Smearing the Drums

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

Lakshmi Srinivas raises some valid points. The information contained in 
Ganesan's posting has several problems. If Ganesan's source is "tamizar icai" 
by A. N. Perumal, we can infer the lack of philological rigor of the book.  

In a message dated 1/19/2001 8:38:25 PM Central Standard Time, 
naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM writes:

> I was reading about the taNNumai drum in CT.
>  It appears taNNumai is comparable to what we call as mRdangam today.
>  
>  Its name contains the prefix, taN 'cool', and its
>  percussion sound is described soft ('ta_laGku' or 'aritta
Ø kural taNNumai'). 

tazaGku kural was not a soft sound. It was used to describe the sound of 
thunder as in 

tazagku kural ERoTu muzagki vAn2am (naR.7.5)

The Online Tamil Lexicon glosses it as 'to sound, roar, resound'. In fact, 
naR. 298 which Ganesan quoted for tazaGku actually describes the fearsome 
sound produced by the taNNumai played by the hunters of the pAlai landscape.

Ø Usually the bards 'pANar' were gifted
>  with young calfs, and the soft calf-leather was utilized as
Ø taNNumai membranes.
>  
>    kan2Ru peRu valcip pANan2 kaiyatai
Ø vaLLuyirt taNNumai pOla  - naRRiNai 310:9-10

There are two major problems here. First of all the reading kan2Ru peRu 
valcip pANan2 is an error. Both Auvai Duraisamy's edition and the Rajam 
edition which forms the basis for the Cologne Data base have only kaLiRu peRu 
valci. They were right to take the correct reading as kaLiRu peRu valci. (Not 
having tamizar icai, I cannot say which edition was its source.) But the 
error is understandable for anyone knowing the Tamil orthography. It was not 
only Perumal who has made the error, but also UVS library's 1989 edition 
edited by H. Venkataraman. It is significant that UVS was not the editor of 
this naRRiNai publication. If only Perumal or Venkataraman had checked the 
following lines, he could have figured out the correct reading.

veLiRu il kaRpin2 maNTu amar aTutoRum 
kaLiRu peRu valci pANan2 eRiyum 
 taNNumai kaNNin2 alaIyar tan2 vayiRu E     (aka.106.11-13)

It should be noted  that the 1990 UVS library's akanAn2URu (kaLIRRiyAn2ai 
nirai) publication edited by vE. civacuppiramaNiyan2, Rajam edition as found 
in Cologne, and kazakam publication edited by po.vE. cOmacuntaran2Ar all 
agree on the reading 'kaLiRu'.

I have not seen other evidence within the CT texts that the bards were 
customarily given calves as gifts. 

Regards
S. Palaniappan