The Apotheosis of Kanniki/Pattini as the Wife/Goddess: Problematic Study of Ilango Adigal’s Silappatikaram

Pages:4-6
Raunak Rathee (Department of English and Foreign Languages, Maharshi Dayanand University Rohtak, Haryana)

Ilanko Adigal’s Silappatikaram tells the tale of a ‘wife’ turned goddess. What is interesting is that in a men’s world a women can be a protagonist but only on the terms of men. It was a man who made her wife and it was a man who turned her to goddess. Deification of Kannagi is problematic because this apotheosis does not elevate her position but drops her down from basic humanity. One can analyze how beautifully Adigal has wrapped the filth of hypocrisy with golden shimmery cover of ‘goodness’. The difficulty in accepting Kannagi as Pattini is that how can a woman who cannot stand for herself becomes a goddess? Adigal achieves a decency which leads to the incarceration of Kannagi’s body to ‘the private realm’ of a virtuous woman. Here is a “Goddess” whose identity belongs to her husband, who is brought to picture when her husband dies and is worshipped because she avenged her adulterous husband’s death. Interesting is the fact that Adigal in Book of Vanci celebrates the heroism of king Cenkuttuvan on the name of deification of Kannagi.