Few Questions (Vipulanandar)

[N. Ganesan]

A historical note:
*******************

         Swami Vipulananda (1892-1947) was a
saint, engineer, musicologist, translator, poet and
educator. He was well versed not only in Tamil and English
but also in Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Bengali and to some extent in Latin.

    Chidbhavananda and Vipulananda took training in Vedanta
and Samnyaasam under Dr. Sivananda, a direct disciple of Swami
Vivekananda. Chidbhavananda, a relative of my mother,
and Vipulananda were good friends throughout.

                 He was appointed as the first
Tamil professor of Annamalai University (1927-1935)
He quit his job in 1935 to do research in ancient
Tamil music and harp (yaazh). He did most of his
work in the peace and serenity of Himalayas where
he took up an invited editorial job of a RK mission
publication, Prabhutta Bharatha.

He translated Tagore's Gardener into Tamil
and Bharatiyar used this story in his
"Kannan, En vElaikkaaran" song.

He wanted to publish a book on Technical
Tamil (He had chaired a committee to coin technical
words during Rajaji's term as Chief Minister).

The following few lines of Adigal's poem
engraved on his cemetery  located in Sivanantha
Alayam, Batticaloa talk about
this simple and great man.

      veLLai niRa malligaiyO? vERentha maamalarO?
      vaLLal aDi iNaikku vaayththa malar ethuvO?

      veLLai niRap poovum alla; vERu entha malarum alla;
      uLLak kamalam aDi - uththamanaar vENduvathu!

There has been too much suffering for too long there.
Praying for Peace in the land of Vipulanandar's birth,

N. Ganesan
ganesans at cl.uh.edu