சூழலியல் நோக்கில் சூல் நாவல் கூறும் சமூக மாற்றங்கள் / Social Changes in Ecological Perspective as Portrayed in the Novel Sool

Abstract

Early Tamil society was a hunting society. Man used to hunt animals for food and look for food available in nature. Later, he engaged in animal husbandry, created pasture lands and found a decent life. History tells us that it was only when he invented agriculture that established a sustainable life along the river banks in ancient Tamil Nadu. Towns, human life and civilization developed where water was found. As the urban civilization developed on the banks of rivers, the “Sool” novel suggests that villages developed on the banks of Kanmai (Lake). The life of South Tamil Nadu farmers intertwined with agriculture, their moral beliefs, the conservation of plants and trees to protect the banks of the lake, the cultivation of Palm trees, natural knowledge about birds that predict the amount of breeding in advance and build nests can be seen in this novel. There was a belief among the people that to atone for their sins, those who had sinned should make amends by consolidating and benefiting nature, such as protecting water bodies, rearing goats and cows, and growing trees. In the villages, there are deities like Ayyanar and Karuppasamy in Kanmaikarai (Bay of the Lakes) to protect the town, and we can learn the story of Neer Paichi, the guardian deity who came to life to protect the water bodies. Cho. Dharman’s “Sool” strongly recorded in the novel that water levels are the world's life-carrying “Sool” (feutus). But in today's era, the state of agricultural industry has been in a very bad state due to the lack of proper water supply and management and the reduced maintenance of the dams and selfishness.

Keywords

• cho. dharman
• sool
• irrigation
• agriculture
• lake
• ecological perspective.