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| Legends from the South |
| U V Swaminatha Iyer |
| If the poet A K Ramanujan introduced the classical
Tamil literature of the Sangam Age (before the 2nd century A.D.)
to the western world with his contemporary English translations,
the Tamils themselves would have remained ignorant of it, but
for the untiring efforts of one man who went from home to home
collecting ancient manuscripts during the late 19th century
and early 20th century. It was U V Swaminatha Iyer who devoted
himself to this self-imposed task of unearthing the manuscripts
of ancient Tamil works. Apart from retrieving three of the five
great Tamil epics, Aimperumkappiyangal, Jeevaka Chintamani,
Manimekalai and Silappadhikaram, he introduced to the world
the set of ten poems of the Sangam Age known as Pattu Paattu.
Of the other set of eight, known as Ettu Thokai, he embellished
five. What many academic bodies did for the Renaissance in western
Europe, Swaminatha Iyer single-handedly did for the enrichment
of Tamil. |
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| Born to humble and pious parents, Venkatasubbaiar
and Saraswathi, on the 19th of February 1855 at Surya Moolai, a village
in Tanjavur district in Tamil Nadu, Swaminathan grew up listening
to religious discourses by his father on the Kamba Ramayana, Mahabharata
and the like. His grandfather who taught him the Tamil alphabet also
made him learn prayers and psalms. Swaminathan’s father, a reservoir
of wisdom and spiritual thoughts, learnt music from the great composer
Ghanam Krishnaiyar, a relative. Though Swaminathan had quite a talent
for music, his passion for Tamil literature overshadowed his interest
in music. He had his first taste of Tamil poetry, when he became a
student of an impoverished but dedicated teacher, Ariyilur Satakopa
Iyengar. |
| Young ‘Sama’, as he was called, learnt from many.
Krishna Vadyar, a good Tamil scholar, taught him several minor Tamil
classics and the well-known Tirukkural by Tiruvalluvar, as well as
arithmetic. He also learnt from Muttu Velayuda Pandaram, Chidambaram
Pillai, Kasturi Iyengar, Vriddhachala Reddiar and a host of others.
To Swaminatha Iyer’s parents, his education came before everything
else and they were ever willing to make sacrifices towards this end,
even moving from village to village, as and when they found a new
Tamil teacher for him. |
| The major breakthrough in Swaminatha Iyer’s Tamil
odyssey came about when, with his father’s help, he sought out and
was accepted by Maha Vidwan Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai (1815-1876),
the poet laureate of the Tiruvavaduturai Adheenam or Mutt, a Saivite
religious institution steeped in Tamil literature. Pillai was a celebrated
teacher of his period, and in time Sama became his star pupil. |
| Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai frequently visited the
Adheenam. Whenever Swaminathan accompanied his master there, the young
student would be asked to recite from the classics in front of the
huge gathering at the Mutt and every time, he did the master proud.
Tales of the young man’s abilities soon reached the ears of Tyagaraja
Chettiar, the Head of the Tamil Department at the Government College,
Kumbakonam, who was happy to secure his appointment as his successor,
in February 1880. |
| Iyer’s meeting with a Salem Ramaswami Mudaliar in
1886 was a momentous occasion, as subsequent events proved. Mudaliar
who came to Kumbakonam as the District Munsiff, had some palm leaf
manuscripts with him and wanted Iyer to help him decipher them. These
manuscripts turned out to be treasures of ancient Tamil literature.
Iyer’s life mission started with the study and examination of Tiruttaka
Devar’s Jeevaka Chintamani which he helped publish as a book in 1887.
Soon followed a series of publications—Pattu Paattu in 1889, Silappadhikaram
in 1892, Pura Nanooru in 1893, Manimekalai in 1899, and many more
great works of the ancient past. His works were probably the first
of their kind in this part of the world to provide footnotes, bibliographies,
glossaries, indices etc., comparable to western standards. |
| Swaminatha Iyer wrote hundreds of poems, quite moving
in their devotional quality. The biography “Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai
Thamizh” that he wrote of his master, ran to 800 pages. Iyer also
brought out an anthology of his poetical works. His autobiography
“En Charitiram” (my story) tells us the story of his birth, and his
evolution as an industrious scholar of great attainments and gifts
nurtured by great Tamil scholars of his time. It also tells us how
he became a devoted student of Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai and how he
mastered Tamil with unflagging zeal, undivided attention, and unparalleled
master worship. |
| In 1903, Iyer joined the Presidency College, Madras,
to head the Tamil department there, for the next 16 years until his
retirement in 1919. Later he served as Principal of Sri Meenakshi
College, Chidambaram, for three years. In 1906, the Government of
India conferred on him the title of Mahamahopadhyaya (the greatest
of great teachers). In 1925, the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham honoured
him with the title Dakshinathya Kalanidhi. The University of Madras
conferred a doctorate on him in 1932. The writer Kalki Krishnamurthy
called him “Tamizh Thaatha”, an affectionate title that was to stay.
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| As a teacher, Iyer won the respect of pupils with
his profound scholarship. His method of teaching was marked by sweetness
and clarity that attracted all. He taught a full cross section of
humanity including zamindars, heads of mutts, Tamil teachers, research
scholars, editors, poets and politicians. A devout person, Iyer recited
the Tevaram (hymns sung in praise of Lord Siva) without fail, before
starting the day’s work. Each of the introductions he wrote in his
many publications started off with a Tevaram hymn or an extract from
Tiruvachakam, another collection of hymns. |
| A standing monument to ‘Tamizh Thatha’s’ memory
is the Dr U V Swaminatha Iyer library at Tiruvanmiyur, Chennai, which
has a wonderful collection of Tamil books and palm leaf manuscripts.
A fitting tribute to Swaminatha Iyer’s outstanding contribution to
Tamil literature is the English translation in abridged form of his
autobiography by his student and well known Tamil scholar-journalist
K V Jagannathan. In his introduction to the book KVJ said: “Two gifted
souls have made the most outstanding contribution to the enriching
of the Tamil language in the course of the last one hundred years:
one of them, is noted for his scholarship, his capacity for research,
his editorial skill and his integrity, and the other for his poetic
talent, his patriotism and his fine sensibility—the former being Mahamahopadhyaya
Dakshinathya Kalanidhi Doctor U V Swaminatha Iyer, and the latter
that peerless prince among poets, Subramanya Bharati.” |
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