Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91

Vol. XXVI No. 13, October 16-31, 2016

An indigenous look at Madras history

by K.R.A. Narasiah

Dr. V. Raghavan, while ­contributing to the Madras tercente-nary volume in 1939, could only quote two sources of ­Sanskrit literature about ­Madras, though he knew about the existence of yet another but which he could not lay his hands on at the time. The two that he quoted were Visaguna­dar­sa Campu and Anandaranga Vijaya Campu, both notices of Madras in Sanskrit works. Much later, he discovered the manuscript of Sarva Deva Vilasa, in 86 palm leaves stored in the Adyar Library and a more important work on the social conditions of 17th Century Madras.

devanayaga-mudaliarDevanayaga Mudaliar.

vedachala-mudaliarVedachala Mudaliar

A well-known Sanskrit poet of the late 17th Century, Venka­ta­dhvarin, living in Arasani­palai near Kanchipu­ram, composed the Visvagunadarsa Cam­pu, meaning ‘holding a mirror to the universe’. A campu kavya is in prose and poetry form and in this narration two semi-divine characters travel over India in an aerial vehicle observing the land below and offering a commentary on what they observe. Krisnau and Visvavasu are the two Gandharva-s, one a cynic and the other a positive thinker. After crossing North India, they reach Tirupathi and then come to Thiruvallur where the Vira­raghava temple engages their attention. Then, after passing over Sriperumpudur, they come to Thiruvallikkeni. In Sanskrit, the tank is called Kairavani, meaning ‘the pond of lilies’. At that point of time in history, the pond was south of where a tank exists today. (The old tank area is now a residential area named Vedavallipuram). Here there is an interesting discussion between the two. Visvavasu, being a positive thinker, speaks well of the temple, place and people while Krisnau faults everything. He says that while the temple and place may be good, the place is vitiated by the foreigners (he refers to them as hunas) who “don’t even wash themselves after calls of nature.” But Visvavasu describes the foreigners as having some virtues. “They do not lie and are just,” says he, probably taking into account the judgement meted out during Right-hand and Left-hand caste disputes. He also notes the difference between Muslim invaders and the English in respect of temples.

anandarangam-pillaiAnandarangam Pillai.

The second treatise Dr. Ragha­van mentions is the Anan­daranga Vijaya Campu composed in 1752 by poet Srinivasa to celebrate the lives of Thiruvengadam Pillai and his son Anandarangam Pillai. The original palm leaf manuscript of this work was obtained by Professors K.A.N. Sastry and S. Vaiyapuri Pillai from the house of Anandarangam Pillai in Puducherry. In this work, Srinivasa traces the family of Anandarangam Pillai to one of its very early members, Garbha­daraka (in Tamil Karuvendan), who lived in Ayanapura, today’s Ayyanavaram. A generous man, he was visited by poets from Andhra Desa. It appears from the manuscript that Garbha­dara­ka was invited by the King of Golconda. There is a corresponding work in Telugu, Anandarangarat Chan­damu, by one Kasturi Rangayya, which says that Ayyanavaram was in Pattana Rajya, obviously meaning Madras. From both these works, it is understood that the King of Golconda made Gar­bha­daraka the lord of Vetra­pura. Vetra in Sanskrit is cane (in Tamil pirambu) and therefore Vetrapura is today’s Peram­bur.

The Anandaranga Campu says, Garbhadaraka had three sons named Solai, Uttara (Vada­malai) and Sridhara (Thiru­malai). The family lineage is traced in the campu, which says Solai had a son Bommayya who in turn had two sons and a daughter. The second son was Thiruvenkata, who was the father of Anandaranga. The Telugu work eulogises Thiru­venakata saying that he was a linguist and had even studied Christianity, so that he could argue with missionaries. According to the campu, Ananda­ranga was born in Sarvadhari year Phalguna month, corresponding to March 1709.

The campu narrates the story of Thiruvenkata living among the merchants and moving to Chennapattina with his two sons and then on to Navapura. Obviously this means Pudu­cherry, nava meaning ‘new’ (in Tamil pudu). Madras is mentioned in this campu as Chenna­pat­tina and Chennake­savapura.

When Dr. Raghavan got the Sanskrit manuscript of Sarva Deva Vilasa, he wrote a commentary on it. The narrative here is more descriptive of the place and persons and talks about the social conditions of the then Madras. All the characters in the work are real and, therefore, historically this work is more important while studying 18th Century Madras and its social construct.

