Parattai : タミル古典恋愛文学の一登場人物

抄録

In the love poems of ancient Tamil of 1st A. D. to 3rd A. D., a woman who is generally termed parattai in Tamil plays an important role. However, it is still unclear who and what she is, as is shown by the various appellations to her given by modern scholars, such as 'harlot', 'prostitute', 'courtesan', and 'concubine'. The aim of this paper is to make it clear who the parattai is.
One of the reasons for this unclearness is that most of them disregard two important points : first, some among the so-called 'classical texts' belong to the later period when Tamil society began to undergo Aryan influence, and hence they sometimes do not describe their really ancient (i.e. indigenous) society ; secondly, love poems among them, being so conventionalized, do not always describe the actual society but the literary world, whereas the poems other than those reflect the actual society.
To avoid confusion caused by disregarding these points, the author limits his investigation to the parattai referred to in the earliest and most conventionalized texts, that is, Tolkappiyam, the oldest Tamil grammar in a wide sense, and four anthologies of love poems (i.e. Kuruntokai, Narrinai, Akananuru and Ainkurunuru), although reference to the parattai is found in the texts other than those.
He first makes brief mention of the conventions of love poems in regard to the parattai, and then investigates who she is in both poetics and poetry. He makes it clear that both of them describe her only as a 'courtesan'. As a conclusion, he points out the historical and cultural background for the incorrect interpretaion of the ancient parattai by Tamil scholars.