period. The greatest of them was Melpathur

Narayana Bhattathiri, the author of Narayaneeyam. The Manipravala

poets were no less active, as is shown by a series of Chambus and

Kavyas and single quatrains produced in the period, the greatest

monument of which is perhaps the Naishadham Chambu. But the most

significant development of the time took place in the field of

Malayalam poetry.

Thunchattu Ezhuthachan, the greatest Malayalam poet of all

time, wrote his two great epics Adhyatma Ramayanam and

Srimahabharatam and two shorter pieces, Irupattinalu Vrittam and

Harinama Kirtanam and thereby revolutionized Malayalam language and

literature at once. He is rightly regarded as the maker of modern

Malayalam and the father of Malayalam poetry. The study of Malayalam

should properly begin with the acquisition of the skill to read

Ezhuthachan's Ramayanam with fluency. It was in his works that the

Sanskrit and Dravidian streams in our language as well as literature

achieved a proper synthesis.

The evolution of modern Malayalam becomes complete with

his judicious fusion of the disparate elements. In his diction there

is no violation of euphony. Ezhuthachan's mind and ear went together

in the selection and ordering of phonological and morophological

units. The Kilippattu form he adopted in Ramayanam and Bharatam may

be a pointer to his recognition of importance of the sound effect in

poetry. It enable him to combine fluency with elegance, spontaneity

with complexity, naturalness with depth of meaning and simplicity

with high seriousness. His choice of classcial Dravidian metres in

preference to both the classical Aryan metres and the Dravidian-

based folk metres reveals his concern for striking a balance in most

of his endeavours . Ezhuthachan is the greatest spokesman of the

Bhakti movement in Malayalam but he is more than a writer of

devotional hymns. It is possible to think of him primarily as a poet

imbued with a sense of mission, but not willing to fritter away his

energies on negative projects like castigating any section or

community.

Ezhuthachan is the greatest synthesizer Kerala has ever

seen. A non-Brahmin himself, who studied the Vedas and Upanishads

without prior priestly sanction, he was yet devoted to the real

Brahmins and always revealed a sublime sense of humility. Critics

have sometimes, in their over enthusiasm and admiration for the

poet, pointed out that whenever he has to mention Rama or Krishna,

he goes into raptures and produces a string of the Lord's names. If

this is shown as an inability on the part of the poet to decide what

is proper and what is improper in a given situation, it would only

mean denigrating Ezuthachan as a poet. Ezhuthachan is a master of

auchitya or the quality of propriety in writing. It could easily be

seen that the intrusion of his personal bhakti is not at the expense

of aesthetic propriety. The very fact that he close Adhyatma

Ramayana and not Valmiki Ramayana as his model, shows that

devotional effusions are automatically justified in his telling of

the story of Rama. Bhakti becomes the Sthayibhava and it would have

been improper if he narrated the story merely as an account of

events without any transcendental significance.

That Ezhuthachan is not a mere translator is granted by

all critics and scholars. In fact he follows the earlier Kerala

writers in freely elaborating or condensing the original as he

thinks proper. The celebration of this freedom gained in poetic

creation is what enlivens and ennobles the hymns interspersed in his

works. There seems to be another superstition among some critics

that his Bharatam is more poetic than his Ramayanam. This again

arises from the misconception that devotion is an anachronism in

poetry. In Ezhuthachan's time there was no dissociation of religious

sensibility and devotion and spirituality could always go together.

His Bharatam is a later work, a more nature work but its artistic

greatness does not depend on the exclusion of bhakti in it. As a

matter of fact his Bharatam is as much imbued with religious

devotion as his Ramayanam. The differences are perfectly consistent

with the change of subject matter and the period of composition. The

bhaktivadi critics who praise Ramayanam purely as a devotional work

are unconsciously belittling Ezhuthachan. His greatness as a poet

consists in the appropriateness of the form he chose and the

language he used for what he wanted to present to the people of his

time as well as of later times.