Kannagi

Kannagi
Kannagi
Kannagi Statue in Marina Beach, Chennai
This article is about a legendary person. For other uses, see Kannagi (disambiguation).

Kannagi (Tamil: கண்ணகி), sometimes spelled Kannaki,[1] is a legendary Tamil woman who forms the central character of the Tamil epic Cilappatikāram.[2] Kannagi is described as a chaste woman who stays with her husband despite his adultery, their attempt to rebuild their marriage after her unrepentant husband had lost everything, how he is framed then punished without the due checks and processes of justice.[1] Kannagi proves and protests the injustice, then curses the king and city of Madurai, leading to the death of the unjust Pandyan king of Madurai, who had wrongfully put her husband Kovalan to death. The society that made her suffer suffers in retribution as the city Madurai is burnt to the ground because of her curse.[1]

In Tamil folklore, Kannagi has been deified as the symbol – sometimes as a goddess – of chastity, with sculptures or reliefs in Hindu temples iconographically reminding the visitor of her breaking her anklet or tearing her bleeding breast and throwing it at the city.[3][4]

  1. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference jp1977 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Kamil Zvelebil 1973, pp. 51–52.
  3. ^ E.T. Jacob-Pandian (1977). K Ishwaran (ed.). Contributions to Asian Studies: 1977. Brill Academic. pp. 56–61. ISBN 90-04-04926-6.
  4. ^ Iḷaṅkōvaṭikaḷ (1993). The Tale of an Anklet: An Epic of South India. Columbia University Press. pp. 318–327 with note 86 on page 366. ISBN 978-0-231-07849-8.