Pongal/Sankranti/Bhogi/Lohri

[N. Ganesan]

Hope Dr. Jean-Luc Chevillard who knows Tamil well, will forgive
me for quoting a 5th century and 8th century poem on Pongal.
Longing for the day when he or Thomas Lehmann or Ulrike Niklas
will write a book on Tamil poetics, ie., a study and translation
of TolkAppiyam, PoruL atikAram. In English preferably.

I will abide by his advice to restrict less than mA: The problem
is remembering Tamil parallels from pre-10th century literature
and feeling that that is relevant to a particular discussion.
I agree: avoid political flames even after seeing cornered with
wrong/insufficient info. Have not told anybody to join
Indology realizing it may not be good, imagine the day when
all Indians have access to web :-)

Back to Pongal:
****************
 The Bhogi festival is Indra festival in CilappatikAram
(conservatively 5th century AD)

             tEvar kOmAn2 Evalin2 pOnta
             kAval pUtattuk kaTai kezu pITikai
             puzukkal um nOlai um vizukku uTai maTai um
             pU um pukai um pogkal um corintu
             tuNagkaiyar kuravaiyar aNagku ezuntu ATi


 From Ciivaka CintAmaNi of Tiruttakka TEvar (8th century):

   matuk kulAm alagkal mAlai magkaiyar vaLartta cem tIp
   putuk kalattu ezunta tIm pAl pogkalin2 nuraiyil pogkik
   katirttu veN mATam tOn2Rum cevvaiyil kAtam nAn2kin2
   natikkarai vantu viTTAr naccu eyiRRu aravOTu oppAr

 Happy Pongal,
 N. Ganesan






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