Have you an eraser to delete the expression ‘Nadu’ on the stone inscriptions of yore?
Coimbatore: Believe it or not. It is not about a man’s name, but a mountain’s. As per the etymology, not the man’s, but the mountain’s name ‘Annamalai’ is 'Arunamalai'. Similarly, the sun by the name ‘Ravi’ can better be called ‘Kathiravan’ or 'Sooriyan'.
But unfortunately, the sun is the symbol of the ruling DMK. On the other hand, if 'Ravi’ advises ‘Annamalai’ to correct its name to its original ‘Arunamalai’, it too would be adverse, as 'Arunam' also means the red, rising sun! Furthermore, the mountain 'Annamalai' or 'Arunamalai’ should not be angry with the eminent linguist Deveneya Pavanar when he discloses that 'Arunam' also means a sheep!
According to Pavanar, the prefix ‘Ara’ stands for the color red as in ‘Arakaambal’ (Red water lily) and ‘Arakku’ ( red wax). Since the deity Seyon or Sivan was red-skinned, he came to be called 'Arunan' and his hill abode became ‘Arunamalai’, then 'Annamalai', and finally 'Thiruvannamalai' with a respect to the Almighty's hill abode.
Similarly, if we come across the literal meanings of ‘Modi’ in Tamil, they are negative and they sound very offensive. Good that the line Anuthinam Seivaar 'Modi’ in the lyric ‘Vaaraayo Vennilave’ in the 1955 Tamil movie Missiamma came floating in the breeze decades before ‘Modi’ entered Tamil Nadu.
The Madras University Tamil Lexicon gives startlingly negative meanings for the word 'Modi, but we feel that they too may be ‘corrected’ into positive ones.
But how about the question of replacing the 'Nadu' in Tamil 'Nadu' with 'Agam' in Thamizh'agam'? It might be corrected in the gazettes and on the pages of the Indian Constitution. But, the suffix ‘Nadu’ is found not just in the sheets of paper but in the mouths of people for ages. One would wonder whether an eraser has ever been invented to delete it from their souls and bodies!
In the Tamil language, ‘Nadu’ denotes a country, district, province, locality, situation, earth, land, world, kingdom, state, agricultural tract, and so on. Interestingly, the meanings of the same 'Nadu' are closer to each other in other Dravidian languages too.
The Dravidian Etymological Dictionary by T. Burrow and M.B. Emeneau, published by Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press in 1961, lists the different meanings of 'Nadu' being closer in other Dravidian languages. The lexicon unveils that ‘Nadu’ in Malayalam signifies a cultivated piece of land, a country in opposition to a town, a kingdom, a province, or a smaller district. In Kota, a Dravidian language spoken by the Kotas, the tribal people of the Nilgiris, ‘Nadu’ sounds with meaning for a country, an area of human settlement, and the place where the dead go.
In Kannada too, ‘Nadu’ stands for a cultivated country, province, district, and area in opposition to a town. In Kodagu, the Dravidian language spoken in the Coorg district of Karnataka, the sound of ‘Nadu’ is a little corrupted but it means a district. In Tulu, another Dravidian language spoken in the southern parts of present-day Karnataka, ‘Nadu’ is a district or a village.
The next question is how to remove that ‘Nadu’ from Kongu'nadu', which has 24 plus divisions. Interestingly the names of those divisions also end in ‘Nadu’ as Karaivali Nadu, Poonthurai Nadu, Paruththipalli Nadu, Kavadikka Nadu, and so on.
The expression 'Nadan', which is a derivative of 'Nadu' stands for the inhabitant of a particular town. A late Vanambadi poet from Salem wrote under his pen name ’Thamizh Nadan’. Subramaniam, a contemporary Tamil writer also writes under his nom de plume 'Nanjil Nadan' to imply that he hails from Nanjil Nadu, a historical region comprising the present-day Kanyakumari district.
A stone inscription found at the Sangameswarar Temple at Kottaimedu in Coimbatore calls Coimbatore "Perur Naattu Kovampuththur endra Veerakeralanalloor..." The inscription, which dates back to 1285 A.D, mentions that an agriculturist by the name Veerachozha Gangan had made a gift to the deity Sangeeswaramudayar for burning a Sandhya Deepam (Evening lamp).
Oh, the sun by the name Ravi ! tell us now.
How to replace the carving of 'Nadu' in such stone inscriptions of yore?