TAMIL HISTORY THROUGH THE EYES OF EPIGRAPHY

 Dr.Vijayavenugopal inspecting Irumbai Mahaleswar Temple inscription in Vanur Taluk Villupuram District of Tamilnadu

N.Nandhivarman

In Paris not in Chennai  two conferences on Tamil Epigraphy :Historical Sources and multi-disciplinary approach took place in 2005 and 2006 at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudies [EPHE] .  The groundbreaking works of several generations of pioneering scholars on Tamil epigraphy have proved beyond doubt that inscriptions constitute one of the most important sources for a better understanding of the historical, cultural and social evolution of the past, opines historian Romila Thapar.

Daud Ali focused his research paper on Gangaikondacholapuram temple inscriptions. This temple was first visited by Meckenzie  between 1818 and 1826. Subsequent surveys till 1993 yielded an epigraphic corpus, which was updated by Daud Ali.

 Philology is a study of the language together with its literature and the historical and cultural contexts which are indispensable for an understanding of the literally or other culturally significant texts defines Becker. Y.Subburayalu employed philology and lexical semantics in interpreting and understanding the epigraphic texts. There is an ancient Tamil word Pazhanam which means fields. The name Pazhani came to that temple town because it was situated in midst of fields. Unless one knows the word Pazhanam the correct meaning could not be imparted.

Rachel Loiseau turned her eyes to the abandoned Naganatheswara temple  of the tenth century. Supplementing  epigraphic sources with structural and iconographic observations, her study the first of its kind in stylistic evolution of a single monument. Rachel Loiseau finds out that the iconographic programmes of this Chola temple bear the influence of Sembiyan Madevi model.

Ten pottery inscriptions of Tamilnadu and two such from West Bengal in Sinhala-Prakrit script found by Iravatham Mahadevan sheds new light on long distance trade routes between Srilanka, Tamilnadu and West Bengal.Anthropologic decoding of epigraphy of two inscriptions of Rajaraja from Thanjavur temple undertaken by Tiziana Leucci which focuses on socio-religious aspects of Devadasi system  is noteworthy.

Charlotte de Percin-Sermet chose to deal with Chandesa, one of the important Nayanars of the Bhakthi movement. She finds pan-indian nature in the Tamil saiva nayanar. “ She establishes Chandesa’s presence as a violent deity or asura  in ancient sources like Mahabharatha or Agnipurana. She contrasts how Tamil literary sources depict a contrary image of the nayanar as an ideal devotee” says Appasamy Murugaiyan in his introduction to the book New Dimensions in Tamil Epigraphy . Because he teaches epigraphy in Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudies [EPHE]  Paris , he and his friends organized two  conferences on Tamil epigraphy.

Foreign country evincing interest in Tamil epigraphy is because recent Survey on Indian Epigraphy (1996) places inscriptions of Tamil Nadu at the top of the list. The categories of language, alphabet and number of inscriptions on both stone and copper plates also indicate Tamil Nadu as the first among Indian States. From this survey it can easily be understood that Tamil Nadu has the bulk of inscriptions found in India. It has been estimated with a fair degree of accuracy that the inscriptions written in Tamil occupy the first position in volume, amounting nearly to 20,000, followed by those in Kannada (10,600), Sanskrit (7,500) and Telugu (4,500). Inscriptions in Tamil language are noticed from the third century BCE onwards. (Source: Journal of the Epigraphical Society of India Volume 19 : 1993)

Tamilnadu Government started The State Department of Archaeology  in the year 1961 .The aim of the department is to showcase the rich heritage and glorious traditions of Tamil Nadu with its classical Tamil language, magnificent monuments, exquisite temples, art and sculpture and diversified traditions The Department has  14 site museums, the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Centre at Chepauk, Chennai besides the Institute of Epigraphy. A separate epigraphy wing was started during the year 1966. The primary function of this wing is to copy inscriptions on boulders, stone pillars, stones, temple walls and on copper plates. The inscriptions are deciphered, edited and published.  So far, about 14,000 inscriptions are copied and  preserved in this wing. Some original copper plates and old palm leaf manuscripts are also under the custody of this department.

The Department of Archaeology has been recognized as a Centre for doing research in history and archaeology leading to Ph.D by the University of Madras during the year 2003. At national level The  Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), under the Ministry of Culture regulates all archaeological activities in the country as per the provisions of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. It also regulates Antiquities and Art Treasure Act, 1972.

Publications of the ASI was started by A. Cunningham, the first Director General, who along with his associates, documented vigorously all the results of their tour from1862-63 onwards. In 1874, a new series entitled ‘New Imperial Series’ was launched which continued up to 1933 containing exhaustive research on antiquarian remains.

John Marshall introduced Annual Reports published in two parts from 1902 onwards. He also started the publication of a new series ‘Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India’, of which the first number appeared in 1919 and the latest (ninety-eight) in 2003. ‘Ancient India’ the Bulletin of the Archaeological Survey of India was started in 1946, which contained general and research articles on different aspects of archaeology in India and adjacent countries.  The most important among them, ‘Epigraphia Indica’ for Sanskrit inscriptions was first published in 1892. So far 42 volumes have been published. In the field of Arabic and Persian inscription, ‘Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica’ is being brought out. The ‘Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy’ has been brought out from 1887 till 1995-96, which contains the reports on the epigraphical discoveries made each year. In addition to these, inscriptions of various dynasties were also published under the series ‘Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum’. For the epigraphical records of South India, a separate series ‘South Indian Inscriptions’ is also being published since 1890. The south Indian inscriptions are also dealt with from 1905 to 1946 in another series called ‘Annual Report of South Indian Epigraphy’ which contains brief notes on inscriptions of south India collected during a particular year. The  Epigraphy Branch of the Survey caters to the needs of the Sanskrit & Dravidian inscriptions and coins (Headquarters at Mysore) and Arabic & Persian inscriptions and coins (Headquarters at Nagpur)

