etymology of tree name "maraam" and the geography of the mara am t ree

[Chandrasekaran, Periannan]

I got the following from A.K. Ramanujan's
"Poems of Love and War from the Eight Anthologies
and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil"
Columbia University Press

Appendix: Plant Names page 317:

English: cadamba oak
Tamil  : katampu
Latin  : Anthocephahlus Cadamba

Note that the regular English name and the Latin or botanical
names both use the original Tamil name for the tree!

> From this a probable cause for suspecting that this tree
is special to the classical Tamil land.

As for "maraam", the Tamil name for tree is "maram".
Another point to note here is that "maraam" sounds as though
the cadamba tree is referred to as "the tree".
I also read in a text book on carnatic music (or Tamil
music) that the tube of the musical (wind) instrument
"naagaswaram" or "naathaswaram" unique to Tamil Nadu
is made from "aachchaa" tree wood.


I also found another name for the tree:
"aa" in cilappatikaaram: 2nd centruy AD:
"aavum aaramum Ongkina engkaNum"
[cilap.: chapter 12[vEttuva vari]: stanza 76]
txln:
"cadamba oak trees and sandal trees had grown tall
everywhere"

Ramayanam mentions "maraam" or "aachchaa" tree often.

Thanks
Chandra


-----Original Message-----
From: H.M.Hubey [mailto:hubeyh at MONTCLAIR.EDU]
Sent: Monday, January 11, 1999 8:30 PM
To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK
Subject: Re: etymology of tree name "maraam" and the geography of the
maraam t ree


Chandrasekaran, Periannan wrote:
>
> Could someone provide the etymology of the word "maraam"

This could be Farsi or borrowed into Farsi because the word
"meram" is used in Turkish for a wooded place and I don't
think it is from Turkish originally.

> used very frequently in Tamil Sangam era literature
> to denote the tree called "katampu" or "veN (white) katampu"?
> It also seems to be referred to as "aachchaa" tree.

This is also strange. Aghach, or aach means 'tree' or 'wood'
in Turkic languages.


> Thanks
> P. Chandrasekaran