Wednesday, January 30, 2019

         Why anti-Sanskrit is harmful to the Tamil development?


I concur with the observation:” While Sanskrit is commonly studied as a literary form, its influence has extended to shape rituals, fables, images, performances, and architectural forms that together inspired a shared world of culture linking diverse regions of Asia across the centuries.” (https://iias.asia/the-newsletter/article/sanskrit-across-asia-beyond )

Unfortunately, pro-Sanskrit chauvinists tend to deny the due share of the diversity of its content to the respective languages in the regions, and in turn, the respective pro-language chauvinists tend to portray Sanskrit as the language of domination threatening the individual identity of their languages.

In my observation, both kinds of chauvinism were post-colonial development to serve the goal of divide and rule.

Both kinds of chauvinism shall be discouraged to facilitate both Sanskrit and the above-mentioned languages to regain their glory, and to contribute to their growth to regain the ancient wisdom for the world development and harmony.

In my view, during the post-colonial period, anti-Sanskrit became a part of the social movement only in Tamilnadu; leading to the public perception that ‘pro-Tamil meant anti-Sanskrit and vice versa’.  No wonder the contribution of Tamil scholars to the content of Sanskrit, and vice versa, were side lined, leading to the intellectual decay and the growth of sycophancy in the intellectual field, after the Dravidian parties started ruling Tamilnadu in 1967.

In the case of Sanskrit, I find that scholarly interest in Sanskrit is growing all over the world, side-lining the pro-Sanskrit chauvinists and debating the merits and demerits of the published research works in Sanskrit. Few examples’ links below:


Unfortunately, the domination of the anti-Sanskrit pro-Tamil chauvinists still continue, discouraging the scholarly debates in Tamil and derailing the Tamil development.

For example, the discovery the ancient pitch standard from the ancient Tamil text cilappathikAram and many such discoveries (http://drvee.in/?page_id=21 )  continue to be ignored for more than 20 years, by ‘politically’ influential Tamil scholars and Tamil forums all over the world. Without a basic knowledge of ‘Physics of Music’ and ‘Tamil Musicology’, Tamil scholars could not understand the above discoveries. ‘politically’ influential Tamil scholars, preferred to spend their time pleasing their political masters, instead of updating their knowledge. Neither I could waste my time like them, nor I could falsely claim the guidance and support of the political masters for the success of my discoveries, to please both the political masters and the ‘politically’ influential Tamil scholars.

But in the case of Sanskrit, such discoveries from the ancient Sanskrit texts, draw the attention of the Sanskrit scholars without delay, leading to the world recognition.
(https://sanskritdocuments.org/articles/ScienceTechSanskritAncientIndiaMGPrasad.pdf  ) Thank God that Sanskrit was not enslaved like Tamil, by any political master. 
 
The pro-Tamil chauvinists did not seem to be aware of the contribution of Tamil scholars to the content of Sanskrit, and vice versa, in a mutually beneficial approach.

Probably a comparison of similar trend in the case of English may sensitize them.

Ananda Kentish Muthu Coomaraswamy’s  ‘The Dance of Shiva’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda_Coomaraswamy#Works_by_Coomaraswamy ), Tagore’s ‘The English Gitanjali or Song Offerings’ and many such books by Indian writers had enriched the English Language. I had published my discovery of ‘Musical Threads’ from the ancient Tamil texts, in English (‘Sangeet Natak’ -Vol XLII, Number 3,2008) and not in Tamil.

The following reference explained the contributions of the Tamil scholars to the content of the Sanskrit language.

Moreover, we must observe when Tamilians wrote in Sanskrit they were not always nearly following a Northern tradition. Very often they simply used Sanskrit as a language of general communication in order to more widely propagate ideas from their own tradition. Rãmãnuja, for example, gave a scholastical Sanskrit garment to the theology of Nammalvar who inspired him and who before him had sung in his love for God:
- Jean Filliozat - Presidential Address - First International Tamil Conference Seminar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 18 - 23 April 1966

The following note with respect to my research on the ‘Kudumiyanmalai music inscription’ will explain the complimentary role of Sanskrit to the development of Tamil Musicology.

The content of the Sanskrit language around 8th century in Tamilnadu, employed the Grantha script in the inscriptions, like the Kudumiyanmalai inscription. The following references revealed the contribution of Tamil and Malayalam speakers employing the Grantha alphabet.

