Mandhakini Devi’s muteness

Mandhakini Devi’s muteness is a condition of communication rather than an absence of expression: she does not use human speech in the encounter with Poonguzhali, yet calls to a deer, embraces her niece, and communicates through gesture and touch. The narrative later makes silence itself uncertain, when Aniruddhar’s party mistakes Poonguzhali for Mandhakini and treats her apparent muteness as evidence about the wrong woman. The distinction matters: the scenes establish Mandhakini’s nonverbal presence while showing how easily others can mistake silence for identity.

Identity and Nonverbal Communication

Poonguzhali describes her aunt as unfamiliar with the human tongue but adept at the language of animals. The description sets a limit on what can be concluded: it presents Mandhakini as unable to communicate in ordinary human speech, but does not explain the cause or history of that condition. In the encounter, her voice is not simply absent. An extraordinary call makes a nearby deer leap away, demonstrating an effective form of communication outside human language.

Her reunion with Poonguzhali is also conveyed physically. Mandhakini catches her niece in an embrace and presses her lips to Poonguzhali’s forehead. The two communicate in silence, with Poonguzhali making a sign as they approach one another. Sendhan Amudhan keeps his distance while aunt and niece share this private exchange; when Poonguzhali gestures for him to come forward, Mandhakini studies him and places a hand on his head as if blessing him. These gestures carry recognition, welcome, and an act of blessing without a spoken explanation.

Afterward, Mandhakini takes Poonguzhali by the hand and leads her, along with Sendhan Amudhan, to the stream. She sits down and signals her niece to leave. The sequence gives her control over the encounter: she directs who approaches, offers touch, and then indicates that she wants to be alone. Silence does not make her passive within this scene; gesture organizes the movement and attention of the people around her.

Mistaken Identity and the Meaning of Silence

The narrative sharply distinguishes Mandhakini’s communication from a later, mistaken account of muteness. Aniruddhar examines Poonguzhali and questions the two attendants who escorted her. After hearing their replies, he dismisses them and tells his disciple that there appears to have been a mistake. The exchange concerns the identity of the woman brought before him, not a new encounter with Mandhakini.

Aniruddhar asks whether this woman is Mandhakini Devi. Azhwarkkadiyaan answers that she is not. When Aniruddhar asks who she might be and how she came there, Azhwarkkadiyaan suggests questioning her. Aniruddhar points out that questioning a mute woman presents a difficulty; he has already asked the maids, who say she has not spoken since her arrival. At this stage, the report of muteness is based on the young woman’s silence and the attendants’ testimony, while her identity remains unsettled.

The apparent contradiction is resolved when Poonguzhali speaks. Aniruddhar asks his disciple whether she was the woman who spoke, and, on hearing that she seemed to be, remarks on the apparent miracle of a mute person speaking. Azhwarkkadiyaan offers a religious explanation, but Aniruddhar rejects it: he concludes that there has been an inconvenient mistake and that the young woman has deceived them by acting deaf and dumb. The scene therefore cannot be used as proof that Mandhakini suddenly speaks. It reveals instead how a false identification has made Poonguzhali’s silence appear to confirm a mistaken assumption.

Voice, Attention, and the Palace

The palace scenes place that mistaken silence beside other, very different uses of sound. When Aniruddhar and Poonguzhali arrive before Sundara Chozhar, the Maharani proposes that Poonguzhali sing Thevaram hymns for the emperor. Aniruddhar offers to have his disciple sing Azhwar verses as well. Poonguzhali sings one hymn, and Azhwarkkadiyaan another; Sundara Chozhar closes his eyes, his strained features relax, and his laboured breathing settles into a steady rhythm as he falls asleep.

This episode does not make Mandhakini the singer or suggest that she speaks in the palace. Rather, it gives her muteness a meaningful contrast: Poonguzhali, whose silence had led Aniruddhar to misidentify her, is also able to use song in the emperor’s chamber. The women’s different modes of communication are not interchangeable. Mandhakini’s animal call, signs, and touch belong to her encounter by the stream; Poonguzhali’s singing becomes part of a public, shared effort to soothe the ailing Sundara Chozhar.

Narrative Significance

Across these episodes, sound is a measure of what characters can know, but it is not a dependable shortcut to identity. A call can reach an animal; gestures can sustain an intimate exchange; silence can prompt a mistaken conclusion; and song can quiet a troubled listener. The narrative distinguishes Mandhakini’s apparent unfamiliarity with human speech from Poonguzhali’s temporary performance of deafness and muteness, preventing the two women from collapsing into one figure merely because others misread them.

The resulting uncertainty also changes how the reader understands the label of muteness. In the streamside encounter, Mandhakini’s gestures and animal call reveal purposeful forms of expression. In Aniruddhar’s chamber, the supposed mute is eventually heard speaking, exposing the error beneath the diagnosis. The scenes do not supply a medical explanation for Mandhakini’s condition; instead, they show its practical and relational dimensions through the ways she communicates, the responses she elicits, and the mistakes that arise when observers treat silence as self-explanatory.