Let ‘Coimbatore’ soon be ‘Ko'y'a'm'puththoor’ as ordered by the gazette. But the city has stood as ‘Ko'v'a'n'puththoor’ for the last 735 years. Because the document mentioning our town's real name at Kottai Sangameswarar Temple is made of stone.
Coimbatore: The residents, who had named their locality after the Tamil saint and social reformer Arutprakasa Vallalar, must have felt the apathy of the local body towards the name of the selfless saint-poet. The posh residential area Vallalar Nagar at Ondipudur seems to have been ‘renamed’ a couple of years ago. Because the name board erected by the local body reads the locality as ‘Vallar Nagar’! It is no issue that most in the present generation are not so familiar with the author of Thiruvarutpa as they are familiar with glamorous film actors and populist politicians. Followers of such a politician would not be mute spectators, had their icon’s name was misspelled even on a wall poster eulogizing his ‘restless’ mission on rescuing ‘Kovai’ from Corona.
The Tamil proverb Uppittavarai Uyirullavarai Ninai instructs us to be grateful forever to the person, who fed us even with a little food. But, the name board at Ondipudur bears witness to the local body’s indifference towards Vallalar, who lit the ever-burning stove Anaya Aduppu at his Sathya Dharma Sala in Vadalur to create a poverty-free world in 1867.
In the same Ondipudur, another name board in Tamil reads ‘Irugur Itt’o’ri’ instead of ‘Irugur Itt’ea’ri’. By this simple oversight, a piece of Kongu history goes missing that Irugur, which had been one of the oldest villages even before the founding of ‘Koyampuththoor’ had its expanse up to the later-day -born Ondipudur.
While the names of even the existing places of Koyampuththoor are seldom printed correctly, the recent gazette issued by the Tamil Development and Information Department provides new names or new spellings of as many as 1,018 places across Tamil Nadu.
A few years ago, I wrote a story on the etymology of ‘Aalanthurai’ a village on Siruvani road in my Sunday column Kovai Reconnect in The New Indian Express. In it, I explained ‘Alanthurai’ as a riverbank, which is rich in banyan trees. Having read my write-up, a reader called me and corrected my ‘mistake’ that the etymology of ‘Alanthurai’ was not after the banyan trees, but in memory of an English officer named ’Allen Durai’. To prove my point, I could have shown him at least a row of banyan trees in ‘Alanthurai’, but when I asked the reader-friend, he hardly knew who that ‘Lord Allen’ or ‘Allen Durai’ was!
But today, the reader should be happy to notice from the gazette, since it too mentions ‘Alanthurai’ as ஆலநà¯à®¤à¯’ரை’ instead of ஆலாநà¯à®¤à¯’றை’!
On the other hand, the gazette deserves praise for its attempt to bring the exact phonetic representation of Tamil words in English as Va’l’ukkuparai into Va’zh’ukkuppaarai, ‘An’dip’a’layam into ‘Aa’ndip’aa’layam, Mavuthampa’tti’ into Maavutham’pathi’ and so on.
The gazette might have considered also the etymologies of place names and created a chance to restore them to their originals. Had it done so, ‘Koyampuththoor’ would have been back to its roots as ‘Kovanpuththoor’.
‘Coimbatore’ or ‘Koyampuththoor’ – what is lost in these two words is ‘Kovan’ – the aboriginal Irula leader, after whom the ‘Puththoor’ or new village was founded.
Cholan Poorva Patayam, a copper plate published into a book by historian Kovai Kizhar C.M Ramachandran Chettiar in 1950, informs that the present-day ‘Koyampuththur’ had once been a thick forest of the aboriginal Irula tribe ruled by their leader ‘Kovan’. The historical document, which speaks of the Cholzha king Karikalan’s founding of new villages in the Kongu region, documents the tribal people’s wrath against the king’s act of clearing their woods. The book describes how the angry Irula Goddesses were pacified by the Samaya Mudhali – the commander of King Karikalan with his promise of building temples for them and naming the newly-founded villages after the Irula chiefs. And one such newly-founded village was ‘Kovanpuththoor’
Cholan Poorva Patayam also says that human sacrifice was practiced at Chennimalai, Perur, Avinashi, and Annur. But, the Samaya Mudhali brought an end to this act by sacrificing even some of his children to mark the final stage of the custom. From then on, human sacrifice was replaced by performing the triple sacrifice of killing a goat, hen, and pig. It is another interesting chapter in Koyampuththoor history to know how this triple sacrifice too in Koniamman car festival came to an end.
The book Kongunaattu Kalvettukkal – Koyampuththoor Maavattam, authored by epigraphists R. Jegadeesan and M.Ganesan, has documented the real name of the town ‘Kovanpuththoor’ from the stone inscriptions at the Kottai Sangameswarar Temple in the heart of the city. The inscriptions call our present-day ‘Koyampuththoor’ as Perur Naatu Kovanpuththoor aana…
The epigraph, which dates back to 1285 CE, mentions the incident, in which, a man called Veerasozhagangan, an agriculturist from the Payiriyar clan, makes a gift to the temple priest Veera Narayana Saivamuni to meet the cost of burning Sandhya Deepam (Evening lamp) in the shrine.
Let ‘Coimbatore’ soon be ‘Ko'y'a'm'puththoor’ as ordered by the gazette. But the city has stood as ‘Ko'v'a'n'puththoor’ for the last 735 years. Because the document mentioning our town's real name at Kottai Sangameswarar Temple is made of stone.