A Kongu Chieftain’s Love for ‘Sugarcane’ sweet Tamil

With the failure of monsoons bringing severe drought, plenty of agricultural labourers migrate from Dharmapuri to other districts of Tamil Nadu to be employed as mean construction labourers. However, the town, which was once called ‘Thagadoor Nadu’ in the ancient Kongu region, has many interesting tales from its antiquity.

Ruled by the chieftain Adhiyaman, one of the last seven philanthropists (Kadai Ezhu Vallalgal) mentioned in ancient pieces of Tamil literature, Dharmapuri or Thagadur Nadu has in its history an unforgettable incident of the king presenting a rare species of ‘Nellikani’ (emblica officinalis) to the popular Tamil woman poet Avvayar. Since the fruit contained the essence of providing an ailment-free longer life, the benevolent king wanted poet Avvayar to eat it so that she could pen numerous works of literature that would bring a great reformation in the world.

While interpreting a song on Adhiyaman in Karmega Kavingnar’s Kongumandala Sathakam, Muthusamy Konar, the first Kongu historian, informs that the king obtained the rare fruit from an ascetic, while he was wandering into the woods in Kanjamalai of Paruthipalli Nadu, a division of the ancient Kongu region, which is located in the present Salem district. Konar says that the monk had asked Adhiyaman to eat the fruit so that he could live longer and rule the country well, protecting the people and patronizing Tamil scholars. However, Adhiyaman presented the fruit to poet Avvayar.

Though Adhiyaman was a chieftain of a province in ancient Kongunadu, his philanthropy and valor are praised in various Sangam period works like Puranaanuru, Sirupanatrupadai and Pathitrupaththu.

Also, eminent historian Neelakanda Sastri says that Adhiyaman’s ancestors were successively ruling Thakadur Nadu from as early as the 3rd century before the Christian era, evident from their names mentioned as ‘Sathyaputhirars’ (Sons of the truth) in many stone inscriptions of Emperor Ashoka. He says that the Sanskrit term ‘Sathyaputhirars’ is none but the Tamil equivalent of ‘Adhiyamans’. Sastri also traces their origin to the ancient Chera dynasty, though there were several wars fought between the two in a later period. Also, Adhiyaman and his son Pokuttezhini were killed by the Cheras in the battle at Thagadur.

Interestingly, Adhiyaman is also mentioned in many literatures as a king, who first planted sugarcane in Thakadur Nadu, bringing the crop from the ‘heaven’. However, Kongu Kalanjiyam, a comprehensive encyclopedia of Kongunadu, says that the term ‘heaven’ is something exaggerated and has to be taken as any foreign country.