‘The Grantha alphabet is a descendent of the Brahmi alphabet and started to emerge during the 5th century AD. Most of the alphabets of southern India evolved from Grantha, and it also influenced the Sinhala and Thai alphabets. The Grantha alphabet has traditional been used by Tamil speakers to write Sanskrit.’ (https://www.omniglot.com/writing/grantha.htm  )

 ‘“The Grantha script (Tamil: கிரந்த எழுத்து, translit. Kiranta eḻuttu; Malayalam: ഗ്രന്ഥലിപി; Sanskrit:ग्रन्थलिपिः, translit. grantha lipi) is an Indian script that was widely used between the sixth century and the 20th centuries by Tamil and Malayalam speakers in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, to write Sanskrit and the classical language Manipravalam, and is still in restricted use in traditional Vedic schools (Sanskrit veda pāṭhaśālā).[1] It is a Brahmic script, having evolved from the Tamil-Brahmi.”  (Singh, Upinder (2008-01-01). A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Pearson Education India)

An archaic and ornamental variety of Grantha is sometimes referred to as Pallava Grantha. They were used by the Pallava in some inscriptions. Mamallapuram Tiruchirapalli Rock Cut Cave Inscriptions, Kailasantha Inscription come under this type.” 

The Sanskrit names and letters of the seven music notes are given in the following table. 

Name of Swara
Letter of Swara
shadja (षड्ज)
Sa - (सा)
rishabha (ऋषभ)
Ri - (री)
gandhara (गान्धार)
Ga - ()
madhyama (मध्यम)
Ma - ()
panchama (पञ्चम)
Pa - ()
dhaivata (धैवत)
Dha - ()
nishada (निषाद)
Ni -  (नि)
(Randel, Don Michael (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music (fourth ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.)

In the above table, the letters for Sa, is different from the first letter of the corresponding Sanskrit name; The same was the case with ‘Ri’.

Thiruvaiyaru (Thanjavur dt, Tamilnadu, India) Sanskrit College Prof.Narayana Sastri had pointed out that the letter of Swaras in the above table could not be derived from the Sanskrit names of the swara, in accordance with the Sanskrit grammar rules. (Page 527 Karunamirtha sagaram – Abraham Pandithar- 1917)

The earliest epigraph evidence for the seven music notes, Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha & Ne, is Kudumiyamalai musical inscription, & the earliest textual evidence is in Tamil; Divakaram, probably in the contemporary period. The later textual evidence also linked the 7 music notes to the seven long vowels in Tamil.

thivAkaram’ (university of Madras-1993) had defined the Tamil names for the seven music notes in Rule1884, and their sounding of conch, bird quill, bird peacock, elephant, horse, swan bird, quail bird, in Rule 1885, and then  related the Tamil letters ‘ச‌ – Sa’, ‘ரி – Re’, ‘க‌ – Ga’,  ‘ம‌ – Ma’,  ‘ப‌ -  Pa’,   ‘த‌ – Dha’, ‘நி – Ni’; also relating them to the seven long vowels in Tamil.

It must be noted that the phonetic sound of the Grantham letters in Sanskrit was well defined. 

In Tamil, the phonetic sound of the vowels was defined; but the consonants had one or more phonetic options.

For example, the Tamil letter ‘க‌‘ will phonetically sound in the word ‘சக்கரம்’ as ‘Ka ‘, and in the word ‘சங்கம்’ as ‘Ga’, the musical sounding of the music letter ‘Ga’.

The seven music letters in Tamil were consonants. and the letters in Tamil consonants have one or more phonetic options, depending on their employment in the word. The seven long vowels in Tamil were musically well defined to match the pitches of the seven music notes, as cited in the above reference ‘thivAkaram’. Even now, Tamil vocal training involved the corresponding Sanskrit Phonetic sound for the seven music letters in Tamil; ச, ரி, க, ம, ப, த, நி.

Also, ancient Tamil grammar tholkAppiam had well defined rules to import Sanskrit words into Tamil with the acoustic distortion and excluded the imported words from the phonetic rules applicable to the original Tamil words. Interestingly, tholkAppiam had approved the employment of the imported words in the Tamil poems. ( http://musicresearchlibrary.net/omeka/items/show/2451 )

My research on the Kudumiyanmalai Music Inscription is in progress to probe and link the content in the Sanskrit texts to Tamil Musicology. I had collected evidences in the ancient Tamil texts to explain the musicology content in the Sanskrit texts.

Also, I need to survey all researches linking the Kudumiyanmalai inscription to the ancient Sanskrit texts, identify the short-comings, and research if the above evidences in the ancient Tamil texts could succeed in clarifying all the doubts related to the linking of the content in the Sanskrit texts to the Tamil Musicology.

My application of ‘Physics of Music’ to the ancient Tamil texts had proved that the meanings of the music related words in the commentaries and lexicons, needed objective review to discover the Tamil musicology from the ancient Tamil texts.

