Karunanidhi wrong, Ram an ancient Tamil icon
P Ananthakrishnan delves into scholarly and popular Tamil literature that celebrates Ram and Ramayan
One of the most celebrated quotations of Marx is the one about history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce. Had he been watching the television debates on the controversy regarding Ram Setu, he would have concluded that the real tragedy is that history has finally attained the steady-state of farce. The nonsense that is bandied in these discussions is staggering even when one takes into account the fact that so-called specialists are barely allowed to speak and, when they are, they are commanded to give their answers in binary, yes/no terms.
A case in point is the discussion on Ram in Tamil tradition. One historian said Ram had never been a popular god in Tamil Nadu and he was more a literary figure than a religious one. He went on to add that iconographic evidence of Ram in Tamil country was scarce and people even feared that if they worshipped Ram, tragedy would strike them. Another worthy stated that Ram was worshipped by a small group of Vaishnavites. Inevitably, the Aryan-Dravidian divide came up. The Great Political Thespian of India, M Karunanidhi, had the last word. He asked, rhetorically, "Who is this Ram? From which engineering college did he graduate?"
I am not sure, but certainly not from one of the "self-financing" colleges of Tamil Nadu. If he had, he would not have been able to make a plank to cross a brook, leave alone build a bridge to span a gulf.
Is it really that Ram was scarcely known in Tamil country?
Before answering this question, let me make my position very clear on this issue. I am not exactly a believer. And I am of the view that the Sethusamudram project must go ahead, if it has no serious ecological, geological, technological and, what is more, bribe-related implications.
The Ramayan finds a mention in at least two places in the Sangam corpus, which is traditionally dated between 200 BC and 200 AD. In one reference, Ram orders chirping birds to silence. In another, the monkeys wear, in a monkey-like manner, the jewels discarded by Sita while she was being abducted by Ravan. It is worthwhile to note here that both these incidents find no mention in the Valmiki Ramayan. The ease with which these incidents have been woven into the poems indicates that the Ramayan story was well known in the Tamil country during the Sangam period.
The next reference to Ram occurs in the epic Silappadikaram - "The Tale of an Anklet". It was written in the Second Century AD by Ilango Adigal, a prince who became a Jain monk. It is an unforgettable literary masterpiece that was made into an eminently forgettable Tamil film by Karunanidhi himself. In this epic, shepherdesses sing ballads in praise of both Ram and Krishna, clearly identifying them as avatar s of Vishnu.
The works of the Vaishnava saints the Alwars, collectively known as "The Sacred Four Thousand," have innumerable allusions to Ram and the Ramayan. The Alwars prospered between the Sixth and the Tenth Centuries AD. As Vasudha Narayanan points out in her excellent essay on the Ramayan (available at www.ramanuja.org), in the work of one Alwar alone there are 106 allusions to Ram and the Ramayan and there are six "sets" of poems (about 63 verses) where the words are spoken by the Alwar in the guise of a character form the Ramayan. This Alwar, it must be noted, is not a Brahmin.
The Saiva saints, the Nayanmars, most of whom are contemporaries of the Alwars, also stud their verses with episodes from the Ramayan. Then we have the greatest Tamil poet of them all, Kamban.
His Ramayan is correctly considered the acme of Tamil literary achievement. In about 10,000 verses Kamban, who, again, is not a Brahmin and is a grand scholar of Sanskrit and an unabashed admirer of Valmiki, establishes that, for his bhakta s, Rama is the One who is the origin of all. This, it must be remembered, is a sure departure from Valmiki, for whom Rama was only a Maryada Purushottam.
Thus, it is clear that the Tamil country has an uninterrupted tradition of worshipping Ram at least right from the Second Century AD.
The iconographic evidence of Ram in Tamil Nadu is too numerous to narrate here. There are temples to Ram that date back at least to the Ninth Century AD. Some of the greatest Chola bronzes are of Ram - a few of them are on display at the National Museum in Delhi. Some of the masterpieces are worshipped to this day, without interruption, from the day they were consecrated. Today, there is hardly any major city in Tamil Nadu that doesn't have a Ram shrine. Hanuman, of course, pervades everywhere. One of the biggest statues of Hanuman is enshrined in a Chennai suburb, where festival days result in horrendous traffic snarls.
Curiously, this hoary tradition of Ram worship in the Tamil country has led to historian Suvira Jaiswal claiming in March 2007 that (in the words of The Hindu) the Ram cult took birth and evolved in the South, the "Dravida" country, and later got assimilated into the religious psyche of the North! This has evoked a testy response from, of all people, a Tamil, Dr Nagaswamy, a respected art historian and archaeologist, who says that the Ram cult must have originated in the North, perhaps as early as the Second Century BC.
There is nothing more ridiculous than calling Ravan a Dravidian hero. Ravan is in fact a top-of-the drawer Brahmin. He is the great grandson of Brahma himself, the grandson of Pulastya Maharishi and the son of Visravas, another rishi. There is another point to be made here. The beautiful temple at Rameswaram is dedicated to Shiva. According to the Sthalapurana the Shivalinga in the temple is supposed to have been installed by Ram himself for worship. Why did he want to worship Shiva? It was to expiate the sin of Brahmahatya (killing a Brahmin).
There is indeed another great, real divide. This is between the Tamils and the Tam Brahms of Delhi, who are generally seen in these infernal TV discussions. The Tam Brahms of Delhi has lost their Tamil roots long ago. I doubt many of them will be able to read Tamil with some degree of comfort. They have absolutely no clue about the Tamil traditions, culture or literature. So long as they dominate the TV scene, there will only be sound and fury - sound from the Tam Brahms and fury from the Defenders of Dravidian Faith - signifying nothing.
