Article 7 - Review on Sivagamiyin Sabatham

Sivagamiyin Sabatham which means Sivagami's vow is a mega tamil historical novel written by veteran author Kalki Krishnamurthy in the year 1944. This novel is regarded as one of the best novel along with mega hit novel Ponniyin Selvan from the same author.

This novel briefly talks about the Pallava dynasty and the ruling period of Pallavas.The basic plot revolves around the real life characters such as Mahendravarman, the emperor of Pallava dynasty, his son Narasimhavarman a.k.a Mamalla and Chalukya king Pulikesi. It grabs you to the historical time period of Pallava dynasty who ruled 1500 years ago in southern parts of India. It pulls you to see the cities Kanchi (Kanchipuram located in TamilNadu,India) and Vatapi (currently Badami located in Karnataka, India) of that time when Pallavas and Chalukyas ruled.

It also involves the fictional characters starting from the main character of the story - Sivagami - the love interest of Narasimha , her father Aayanar who is a master sculptor (Chirpi in Tamil), Paranjothi who later becomes the chief commander of Pallava army and Naganandhi a.k.a Nilekesi (Twin brother of Pulikesi) who can be considered as the secret villain of the story.I enjoyed reading this novel from the beginning to the end since it makes you mesmerizing and stick to the historical period which you would have dreamt of. It varies from dance to art, spying to war and each part of the entire novel gives the thrilling moment to read on.

Historical Spy Work and Romantic Thriller

If you are interested in reading historical novels, books, fiction , fantasy stories this book is for you. Though the entire novel's original version is written in Tamil, I guess some body would have translated this book in English. The book is actually split into 4 parts as follows:

Part 1: Paranjothi's Journey
Part 2: Seige of Kanchi
Part 3: The Monk's Love
Part 4: Shattered Dream

The PDF format or Ebook of this novel has around 570 pages which may be much more in the original book as it includes the images and pictures of the characters sketched by artist Maniam who has done his best to illustrate the locations by exploring different cities such as Ajanta, Ellora, Kanchi, Badami(Vatapi), Hampi etc. Even Kalki have done his home work before starting the writing.The novel deals with the unique and famous dance Bharatanatiyam, art and sculptures of Pallavas leading to the historical place Mammallapuram which even exists today (Chennai,TamilNadu).Overall the novel is a historical spy work plus romantic thriller.

Historical Adventure

This historical novel is one of my favorite after Ponniyin Selvan.
It is a historical adventure in my opinion which clearly briefs about art,dance,sculptures and historical incidents. Especially when Mahendravarman enters Vatapi as Vajrabahu from the hero side and Nilekesi enters Kanchi as Naganandhi from the villain side rises the expectations of reader.The end of the novel is an ultimate twist which reader would have never expected.

The journey of Paranjothi as a normal villager to Paranjothiyar as the commander in chief of Pallava army speaks about the evolution of character in different parts of the story.The sequences such as love between Narasimha and Sivagami which is broken by the vow of Sivagami,Sivagami residing in the enemy state Vatapi under Chalukya king Pulikesi, Naganandhi turning situations like a fast moving snake really keeps the reader busy.

Overall, this is one of the book worth reading for a Tamil historical novel.

--Siva Subramanian