I am looking for similar efforts in the study of the ancient Sanskrit texts and associate with those involved, to continue my research on the Kudumiyanmalai music inscription.

The above inscription is one of the many evidences that led to my discovery of the ‘Musical Linguistics’ from the ancient Tamil Grammar tholkAppiam.
 ('Musical Phonetics in tholkAppiam' in The journal from the International Institute of Tamil Studies, Taramani, Chennai- 2013 December: http://www.ulakaththamizh.in/journal)

The above discovery attracted the attention of the world-renowned scholars with the following comments.

“Very intriguing.  I hope all of this can become part of an emerging discipline of ‘musical linguistics’ " - Prof.Noam Chomsky

” Very interesting. And happy to know that you are working on it.''
- Dr. Rajeev Sangal,  Professor (Area: Computer Sc & Engg), Language Technologies Research Center, IIIT Hyderabad

The above discovery may lead to the world recognition of tholkAppiam as an important source for the emerging discipline of ‘musical linguistics’.

pANini’s Ashtadhyayi had already gained world recognition for the well-established discipline of linguistics.

‘By teaching phonetics and grammar to the West, Sanskrit gave rise to modern linguistics’; 

No doubt, world interest to study the ancient Texts in Sanskrit for the development of Science, Technology, Philosophy, etc are growing in modern times. (Spanish scholar Oscar Pujol Riembau;

But in the case of Tamil, unfounded claims like Tamil Music as the source for Hindustani Music, Angor Watt was built by a Tamil King, etc led to a low estimation of Tamil scholars. This led to scholars like Sheldon Pollock to discard the findings of the Tamil scholars with respect to the origin of the Tamil literature in his book 'The Language of the Gods in the World of Men - Sanskrit, Culture and Power in Premodern India'. 

Probably the failure of the Tamil scholars to debate the wrong findings of the foreign scholars including Sheldon Pollock, may justify the above low estimation.


For example, unaware of the lexicon meaning of the Tamil word ‘cAthi’ (சாதி) and the import of the word ‘caste’ into Tamil, replacing the original meaning of  ‘cAthi’, a semantic mischief.( However, it was the Portuguese who employed casta in the primary modern sense when they applied it to the thousands of in-marrying hereditary Indian social groups they encountered upon their arrival in India in 1498;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste );



American scholar George Hart had observed; “it is clear that caste is indigenous to South India and did not depend for its development on the varna system which was later superimposed on it”. Also he had identified ‘paRaiyan’ and ‘pANan’, referred in cankam texts as ‘the lowest castes’ (‘Ancient Tamil Literature: Its Scholarly Past and Future’). But cankam text puRanhAnURu (335:  7 - 8) referred to them as the ‘citizens of the society’ (“துடியன், பாணன், பறையன், கடம்பன், என்று இந்நான்கு அல்லது குடியும் இல்லை”). I doubt if any Tamil scholar in Tamil university, International Institute of Tamil Studies, the Tamil departments in the universities in Tamilnadu, had refuted the above wrong observations with the proper evidences.

The above low estimation of the Tamil scholars will prove to be a great obstacle to the world recognition of the discovery of the ‘musical linguistics’ in tholkAppiam. In my view, of all the languages in the world, Tamil alone faces such hurdle in the intellectual field. Fortunately, anti-Sanskrit is now confined to a decreasing number of those above 50 years in age. Most of the college students and highly educated youth are free from their influence, and open minded to welcome all good things. 

Musical Linguistics rules for poems discovered in the ancient Tamil grammar tholkAppiam, are non-semantic and music related rules for poems, and hence applicable to the musically rendered poems in world languages. The rules of the musical phonetics are objective, involving measurable acoustic parameters and hence would help to devise the related algorithm for developing applications in computational musical linguistics; like lyrical text to music & vice versa, musical grammar check, transformation of musical forms, etc. 

The unique phonetic dimensions of the Sanskrit letters and the rules of joining the letters in pANini’s Ashtadhyayi, led to the development of the modern linguistics. 


The unique phonetic dimensions of the Tamil letters and the rules of joining the letters for composing the poems in tholkAppiam, will lead to the development of the musical linguistics. 
The above rules of joining the letters for composing the poems are non-semantic and hence language-independent, but musical structure dependent.

I can very well foresee the convergence of the logic in Ashtadhyayi employed in the modern linguistics, and the logic in tholkAppiam to be employed in the musical linguistics, in the future research;

addressing the criticisms of Chomsky’s universal grammar(UG) 
(http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/outil_rouge06.html  & https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1269  ) and proving that “that structure-dependence follows from principles of universal grammar that are deeply rooted in the human language faculty”.

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