Early Manipravalam Works

The earliest of these works in the Manipravalam school is Vaisika Tantram written in the 13th century. It is fairly typical of the works that appealed to the upper class reading public of those days. It contains about 200 quatrains in Sanskrit metres and is in the form of professional advice given to a prostitute or courtesan by her mother.


These instructions are of a practical nature calculated to please the pampered tastes of a leisured class. But each quatrain is composed with care and due weight is given to the rules of rhetoric. For instance the mother tells the daughter, who is to get ready for the family vocation as a courtesan, that "old age is a sea to be crossed by means of the wealth earned during one's youth". Several quatrains of this type are quoted in Lilathilakam by way of illustration for the several rules of grammar and rhetoric. An example may be quoted here:

All breezes are not breezes. The real breeze is the one
That bathes in the nearby river, dances among the growing coconut trees,
Caresses the uniquely beautiful body of mistress Rohini
And comes in kindness to thrill me by blowing over me.

Perhaps the most representative of these early Manipravalam works are the tales of courtesans (Achi Charitams) and the Message Poems (Sandesa Kavyas).