-- The writer , a retired civil servant is an author and novelist
One of the most celebrated quotations of Marx is the one about history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce. Had he been watching the television debates on the controversy regarding Ram Setu, he would have concluded that the real tragedy is that history has finally attained the steady-state of farce. The nonsense that is bandied in these discussions is staggering even when one takes into account the fact that so-called specialists are barely allowed to speak and, when they are, they are commanded to give their answers in binary, yes/no terms.
A case in point is the discussion on Ram in Tamil tradition. One historian said Ram had never been a popular god in Tamil Nadu and he was more a literary figure than a religious one. He went on to add that iconographic evidence of Ram in Tamil country was scarce and people even feared that if they worshipped Ram, tragedy would strike them. Another worthy stated that Ram was worshipped by a small group of Vaishnavites. Inevitably, the Aryan-Dravidian divide came up. The Great Political Thespian of India, M Karunanidhi, had the last word. He asked, rhetorically, "Who is this Ram? From which engineering college did he graduate?"
I am not sure, but certainly not from one of the "self-financing" colleges of Tamil Nadu. If he had, he would not have been able to make a plank to cross a brook, leave alone build a bridge to span a gulf.
Is it really that Ram was scarcely known in Tamil country?
Before answering this question, let me make my position very clear on this issue. I am not exactly a believer. And I am of the view that the Sethusamudram project must go ahead, if it has no serious ecological, geological, technological and, what is more, bribe-related implications.
The Ramayan finds a mention in at least two places in the Sangam corpus, which is traditionally dated between 200 BC and 200 AD. In one reference, Ram orders chirping birds to silence. In another, the monkeys wear, in a monkey-like manner, the jewels discarded by Sita while she was being abducted by Ravan. It is worthwhile to note here that both these incidents find no mention in the Valmiki Ramayan. The ease with which these incidents have been woven into the poems indicates that the Ramayan story was well known in the Tamil country during the Sangam period.
The next reference to Ram occurs in the epic Silappadikaram - "The Tale of an Anklet". It was written in the Second Century AD by Ilango Adigal, a prince who became a Jain monk. It is an unforgettable literary masterpiece that was made into an eminently forgettable Tamil film by Karunanidhi himself. In this epic, shepherdesses sing ballads in praise of both Ram and Krishna, clearly identifying them as avatar s of Vishnu.
The works of the Vaishnava saints the Alwars, collectively known as "The Sacred Four Thousand," have innumerable allusions to Ram and the Ramayan. The Alwars prospered between the Sixth and the Tenth Centuries AD. As Vasudha Narayanan points out in her excellent essay on the Ramayan (available at www.ramanuja.org), in the work of one Alwar alone there are 106 allusions to Ram and the Ramayan and there are six "sets" of poems (about 63 verses) where the words are spoken by the Alwar in the guise of a character form the Ramayan. This Alwar, it must be noted, is not a Brahmin.
The Saiva saints, the Nayanmars, most of whom are contemporaries of the Alwars, also stud their verses with episodes from the Ramayan. Then we have the greatest Tamil poet of them all, Kamban.
His Ramayan is correctly considered the acme of Tamil literary achievement. In about 10,000 verses Kamban, who, again, is not a Brahmin and is a grand scholar of Sanskrit and an unabashed admirer of Valmiki, establishes that, for his bhakta s, Rama is the One who is the origin of all. This, it must be remembered, is a sure departure from Valmiki, for whom Rama was only a Maryada Purushottam.
Thus, it is clear that the Tamil country has an uninterrupted tradition of worshipping Ram at least right from the Second Century AD.
The iconographic evidence of Ram in Tamil Nadu is too numerous to narrate here. There are temples to Ram that date back at least to the Ninth Century AD. Some of the greatest Chola bronzes are of Ram - a few of them are on display at the National Museum in Delhi. Some of the masterpieces are worshipped to this day, without interruption, from the day they were consecrated. Today, there is hardly any major city in Tamil Nadu that doesn't have a Ram shrine. Hanuman, of course, pervades everywhere. One of the biggest statues of Hanuman is enshrined in a Chennai suburb, where festival days result in horrendous traffic snarls.
Curiously, this hoary tradition of Ram worship in the Tamil country has led to historian Suvira Jaiswal claiming in March 2007 that (in the words of The Hindu) the Ram cult took birth and evolved in the South, the "Dravida" country, and later got assimilated into the religious psyche of the North! This has evoked a testy response from, of all people, a Tamil, Dr Nagaswamy, a respected art historian and archaeologist, who says that the Ram cult must have originated in the North, perhaps as early as the Second Century BC.
There is nothing more ridiculous than calling Ravan a Dravidian hero. Ravan is in fact a top-of-the drawer Brahmin. He is the great grandson of Brahma himself, the grandson of Pulastya Maharishi and the son of Visravas, another rishi. There is another point to be made here. The beautiful temple at Rameswaram is dedicated to Shiva. According to the Sthalapurana the Shivalinga in the temple is supposed to have been installed by Ram himself for worship. Why did he want to worship Shiva? It was to expiate the sin of Brahmahatya (killing a Brahmin).
There is indeed another great, real divide. This is between the Tamils and the Tam Brahms of Delhi, who are generally seen in these infernal TV discussions. The Tam Brahms of Delhi has lost their Tamil roots long ago. I doubt many of them will be able to read Tamil with some degree of comfort. They have absolutely no clue about the Tamil traditions, culture or literature. So long as they dominate the TV scene, there will only be sound and fury - sound from the Tam Brahms and fury from the Defenders of Dravidian Faith - signifying nothing.
-- The writer , a retired civil servant is an author and novelist
Labels: Hindu-baiting Macaulayism, Marxism, Ram Sethu
1 Comments:
A very nice article and a different view point, but absolutely inline of my views.
ravi kumar
Post a Comment
<< Home