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Radha Venkatesan
CHENNAI, NOV 20: Imagine you're on the hotline to heaven and by sheer divine grace, the Lord decides to answer your call. On the other end, you freeze because you're not too sure what the Lord's language is - the Vedic Sanskrit, Devanagiri or the ancient Dravidian Tamil. Definitely a very absurd thought, but so for the people of Tamil Nadu.
Here, a section of `swear-by-Sanskrit' devotees prodded by several temple archakas are sparring with the Saivite Tamil groups and the `Tamil anywhere-everywhere' slogan-shouting DMK government, over the question of divine lingua franca.
The linguistic row has spilled over from the temple precincts to the court halls and now on to the streets as well. Strangely, even the confirmed atheists have jumped headlong into the row, to fight for the cause of Tamil archanas in temples.
While the petitioners including a temple priest who have moved the Court against the State government for `interfering with temple rituals' argue that performing archanas in Tamilflout the agamas (the ancient guide for temple architecture, performance of poojas and rituals), the Hindu Religious and Commercial Endowments (HR and CE) Minister M Tamilkudimagan has shot back saying if the God does not understand Tamil archanas, He has no business being in Tamil Nadu!
Although the DMK government has been zealously pursuing popularisation of Tamil in the Tamil Nadu temples, the issue took a controversial twist at the famous Kapaleeswarar temple in Mylapore, Chennai, recently. A few devotees, protesting against the performance of a yagna (Sivavelvi) in Tamil at the temple, moved the Madras High Court which ordered that the rituals have to be performed in consonance with the agamas.
However, the spark for the present row lay in a writ petition filed by a fringe Hindu outfit, Hindu Protection Force against the HR and CE department's attempts to `impose Tamil archanas in temples'. The petition stated that ``Devanagiri is supposed to be the languageof communication with God'' and quite understandably, the Tamil groups spearheaded by the Saiva Siddhantha Perumanram saw red and took the issue to the streets. The Perumanram has decided to implead itself in the case, in support of the government.
Says noted Tamil scholar Aa Sa Gnanasambandam, ``The agamas make no mention of archanas at all. The archana tradition is purely an off-shoot of Saiva Siddhantha practices (Saivism propounded by Tamil Saivites traceable to 7 AD). Archanas in Sanskrit can only be a 200-year-old practice. But we are not opposed to Sanskrit. We are merely demanding a rightful place for Tamil in the temples''.
But Pitchai Battar, who has filed the latest petition against Tamil archanas, says that the authorities should see the mantras as ``powerful sounds which create a divine effect'' and not as Sanskrit verses. In defence, he quotes Sanskrit scholar Sir John Woodrofe's study. ``Mantras when translated ceases to be a mantra .... and do not evoke thedevata (gods)'.
Not willing to buy this argument, the HR and CE minister asserts that the government is religiously implementing the recommendations of the Justice Maharajan Committee for popularising Tamil archanas. According to the Committee's report, too, agamas do not speak of archanas and neither the archakas nor the devotees understand the Sanskrit mantras. ``The Dravidian vedas assert that Tamil is the most favourite language of the God,'' the Committee concluded.
Dusting up the Committee's report given during late M G Ramachandran's regime at least 18 years ago, the HR and CE department in September last year issued a circular stating that ``appropriate action'' would be taken against the archakas ``who do not learn the 108 Tamil archanas by rote''. Then another circular was shot off to the Murugan temples particularly the well-known Vadapalani temple in Chennai on September 21, 1997, that the `Lakhsharchanas' during Panguni Uthiram and KandharShashti, should be performed only in Tamil.
According to the office-bearers of the Sivacharyas Association, a few old priests who were unable to memorise the Tamil archanans were even threatened with suspension. ``The Tamilisation of temple rituals did not stop with the archanas. Even in the homams performed in the temple, we are asked to recite the Tamil padhadhis (prose form of agamas) prepared by a former Electricity Board official whose knowledge of agamas is questionable,'' complains a Sivacharya.
When contacted, the author of the Padhathi, (a section of agamas) Sakthivel Muruganar said that he had only compiled the verses of Saivite saints. Though a section of the Sivacharyas including chief priest in Kapaleeswarar temple Viswanatha Sivacharya do welcome Tamilisation, several archakas appear quite rattled by the `Tamil threat'.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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