Kundalakesi (Tamil: குண்டலகேசி Kuṇṭalakēci, lit. "woman with curly hair"), also called Kuntalakeciviruttam, is a Tamil Buddhist epic written by Nathakuthanaar, likely sometime in the 10th-century.[1][2][3] The epic is a story about love, marriage, getting tired with the married partner, murder and then discovering religion.[1]
The Kundalakesi epic has partially survived into the modern age in fragments, such as in commentaries written centuries later. From these fragments, it appears to be a tragic love story about a Hindu[4] or Jain[5] girl of merchant caste named Kundalakesi who falls in love with Kalan – a Buddhist criminal on a death sentence.[1][6] The girl's rich merchant father gets the criminal pardoned and freed, the girl marries him. Over time, their love fades and they start irritating each other. During an argument, Kundalakesi reminds him of his criminal past which angers Kalan. A few days later, he invites her to a hike up a hill.[1] When they reach the top, he tells her that he will now kill her. The wife requests that he let circumambulate him – her husband – three times like a god, before her death. He agrees. When she is behind him, she pushes her husband over into the valley below and kills him. She feels remorse for killing the boy she once fell in love with and someone she had married. She meets teachers of various religious traditions, adopts Buddhism, renounces and becomes a nun, then achieves Nirvana.[1][4] Sections of the story are very similar to the Buddhist Pali Therigatha legend.[1][note 1]
The Kuntalakeci is one of Aim-perum-kappiyam (lit. "five great kavyas", or The Five Great Epics of Tamil Literature) according to the later Tamil literary tradition.[2] The surviving stanza fragments of the epic are in kalitturai poetic meter. It was likely an epic drama-musical for Tamil Buddhist audience in and about the 10th-century.[2] The work likely ridiculed Jainism and Hinduism, attracting commentaries and debate. Various Tamil scholars dated between 10th- and 16th-centuries have called the Buddhist epic as a work of tarukkavadam (polemics and controversy).[2]
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