In the flood of time with no beginning and no end, in the flow of a tale with no rest and no restraint, we ask that our readers embark on the boat of our imagination and journey with us for a little while. Let’s set ourselves the speed of a century a second, and go back nine hundred and eighty-two years.
Lying in the southern part of the land of Tirumunaippaadi, which is situated between Thondai Naadu and Chozha Naadu, about two kaadhams to the west of Tillai Chitrambalam, is a lake as large as an ocean. It goes by the name of Veeranarayana Eri. It measures one-and-a-half kaadhams from south to north, and half a kaadham from east to west. Over time, its name has been corrupted to Veeranaathu Eri. Not one soul who chanced upon the lake in the months of Aadi and Aavani, when the first flood of the year had swept its waters right up to the brim where they foamed and frothed and boiled and bubbled, could be exempt from marvelling at the incredible achievements of our Tamil ancestors. Did our forefathers limit themselves to catering to the well-being of their contemporaries alone? It was keeping in mind the future children of this motherland of theirs, generation after generation of descendants sprouting like plantain trees at the feet of their forebears over thousands of years, that they carried out their engineering feats, was it not?
On the eighteenth day of Aadi, in the early hours of the evening, when the waters of the Veeranarayana Lake were gushing in waves quite like the ocean, a young warrior cantered along the banks on his horse. He was a scion of the Vaanar clan, whose bravery has been etched into the annals of Tamil history. His name was Vallavarayan Vandiyadevan. His horse, exhausted from its long journey, had slowed to a walk. He didn’t mind, enraptured as he was by the dimensions of the lake and the sights of the day.
It was the norm for all the rivers of Chozha Naadu to overflow with the waters of the first flood on the eighteenth day of Aadi, called the Aadi Perukku, as it was for the lakes that fed from these rivers to be filled with those swirling waters right up to their edges. The waters that coursed from the river called Vada Kaveri by devotees and Kollidam by the commonfolk, through the Vadavaaru River, had leapt into the Veeranarayana Lake and turned it into a churning ocean. The water then irrigated the surrounding lands through the seventy-four canals that were predecessors of the sluice gates of our time. For as far as the eye could see, farmsteads were engaged in agricultural activity that made the most of the water – the men were ploughing the fields, and the women were planting seeds. They kept their fatigue at bay by singing cheerful folk songs.
Vandiyadevan didn’t spur his tired horse on. He enjoyed the sights and sounds instead. It had occurred to him to verify whether the lake truly supplied seventy-four irrigation canals. He estimated he had travelled a kaadham and a half along the shore and counted seventy thus far.
Aha! What a gigantic lake this was! How long! How wide! The lakes dug by the kings of the Pallava era in Thondai Naadu would be reduced to little ponds in comparison. How incredible that it had occurred to Prince Rajadityar, the son of Madurai Konda Parantakar, to craft this vast lake so that the waters of the Vada Kaveri would not be wasted! He had not only conceived of such an audacious idea, but had gone on to put thought into action. What a genius he must have been! He had no equal in valour either. He had personally led the vanguard into battle at Takkolam, seated on his elephant hadn’t he? He had lost his life to an enemy’s spear embedded in his chest, hadn’t he? He had earned the title of “Yaanai Mel Thunjiya Devar” – He Who Rode His Elephant to the Heavens – in death, hadn’t he?
The kings of the Chozha clan were truly awe-inspiring. As was their courage, so was their sense of justice; as was their sense of justice, so was their devotion to God. In contemplating that he had a claim to friendship with the kings of such a clan, Vandiyadevan’s shoulders grew broader. His heart swelled with pride in quite the same fashion as the Veeranarayana Lake swelled with its waters when the westerly wind swept across the surface with a “virrrr”.
Vandiyadevan arrived at the southern end of the Veeranarayana Lake, his mind occupied with such thoughts, and was treated to the sight of the Vadavaaru breaking off from Vada Kaveri to empty itself into the lake. The bed of the lake stretched some distance beyond the water’s surface into the shore. In order to prevent damage to the shore during the floods, the residents of this region had planted karuvela and vila trees into the soil. Wild sugarcane bushes made their sturdy way through the banks. To watch from a distance as the waters of the first flood threw themselves into the lake, lined by greenery on either side, was to see a stunning painting come to life.
Excerpted with permission from Ponniyin Selvan: First Flood, Kalki, translated from the Tamil by Nandini Krishnan, Eka/Westland.