Underwater Archaeology Wing

India has 7,516 km long coastline, 1197 islands and 155,889 sq. km of territorial waters and 2,013,410 sq. km exclusive economic zone. The vast water area of the country is rich in underwater cultural heritage. The importance of underwater archaeology was realized as early as in the VI five-year plan. Beginning of underwater archaeology in India can be traced back to 1981. Off shore explorations in the country have generated a lot of popularity to this discipline. Establishment of the Underwater Archaeology Wing (UAW) in the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 2001 marked a major step towards the development of the subject. Since its inception the UAW is actively engaged in conducting underwater archaeological studies in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.

Protection of underwater cultural heritage and regulation of underwater activities aimed towards the cultural heritage is one of the main concerns of the UAW. Adoption of “Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage” by UNESCO in 2001 displays the global concern about the protection and management of underwater cultural heritage. UAW has initiated steps for the protection and preservation of the underwater cultural heritage. 

So far what steps both Central and State Governments had taken to preserve our cultural heritage including conferences held in Paris reveal painstaking efforts but sad part is various universities and Tamil scholars show no interest in inscriptions. Temple authorities forget these are treasure troves of history. They focus on deities neglecting temple history.

Archaeological Survey of India in its Annual Report of Epigraphy 1895 had brought to notice 12 inscriptions, numbering 53 to 64 in the series. In Annual Report on Epigraphy 1930-1931, they have brought to notice 88 inscriptions numbering 121 to 208. The lethargy comes while publishing such inscriptions, whereas out of 100 inscriptions only 50 have been read deciphered and published. A place called Thiruchotruththurai in Mayiladuthurai-Kumbakonam road 4 kilometers near Thirukalliyur , in spite of copying 50  , in its Second Volume of Annual Report of Epigraphy only 50 inscriptions are published .50 copied but not published had been the target of study by Dr.Vijayavenugopal, epigraphist and multi disciplinary Tamil genius . So he revisited Thiruchotruthurai and deciphered these inscriptions which are going to see the light of the day.

Photo 1 : A sample page of Annual Report on Epigraphy

The above page of the ARE mentions some of 70 inscriptions found in 1903 and 1924 in Piranmalai of Trichy district, in a temple under Kunrakudi Atheenam. Piranmalai was known in earlier days as Thirukodunkunram. South Indian Inscriptions Volume 8  shows 70 stone inscriptions as noticed but less than 30 only deciphered and published. A team of epigraphists led by Dr.Vijayavenugopal and photographers Ravi and Babu associated with French Government organization Ecole Francaise de Extreme Orient visited 4 times in between 2009 and 2014 to Piranmalai to find new inscriptions, or precisely re-find inscriptions noticed in South Indian Inscriptions book. The poojari of Mangaipagar Koil refused to let them in in spite of the team saying published report mentions in 435 serial number about an inscription by Kulothunga Chozhan. During 4^th visit, thanks to the new pujari, the team could read that Kulothunga Chozhan inscription.

Picture 1. Temple poojari in camphor light shows the wall behind the deity and says there is no inscription.

Photo 2 and 3 : The epigraphists argue that South Indian Inscriptions mentions 425 th inscription by Kulothunga Chozhan....

Photo 4 : 4^th visit successful, and team finds that Kulothunga Chozhan inscription in the temple.

This one incident will reveal how much efforts are needed even to trace an inscription once found. The application of sandal paste in walls, santhanakkappu had hidden this Kulothunga Chozhan inscriptions.

The team led by Dr.Vijayavenugopal are currently in search of new inscriptions in Karnataka state, more particularly which were once Tamil territories. There ancient inscriptions are in Tamil, later day inscriptions being Tamil but written in Kannada script and recent period inscriptions are in Kannada. This shows waning influence of Tamil Kings over these adjoining Tamil territories, where Kannada officials gradually replaced Kannada with Tamil in inscriptions.

EFEO team visited Karnataka to verify the authenticity and to update the 300 or so inscriptions noticed by Archaeological Survey of India. In that process found few new inscriptions, which they have deciphered and going to publish.

All such new discoveries are getting published in a journal Avanam published for over 25 years or so by a private association Thamizhaga Tholliyal Kazhagam sponsored by Department of Epigraphy and Archaeology of Tamil University Thanjavur with financial support from Indian Council of Historic Research.

Photo 7 : Avanam journal recent 2013 issue, 24^th issue.

 Along with the team out of curiosity to know how they are deciphering inscriptions, the author of this article visited Senthalai temple in Tiruvaiyaru region of Thanjavur District.

This temple during renovation the masons who undertook the work had thrown the order of inscriptions out of gear, and between one inscription and next continuity is missing, hence to re-read it and suggest proper chronological order of the inscriptions in grantha and devanagiri scripts, team of epigraphists must re-visit such temples.

It is a great blunder that Tamilnadu which housed around 70000 inscriptions in Ooty allowed its transfer to Mysore, where Tamil related inscriptions faced decay and destruction. Even the request by Tamil University to have Xerox copies of those inscriptions being turned down, was a thorny issue which recently had been resolved. ASI and Tamilnadu Archaeological department have joined hands to bring out a publication deciphering such monuments, which will throw new light on South Indian history much to the delight of Tamils...