Re: [INDOLOGY] MM. Prof. S. Kuppuswami Sastri's saṁskāra name

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

It is indeed strange. 

Historically, I can think of the case of Mayuravarman of Kadamba dynasty who was a brahmin known earlier as Mayurasarman as given in the Talagunda inscription. But in the case of Kuppuswami Sastri’s ancestors, there does not seem to be any such royal background for the males.

So I had thought of two possibilities. 

One of them was the option 2 of Dr. Paturi. Indeed, according to the obituary, the ancestors of Kuppuswami Sastri had migrated from Kerala. In the matrilineal Kerala, the child born to a Brahmin father and Kshatriya female would have grown up in the mother’s household and not in the brahmin agraharam or Nambudiri Illam. But due to some unique circumstance, if the father and son were to move to mostly-patrilineal Tamil Nadu, could the son have been accepted as a Brahmin?

The second simpler possibility is of course, Venkatavarma is typo for Venkatasarma.

Regards,
Palaniappan


> On May 8, 2016, at 9:02 PM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 1. The two cases , that of Prof. Deshpande being asked to add S'arma to his name Madhava during his upanayana samskaara and the name of Venkatavarma being a totally different name than the name Kuppuswami Sastri seem to be two different conventions.
> 
> 2. 'Varma' being in the community-indicating  name-ending of the son of a Brahmin father is possible in a matrilineal Keralite family system that prevailed till recently in Kerala, if the mother in that case is from a Varma ('Kshatriya') lineage.
> 
> 3. But the case of Sri Kuppuswami Sastri doesn't seem to be even that. Is 'varma' a name ending separated from the part Venkata in this case ? The concept of 'samskaara name' in this case seems to be intriguingly strange.   
> 
> On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 3:39 AM, Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu <mailto:mmdesh at umich.edu>> wrote:
> Dear Palaniappan,
> 
> This is interesting.  At my Upanayana ceremony in Pune, when I was 8 year old, I was told to say the following greeting to the teacher/priest:  ... mādhavaśarmā aham abhivādaye.  The addition of Śarman to my first name was supposed to indicate my Brahmin family background.  That added part "--śarman" was not used elsewhere.  I have not heard of -varmā as a part of the Saṃskāra-name among Brahmins, but there must be regional variations.
> 
> Madhav Deshpande
> 
> On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 5:53 PM, Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
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> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan <Palaniappa at aol.com <mailto:Palaniappa at aol.com>>
> To: Indology List <Indology at list.indology.info <mailto:Indology at list.indology.info>>
> Cc: 
> Date: Sun, 8 May 2016 16:52:08 -0500
> Subject: MM. Prof. S. Kuppuswami Sastri's saṁskāra name
> In his obituary of MM. Prof. S. Kuppuswami Sastri, V. Raghavan says, “Kuppuswami by the popular name and Venkatavarma by his Saṁskāra-name, he was the fourth son of Seturama Ayyar…” (New Indian Antiquary, April, 1944, p.17. The link was given by Manu Francis in another post). How common is ‘varma' as a part of the Saṁskāra-name of Brahmins?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Regards,
> Palaniappan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
> Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
> 202 South Thayer Street, Suite 6111
> The University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608, USA
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Nagaraj Paturi
>  
> Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
>  
> Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
>  
> FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
>  
> (Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
>  
>  
>  



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