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or two vowels. A single-vowel asai is called nEr asai and two-vowel asai nirai
asai. As you can see the structure of names of the asais reflect the structure
of the type of the asai they name. that is, the word "nEr" itself consists of a
nEr asai and the word "nirai" itself consists of a nirai asai.
These asais are also directly related to the syllables used in verbalizing time
measures and beats in Tamil music and dance that everyone must already be
familiar with: thAm, thOm, thIm, thathim, thAthIm, thagathimida etc.
An asai ends whenever 1.one or more mey (pure consonant) follow any vowel (kuril
or nedil), 2. a nedil appears or 3. two consecutive kurils have appeared.
Example: analyzing a few stanzas of the above veNpAs, we have From Auvaiyar's:
pA -lum theLi-thE-num pA-gum parup-pumi-vai
From Silambu: pUm-puhAr pot-Rudhum pUm-puhAr pot-Rudhum vIn-gunIr vE-li
ula-girkk(u) ava-naLi-pOl
nEr : 1. pA 2. lum 3. thE 4. num 5. pA 6. gum 7. nAn 8.girk nirai: 10.
theLi 11. parup 12. pumi 13. puhAr 14. gunIr
Note that if a long vowel begins an asai, then that asai ought to be a nEr asai
(number 7 in th example above) ; but if a long vowel occurs as the second vowel
in an asai then that asai ought to be a nirai asai (num 13 and 14 above).
An important point is that mey (pure consonant) sounds have no significance
except to help in separating two asais. This is because they by themselves
consume no significant measure of time when singing an asai. That is: a, am,
pa, pam, A, Am, pAm are each treated as an asai. Actually even when two mey's
strung together are still treated as part of one asai: ula-girk from Silambu
above.
Part 2: sIr and thaLai:
sIr (or seer): sIr is very different from the concept of word. A sIr is a
string of one to four asais. two and three sIrs are most common. sinlge asai
sIrs occur as final sIrs in veNpA and four asai sIrs are common in vanchippAs.
sIrs are with various restriction on their occurrence determine thalais which
ultimately determine the characetristics of the various pAs. The boundary of a
sIr need not match the boundaries of the words that occur in the pA. A single
word may span multiple sIrs or a single sIr may contain parts from one or more
words. The split is determined based on the specific context.
The rest of the info on sIrs mostly how are they named which very logical.
There are different types of sIrs and they have interesting names too.
The basis for classifications is the number of asais in a sIr and each
permutation of asais has a name for easy notation. 1. Or asaichchIr: As said
before, 1-asai sIr occurs in veNpAs only and that too as the final sIr only.
They are nAL and malar.
Even though at first it would appear that or 1-asai sIr should not need new
names since only a nEr or nirai can appear, a nEr with kuril is not acceptable
as 1-asai sIr. This is easy to see since it is difficult to end a veNpA in a
kuril. To notate this, the subtype of nEr that can occur as a 1-asai sIr is
called nAl with a nedil. That is why, you will observe that veNpAs of
Thirukkural etc. end in asais like thA, lAn etc.
3. 3-asai sIr The eight permutations each have a name. In addiiton to the
naming components used in 2-asai sIrs, two new naming components, viz., kAy and
kani are used to notate the nEr and nirai asais that can be appended to the
2-asai sIrs.
nEr nEr nEr :thEmAngkAy nirai nEr nEr :puLimAngkAy nEr nEr nirai :thEmAngkani
nirai nEr nirai: puLimAngkani nEr nirai nEr : kUviLangkAy nirai nirai nEr:
karuviLangkAy nEr nirai nirai: kUviLangkani nirai nirai nirai: karuviLamkani
A veNpA is permitted to have 3-asai sIrs also but those sIrs must end in -kAy
which means four subtypes of 3-asai sIrs are permitted. Even then, they *must*
be followed by a sIr beginning with a nEr. That juxtaposition is termed kAy mun
nEr (nEr forward of kAy).
From AuvaiyAr: theLi-thE-num pA-gum nirai-nEr-nEr nEr-nEr kAy mun nEr.
Pleas check that the veNpAs quoted above obey these rules.
4. 4-asai sIrs: Used in vanchippAs. We need not go into details. One
important note: you must remember that in Tamil a vowel followed by another
vowel most often gets elided (suppressed or consumed) and the succeeding vowel
is what remains. All these rules are applied after allowing for such elision.
Let's take thesecond stanza from the Silambu veNpA: vIngunIr vEli ulagirkk(u)
avanaLipOl
here if the rules are applied before elision of the "u" in parentheses, then you
will see that a kAy mun nirai results which is prohibited in a veNpA. You will
observe that reading pAs wihtout decent amount of elision of vowels often
results in poor flow of the sound as you get into the habit of reading the poems
with the appropriate candence.
Thalai: Thalai is simply a juxtaposition of sIrs. Thalai is a fundamental
construct that determines the musical aspects of a pA. A thalai is specified by
which asai succeeds which type of sIr. Here we use the shorthand "x" to replace
nErisai veNpA: Now outside of kuRaL, the most popular veNpA is nErisai veNpA
the one with 4 adis and a thanichhol (or a special sIr) in the second adi. All
the four adi veNpAs quoted above are nErisai veNpAs. the thanichhol has the
following rules applicable: it must have edhugai with the first sIr of the
second adi. Everybody must already be familiar with edhugai (as in monai and
edhugai). matching of the second phonemes of two sIrs; this requires that the
first phonemes (vowels) be of the same length (both nedil or both kuril).
1. nALum kalandhunakku nAntharuvEn - kOlamchey (from above)
2. nOkkuNdAm mEni nudangAdhu - pUkkoNdu (from above)
3. eNNum ezhuththum iyalaindhum paNnAngum paNninRa kUththup padhinonRum maNNinmEl pOkkinAL pUmpuhArp potRodi mAdhavithan vAkkinAl Adarangil vandhu.
(Silambu - arangEtru kAdhai)
You would also notice that nErisai veNpA gets an additional quality in its
cadence due to the thanichhol: you have to pause after uttering the sIr
preceding it and it has an edhugai with the first sIr.
Please don't be scared by the rules they are really simple and logical.
Well we are all set to compose veNpAs!
Please practise reciting veNpAs with the right cadence then analyze them for
conformance to the rules. Then it is easier to compose veNpAs.
ALmost everybosy must be having access to ThirkkuRal which has kuRal veNpAs.
For nErisai veNpAs i suggest that you look under the Tamil electronic library
(http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/) for e-texts of Auvaiyar's nalvazhi etc.
In the mean time, I suggest that we start with completion of a kuRal veNpA that
ends and/or starts with a particular sIr. Initially for practice, I suggest
that we use only the words nEr, nirai, nErbu and niraibu to construct a kuRal.
For example, a kuRal that ends in nEr and uses only the above listed words would
be: (the simplest possible one and the dullest possible veNpa!) nErnirai
nErnirai nErnirai nErnirai nErnirai nErnirai nEr.
You may try to impose additional constraints such as start with nirai etc.