Black and Bright and Beautiful

[Venkatraman Iyer]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000 07:01:28 +0530, RM. Krishnan
<poo at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN> wrote:
>
>Without knowing (?) the basic meaning, Tamil Brahmins (especially the
>mothers) do call children as 'kaNNa'. They think they are referring to
>Krishna. But then both Krishna and kaNNa are different rendering of the
>same. - black. It is as if calling a child with love
>as 'Blacky'.
>
>Interesting, is it not? 'En kaNNullE, En kaNNuk kutti'

Thanks for your excellent point.

kaNNan as well as nArAyaNan mean "Black".
For nArAyaNan, sangam literature has
"mAlOn" or "mAyavan" (< mA ='black').

iLaGkO aTikaL in his cilappatikAram (and M. S. Subbulakshmi) sings:
kariyavan2ai kANAta kaN en2n2a kaNNE !
...
nArAyaNA en2n2A nA en2n2a nAvE !

Best wishes,
V. Iyer



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