Iyer Heritage Page

[S Krishna]

I would like to bring up two points in reference to Ravi Iyer's Iyer web
site(If this isn't the correct forum to discuss this, I apologize)
Ravi Iyer et al deserve kudos for putting up a site on the Iyer
community, however it is important to get one's facts correct while
attempting a major project like this:

1. He says that "Iyer" is from Ayya which is from Arya...This was
discussed sometime ago on this net by
S.Palaniappan(palaniappa at aol.com)who said that"Iyer" is derived from the
Tamil root "ai" and not the "Arya"-"Ayya" route that was followed
earlier. May I therefore ask for references/logic followed for this
conclusion?

2. I believe that the logic of "proclaiming all smarthas from
Tamil NAdu" to be Iyer can lead to flawed conclusions. Tyagaraja was a
Telugu speaking Vaidiki Brahmin from Tanjavur, how does he become an
Iyer? Also, S.Radhakrishnan was a Telugu speaking Niyogi from Tirutanni,
how does become an Iyer? I am aware of the fact that Tirutanni was
traditionally a part of the Tamizhagam, but am not sure if it is in
Tamil NAdu now; from what I remember, it is in the Chittoor district of
Andhra Pradesh( in which case the logic behind  his being an Iyer fails
in two different ways).

 LEt me also venture to add that in the realm of  agricultural
scientists, one is far safer with somebody like the late Sir
T.S.Venkataraman(Tiruvadi Sambasivayyar Venkataraman) or at a lesser
level, Krishnaswami Ramiah than M.S.Swaminathan( There was an article a
long time ago in the Illustrated Weekly( by Janardan Thakur) which
proved that many of MSS's results were flawed, his green revolution was
far from even starting evolution, his tenure as DG at the ICAR was
notable only for the number of scientists resigning or commiting
suicide. There was another book written about scientific fraud in the
world where the same facts were repeated and Dr Swaminathans statistical
conclusions questioned..his work is taken with a pinch of salt by many
people).


REgards,
Krishna

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