The wayfaring people of the ancient Tamil land would lead their herds of goats and cows from place to place. In between their journey, they would rest in places on their way for a few days and set up temporary folds for their cattle. Before resuming their journey, they would burn the dried dung of the cattle and make them walk on the ash.
The wayfaring people of the ancient Tamil land would lead their herds of goats and cows from place to place. In between their journey, they would rest in places on their way for a few days and set up temporary folds for their cattle. Before resuming their journey, they would burn the dried dung of the cattle and make them walk on the ash. Following the animals, the herdsmen too would walk over it. They practised this with their belief that the act would keep them and their animals disease-free. With ash becoming a divine thing from then on, the practice later developed into ceremonies like fire-walking in temple festivals and wearing ash on the forehead as sign of devotion. But, the secular shepherds of the ancient times would not have imagined that the ash obtained from their cattle dung would attain such a devotional and political value in future with even it getting smeared on the forehead of the poet-philosopher Thiruvalluvar, who penned the secular piece of Tamil didactic literature Thirukural.
While the names of the places, where the herdsmen set up sheep and cow-folds, were called patti, the places later developed into villages, and their names as Pooluvapatti, Boluvampatti and many more on the city outskirts still echo the ancient occupation of cattle rearing.
“The Saambal medus or ash mounds, which are found at different places including Perur and Karuvalur in Coimbatore, date back to the Neolithic age – a period around 2000 years BC. The cattle rearing people, who lived in this era, were the first to give a holy character to ash by smearing it on their bodies. The cattle-rearing tribal society was secular, since religions were yet to appear then. Nevertheless, the secular herdsmen's practice of smearing ash over the body was later appropriated by Saivism,” says eminent archaeologist R. Poongundran, the former Assistant director of Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department.
Reacting to an incident a few years ago, in which a picture of Thiruvalluvar wearing saffron clothes with sacred ash on his forehead was tweeted, Poongundran said:
“Thiruvalluva Maalai, a 10th century anthology of verses in praise of Thiruvalluvar and his work Thirukural, says that the philosopher-poet was a secularist. Thiruvalluva Maalai was also a source book for writing the history of Thiruvalluvar and Thirukural.”
Poongundran's books include the remarkable one Koyamputhur Maavatta Tholliyal Kayyedu (Archaeological guide to Coimbatore district)
Famed philologist and linguist the late Devaneya Pavanar, in his book of commentaries on Thirukural, traces the history of Thiruvalluvar thus:
“The real name of 'Thiruvalluvan' was just ‘Valluvan’ which means a palace employee, who announces the king’s messages to the country by beating the parai – a traditional percussion instrument of the ancient Tamils. With the name ‘Valluvan’ also denoting a wise man with astounding knowledge of Astronomy in writing almanacs and horoscopes, the name, later took the prefix ‘Thiru’ to add respect to it and became ‘Thiru’valluvan’”
Citing a number of couplets from Thirukural against the Aryan theory of discriminating people by birth, Pavanar says that Thiruvalluvar was a secularist and egalitarian, who wrote his eternal work for mankind cutting across caste and religion.
The 972nd couplet of Thirukural, which emphasizes that all beings are same in birth, is an antithesis to the religious theory of discriminating human beings by birth. At the same time, Thiruvalluvar says that human beings differ from one another only due to the different qualities of their actions. The most-cited couple ' Pirappokkum ella uyirkum...' from Thirukural reads as follows in the English translation of Kaviyogi Shuddhananda Bharathi
All beings are the same in birth
But work decides their varied worth
While the names of the places, where the herdsmen set up sheep and cow-folds, were called patti, the places later developed into villages, and their names as Pooluvapatti, Boluvampatti and many more on the city outskirts still echo the ancient occupation of cattle rearing.
“The Saambal medus or ash mounds, which are found at different places including Perur and Karuvalur in Coimbatore, date back to the Neolithic age – a period around 2000 years BC. The cattle rearing people, who lived in this era, were the first to give a holy character to ash by smearing it on their bodies. The cattle-rearing tribal society was secular, since religions were yet to appear then. Nevertheless, the secular herdsmen's practice of smearing ash over the body was later appropriated by Saivism,” says eminent archaeologist R. Poongundran, the former Assistant director of Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department.
Reacting to an incident a few years ago, in which a picture of Thiruvalluvar wearing saffron clothes with sacred ash on his forehead was tweeted, Poongundran said:
“Thiruvalluva Maalai, a 10th century anthology of verses in praise of Thiruvalluvar and his work Thirukural, says that the philosopher-poet was a secularist. Thiruvalluva Maalai was also a source book for writing the history of Thiruvalluvar and Thirukural.”
Poongundran's books include the remarkable one Koyamputhur Maavatta Tholliyal Kayyedu (Archaeological guide to Coimbatore district)
Famed philologist and linguist the late Devaneya Pavanar, in his book of commentaries on Thirukural, traces the history of Thiruvalluvar thus:
“The real name of 'Thiruvalluvan' was just ‘Valluvan’ which means a palace employee, who announces the king’s messages to the country by beating the parai – a traditional percussion instrument of the ancient Tamils. With the name ‘Valluvan’ also denoting a wise man with astounding knowledge of Astronomy in writing almanacs and horoscopes, the name, later took the prefix ‘Thiru’ to add respect to it and became ‘Thiru’valluvan’”
Citing a number of couplets from Thirukural against the Aryan theory of discriminating people by birth, Pavanar says that Thiruvalluvar was a secularist and egalitarian, who wrote his eternal work for mankind cutting across caste and religion.
The 972nd couplet of Thirukural, which emphasizes that all beings are same in birth, is an antithesis to the religious theory of discriminating human beings by birth. At the same time, Thiruvalluvar says that human beings differ from one another only due to the different qualities of their actions. The most-cited couple ' Pirappokkum ella uyirkum...' from Thirukural reads as follows in the English translation of Kaviyogi Shuddhananda Bharathi
All beings are the same in birth
But work decides their varied worth