Madurai and Sanga Kaala tamil kavithai
The top half of photograph is from an unknown source. The bottom half is from Sathiyan. More of his photos can be found here and on his blog.Henk has very good collection of photographs from Madurai. You can check out of his collection at his pbase site.
Now for some mythology and beautiful tamil poetry.
Lord Shiva performed “Thiruvilayadals” for poets who prayed to him for succour. Once the Pandiyan king had a doubt as to whether the scent from a woman’s hair was natural or artificial. He announced a price of 1000 gold coins for anyone who clear his doubt. A poor poet named Tharumi prayed to Lord Shiva to make him get the award.
The Lord gave a poem to the poet and asked him to take it to the King. When this poem was read in the court, Poet Nakkeerar found fault with it and stopped the giving od the prize. Alas! Tharumi’s grief grew and he again appealed to the Lord. He said he was not for not receiving the prize but he could not bear anyone finding fault with the Lord’s poems. Thereupon, Lord Shiva himself came to the court and challenged Nakkeerar. But Nakkeerar could not be cowed down.
Though the divine poet asked him if the hair of Ganapoongodai,the consort of Lord Kalathinathar,whom Nakkeerar worshipped ,did not have the natural scent,the undaunted Nakkeerar asserted that it was so.
Suddenly the Lord opened the eye in his forehead (Netrikkan) which emitted fire and looked at Nakkeerar to show the poet who he was. Even then, Nakkeerar persisted in his statement. As he could not bear the scorching heat, emanating from the divine eye he jumped into the water of the Golden Lotus Tank. Then at the request of the other poets, the Lord took Nakkeerar out of the tank, forgave him and made him study under ‘Agasthiar’, the tamil Sage.
(From www.madurai.com)
konkutêr vâlkkai yañcirait tumpi
kâmañ ceppâtu kaNTatu molimô
payiliyatu kelîiya naTpin mayiliyar
ceriyeyir rarivai kûntalin
nariyavum uLavônî yariyum pûvê
Beautiful-winged bee
whose life is passed in search of honey
don’t speak to me of desire
but tell me what you really saw:Could even the flowers that you know
be as full of fragrance
as the hair of the woman
with the even set of teeth and the peacock nature,
to whom long affection binds me? (From http://www.penkatali.org/ )
Now one more couplet form pudhu kavithai by Tabu Sankar.
Kundhalil poovin vasam vesum, Theriyum
Indha poovilo un kundhalin vasamallava vesugirathu!
-Tabu Sankar
karthikeyan,
it would be nice to see how the photograph taken by sathiyan would be - if converted to b & w. It might be better than his colour.
I wish we could remove the lamppost in the right side of the sathiyan’s photo. The lamppost is really spoiling the overall effect of the photograph is my humble opinion.
Certainly a superb post. My friend used to tell me the Shivan Nakeerar story a few times. I really want to study Hindu mythology one day. The grand tradition of religious story telling is really a pathway to understand ourselves.
And the Tamil sangam kavithai is really good. The language itself has seen many evolution since the Sangam ages. I just hope it doesnt fade into modernity too soon. We will certainly save it. POems are the purest way to explore a language and ascertain its meanings.
Satish. Thanks for stopping by and I will post the b&w version of the photograph.The lamp post is difficult to remove but shows the change of times…
Gp. You sumerised it better! Do take time and read about our hindu mythology.
I regret that I did not study tamil in the first place. Now I depend english version which dilutes the essence.
hai… i like very much madurai temple
pl visit my web http://www.kavimalar.com
Can anyone of you tell me the sites to find pictures of various tamil poets like nakkeerar, bharthiyar, bharthidasan, karaikal ammayar etc…
-kayal
This is a very interesting blog. I like this imagery one and the whole story of Lord Shiva and stuff. Funny, though: When I was in Madurai 2 years ago, the whole temple seemed more like a bazaar. I hope that’s all changed.
Pix Gremlin. I hope it is changed now. The temple at madurai serves as economic hot spot and present it self as bazaar.
Thanks for stopping by!