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son, for a long time separated from his home, finally comes back to
his father bringing him a heart full of tenderness, love and religion,
a spirit well versed with all wisdoms and sciences and being able to
look freely into the worried father's eyes: I have overcome the
youth's lusts, my most stubborn enemies; pure is now my behaviour,
when the father harvests the fruits of many years' sweating and seed
which was begun by mourning, and when the father sees his son
giving the first examples of his concentrated knowledge and of his
improved heart, when the mother weeps tears of joy instead of the
many tears of sorrow, and both are praising God with a delighted
mouth for His true guidance, and giving Him the due thanks. - Look,
father! such a day I would like to give you once in your grey years,
I should like to requite the heavy grief I caused to you, so you could
say, this is entirely my son. God, who has done great things to us,
may complete it, may guide everything towards the good.” 13
It is overwhelming to see what style this young boy Hermann
Gundert wrote. In his youth he must have known and spoken
Greek, Latin, Hebrew and other languages like his mother tongue.
Like a sponge he absorbed all the literature he could get hold of,
brought it together with to his core and new shoots sprouted,
becoming a new, indigenous, powerful and convincing language.
Gundert's inmost was creating language. The most lively material
Gundert worked on were his ballads, his poems and his folk songs.
When I read Gundert's poems I am reminded of Latin, Greek,
Hebrew and especially Vedic, Upanishadic and Classical Sanskrit
epics and poems. It is said that Sanskrit is the holy and perfect
language-this you can experience by reading and translating texts
in this language.
Let this short insight into Gundert's literary workshop inspire
many Scholars and others to read Taccoli Pattukal and make their
love grow for ballads which are so manifold and rich in Malabar. Let
this volume convince people to collect folk literature, work on it and
make it available to the public.
I appreciate the courage and endeavour of Professor Dr
Scaria Zacharia who has twice taken the pains of prolonged
separation from his family to make available the old Malayalam
manuscripts of which many were collected by Gundert himself and
preserved by the Tuebingen University Library. Now, in writing this
