Wedding of Kannaki and Kovalan

Kannaki in Silappadikaram and Manimekalai

The story how an ordinary woman named Kannaki became deified as goddess Pattini, for her chastity, is mentioned in the Tamil texts Silappadikaram and Manimekalai, belonging to the Sangam Age of India. Vyanthimalaya is a Sinhala version of the story and a scholarly treatment authored by the erudite bard Trisinhala Kavitilaka of Vidagama.

How Kannaki became elevated to the position of a divinity highlights the importance of chastity among women, because Indian society, in the past, looked upon women with an inferiority complex. The saying Sabha itthiya kare papa vadamana nivatake (All women indulge in the sin as and when chanced) is critical of women who easily fall prey to men to satisfy their libidinosity geared by sexual impulses.

Both the historic synchronism and the quasi-religious nature of the popular saga concerning the Pattini cult have been woven into the fabric of perfect womanhood, which Indian society for centuries had maintained as the greatest virtue worthy of amelioration, and that chastity puts women on the level of angels on earth. All faults of a woman become erased if she is chaste.