Black and Bright and Beautiful

[N. Ganesan]

S. Vidyasankar wrote:
<<<
Even a 100 years ago, it wasn't so. One common first
name one can find among Tamil Brahmins of an earlier
generation is Picchai/Picchappa/Pichumani. My father
was officially named Sundaresan, but my grandmother
called him Picchappa, at home. I know at least two
Tamil Brahmin men named Murugan. Another feature was
the use of double names, one in Sanskrit and one in
Tamil. One of my ancestresses was called "aramaNattA
pATTi". It took me a while to infer that this name
was a version of Tamil aRam-vaLarttAL, i.e. Sanskrit
dharma-samvardhinI. There is also a fairly high
incidence of Tamil names among zrIvaishNavas, e.g.
Kannan, Perundevi, and names ending in valli/vaLLi.
Vidyasankar
 >>>

N. Ganesan wrote:
<<<
I agree with S. Vidyasankar about the tamil names
used by Tamil Smarta brahmins until very recently.
Bharatiyar, named Subramanian, was known as Subbaiyaa
among kith and kin. Justice Muttusami Ayyar, the
first Indian to rise to be appointed to a High court.
Sanksritist Kuppusami Sastri, The avant-garde poet
Na. PiccamUrti, C. S. Chellappaa, author of
one of the best novels in Tamil (vATivAcal - on
bull baiting among Tamils, something like in Mediterranean)
- all have tamil names. Among Saiva Sivachariyar
brahmins also names are mostly tamil, and they are
said to be a Tamil group who successfully claimed
brahmanahood and produced most of the saivaagamas.

Regarding "aramaNattaa paaTTi", it is possible
it is the tiruvaiyARu goddess name, "aRam vaLartta
nAyaki" who took 2 nAzi measures of paddy grain
to sustain all the beings in the world.
"aRamvaLarttAL" is sanskritized as dharmasaMvardhanii.
Also, can "aramaNattaa" have anything to do
with araNmanai ('palace') in a "little" kingdom
(to use N. Dirks term)?
>>>

A small note on 'aramaNattaa paaTTi'. Upon reflexion,
I am almost sure that S. Vidyasankar's explanation
may not be valid. The confusion may be because of mixing
'malai vaLar kAtali'(parvatavardhani) of Ramesvaram
with 'aRam vaLartta nAyaki'(dharmasaMvardhani) of Thiruvaiyaru.
Note the Skt. -vardhani commonality. While music giants
like Tyagarajar are buried in Tiruvaiyaru,
Parvatavardhani the family deity of Ramnad Setupatis
who got the ticket for Vivekanandar to go to America
will be to do with Ramnad Samasthanam.
(I gave some old pictures of some Sethupathis to Pamela Price
who studied the diaries of Muthuramalingasethupathi).
PaTikkAcup pulavar has written the poor state of patronage
for Tamil patronage because no more the Chera, Chola
and Pandyan rulers, and many arts took refuge in the
Ramnad kingdom.

Women were given pet names aramaNaattaa paaTTi if they
come from 'titled families'. I had some aramaNaattaa paaTTis
too (kAlingarAyars, vANavarAyars, man2rATiyars, vENATuTaiyArs,
whose inscriptions date to about 1200 years, colin makenzie mss.,
Bharata Rathnam ...,).

'aramaNataa' would have to do with some zamins, either as
relatives, or high officials or with music, etc.,

Regards,
N. Ganesan


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