Sarva Deva Vilasa, meaning ‘the dwelling place of all Gods’, that is, Madras to the anonymous poet, talks of the important merchants of the city. Here too the structure of the text is in prose and poetry, but is not of classical Sanskrit. Using as it does in Sanskrit the transliterated Tamil idioms and phrases, show that the author was of Tamil origin but had learned Sanskrit. Once again the narrative is in the form of dialogue between two celestial figures, Vivekin and Ativivekin (wise one and wiser one).

They follow the processions of the great merchants who in them ostentatiously show off their power, wealth and virility. At the start itself the poet declares the four merchants he is dealing with are greater than Bhojaraja – bhojadhik. The four are called Kalingaraya, Sri­ranga, Vedachala and Deva­nayaka. They were all persons who actually lived in Madras and find mention in the works of colonial historians as well.

Dr. Raghavan has traced the family of Sriranga and says the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Bakthavatsalam was a descendant of the family. Similarly, he has traced the family of Vedachala and got a portrait from one of the descendants, an Abhirama Mudaliar. Vedachala Mudali was the son of Kesava Mudali who is mentioned in colonial references. He appears to be from Kalasai (now Thotti­kalai) and his grandfather is noted in a poem of Thottikalai Subramania Muni in his Kala­sai­kovai, a work in Tamil.

Devanayaka Mudali is also mentioned in Company records as Dharmakartha of the Agas­tees­warar temple of Nungam­bakkam. His grandfather was a dubash in Eyre Coote’s time. Though a staunch Vasihnavite, he supported other temples too and a portrait of him was found by Dr. Raghavan in a temple. Incidentally, there is a Madras District Record entry dated June 6, 1820, where his signature appears as S. Davy Naigum.

The colourful procession is described and shows how these merchants vied with each other to show off their wealth and power. Their mistresses accompanying them were talented in their respective arts, like music and dance, and were noteworthy for their beauty. All these merchants, according to the poet divine, bathed with their mistresses in the pond so that the public could see them!

This narrative is important to the present day historian as it reconstructs the social conditions existing then, and the equations between the Company officials and the merchants. The Company was interested in having a loyal subservient class who would manage the local population, a management technique most suited at that time. The English knew that temples were the nodal points for society and the rich men wanted to have control over them to show their supremacy. In appointing the dharmakartha-s, the English ensured that they had a set of loyal people who would carry out the will of the governing authority.

The English are referred to as hunas and the wise one says that these foreigners are destroying the culture and the traditions of the locals, while the wiser one, here too, replies that the foreigners are just and have better modern equipment and arms. The foreigners are referred to as Svethamukhis, white-faced ones, similar to American Indians calling the white ‘paleface’.

While there is a certain amount of cynical remarks about the English and their behaviour, the narrative also mentions that certain merchants stood up to the English.

The topography of the town of Chennapuri is clear from the text. There was a wall which has historic importance for a tax that was never collected and is indicated as prakara. Other places indicated in the text are Viksaranya (Tiruvellore), Kala­sai (Tottikalai), Nungapuri (Nungambakkam), Toyadri (Tiruneermalai), Adhipuri (Tiru­vottriyur), Pravalanagari (Coral Merchant Street) and Navasthala (Puduppakkam – new place). Persons mentioned in the text are Manali Venka­takrishna (son of Muthu­krish­na) Mudaliar, Ravanappa, and Colla Ravanappa Chetti, who built the Kotwal Market and the Kanyaka Parameswari temple in 1803-4 from his own funds and owned a house inside the Fort in 1822, in addition to a property belonging to him.

Other indigenous writing on the English include several folk songs booklets of the events that took place during the English rule in Madras, while a much better Tamil poem by one Varadaraja Pillai was published in his India by Bharati on the crash of the Arbuthnot Bank. Other folklore written in ungrammatical and colloquial Tamil describe events like the fire in Peoples’ Park, the first flight in Madras, and the Emden shelling of the harbour. The information found in them is reliable in constructing the history of Madras.

The best written record is, of course, that of the diarist Anandarangam Pillai, which is well known.

*Dr. Raghavan obtained this picture from one Abhrama Mudaliar, a ­descendant.

Please follow and like us:
Pin Share

Comments

  1. Balasubramanian A says:

    Very informative write-up on Chennai.This will addup to the available historical records, which is not much.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Stay Updated