I agree completely with Rajam's statement, "There was no indication of "untouchability" in the Tamil society as reflected in early Tamil poems."

 

Since George Hart has criticized my findings in his post, I would like to say that the contents of Hart's post are nothing new. All these have been addressed in my paper available at http://www.soas.ac.uk/research/publications/journals/ijjs/file46109.pdf . We have also discussed this in Indology in 2009. Here are the last two posts of the Indology discussion http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.info/2009-July/033485.html

http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.info/2009-July/033486.html . 

So instead of going over material already covered, I shall discuss something I have not discussed so far. I shall summarize the crux of my views briefly at first. Those who are interested in the details can read further. 

For almost four decades, George Hart has propounded his views on the concept of dangerous sacred power,aṇaṅku, among the Tamils and the practice of untouchability that resulted from contact with the sacred power. According to Hart, the Pāṇaṉs and Paṟaiyaṉs have always been the lowest castes because they were polluted because they came in contact with that sacred power.  The only problem is that, as I had mentioned in 2009, there is clear epigraphic evidence that the Tamil Paṟaiyar (plural of the Paṟaiyaṉ) were not untouchables as late as the 11th century and Tamil Pāṇar (plural of the Pāṇaṉ) are not untouchables even today. These facts completely invalidate Hart's theories. The reason Hart came to a conclusion diametrically opposite to mine is that his research methodology had major errors of commission and omission.

Those who are interested in more details can read on below. 

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Regarding the power of aṇaṅku, Hart (1975a: 43) wrote:

 

"This power had to be rigidly controlled. As a result, religious rites were carried out by the lowest castes: the Paṟaiyaṉs , the Pāṇaṉs, the Tuṭiyaṉs, and the Vēlaṉs...The Vēlaṉ, who is even today found among the Paṟaiyaṉs of Kerala, would dance ecstatically as he was possessed by Murugan, an indigenous god...The Paṟaiyaṉ, the Pāṇaṉ, and the Tuṭiyaṉ would each play a special instrument which was thought to be inhabited by a sacred power and which was used for various ritual purposes. The pollution which is attached to the low castes is thus a legacy of indigenous Dravidian religion."

 

Hart's views of Tamil untouchability and sacred power are inseparable. And for his whole theory to have any validity, the Paṟaiyar (plural of the Paṟaiyaṉ) and the Pāṇar (plural of the Pāṇaṉ) he has mentioned above should be untouchables or lowest castes. If even one group is not untouchable, his whole theory collapses. I have already mentioned that the Paṟaiyar were not untouchables in the 11th century. 

Hart (1975b:144) also says the following in connection with the Paṟaiyar:

"Elsewhere, the drum played for the king in the morning is the muracu (Puṟ. 61, 397; Aiñ. 448) . While there is nowhere any indication of who played the muracu, it is not unlikely that a subcaste of the Paṟaiyaṉs had that office, especially as one of the modern subdivisions of that caste is called Muracu."² [emphasis mine]

Footnote 2 reads:

Edgar T. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India (Madras, 1909), VI:80

But, as shown in page 1 of the attachment, what Thurston (1909:80) really said was: 

"At the census, 1891, 348 sub-divisions were returned, of which the following were strongest in point of numbers:- Amma found chiefly in Tanjore and Madura;...; Morasu (drum) in Salem;...". [emphasis mine]

 

While Hart's change of -su to -cu may be understandable in terms of the Tamil transliteration system, the change of the radical vowel -o- to -u-,  which changed the name of the Paṟaiyar subdivision matching the word for 'drum' used in the Classical Tamil texts he cited, was problematic. This change could not have been a typographical error since in a later publication Hart (1987: 475) also says:

"One of the modern subdivisions of the Paṟaiyaṉ caste is named "Muracu" (Thurston and Rangachari 1909: VI. 80), and it seems possible that this is a very ancient division." [emphasis mine]

 

In light of Hart's suggestion of the possible antiquity of this Paṟaiyar subdivision, there is some interesting information about the Morasu subdivision not mentioned by Hart (1975b) and Hart (1987). As can be seen from the highlighted portion in page 2 of the attachment, Thurston (1909: 81) says the following:

"It has been suggested to me that the Morasu Paraiyans, included in the above list are Canarese Holeyas, who have settled in the Tamil country." [emphasis mine]

Even more interesting is the situation with respect to the Pāṇār. Hart (1975b: 120) states:

 

"The low status of bards may also be inferred from the fact that several centuries after the anthologies, Tiruppāṇāḻvār, who was a Pāṇaṉ by caste, was considered to be so low that he was not allowed into the temple."

(The story of Tiruppāṇāḻvār occurs in different medieval Vaiṣṇava hagiographical works such as the Āṟāyirappaṭi Guruparamparāprabhāvam. While the Vaiṣṇava hagiographical works depict the Pānar saint Tiruppāṇāḻvār as not being allowed to enter the temple, the Periyapurāṇam, the 12th century Śaiva haigiographical work, portrayed the Pāṇar saint Tirunīlakaṇṭar as originally standing outside the temple and being brought inside due to intervention by Śiva Himself. In another instance, the brahmin saint Tiruñāṉacampantar is said to have arranged for Tirunīlakaṇtar to sleep inside another brahmin saint's house.)

Hart (1975b: 158) also stated:

"The Paṟaiyaṉ is found in Tamilnad, Kerala, and the Kota-speaking areas, while the Pāṇaṉ is found in modern Kerala and Orissa, and in parts of ancient North India, where Pāṇa meant a low-class bard."

(The sources for the above statement were entries 3319 and 3351 in the first edition of Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (1960), which in turn, relied on Tamil Lexicon and  A Malayalam and English Dictionary by Gundert for information related to Tamil and Malayalam words respectively.)

As one can see, Hart (1975b) had left out any mention of the Tamil Pāṇaṉ in present day Tamil Nadu. Based on the two statements of Hart quoted above, it seems Hart was not aware of the existence of the Pāṇar in present day Tamil Nadu. Otherwise, he would not have had to rely on medieval hagiography to ascertain the 'low' status of the Pāṇār. Here lay a fundamental problem with Hart's research approach. He was producing sweeping anthropological conclusions with insufficient knowledge of people he was writing about.

 

All Hart had to do was to turn a few pages in Thurston (1909), which he had anyway consulted in the case of the Paṟaiyar.  Thurston (1909) spells Pāṇaṉ as Pāṇāṉ, with the second vowel being long ā. This spelling variation cannot be a reason for disregarding the entry. After all, Tamil Lexicon has entries connecting both variants as given below.

 

பாணன்¹ pāṇaṉ, n. < பாண். [M. pāna.] 1. An ancient class of Tamil bards and minstrels; பாடல்வல்ல ஒருசாதி. கூத்தரும்பாணரும் (தொல். பொ. 91). 2. See பாணான். (W.)  

 

பாணான் pāṇāṉ, n. < பாணன்¹. Man of the tailor caste; தையற்காரச் சாதியான்

 

Note that the Tamil Lexicon derives 'Pāṇāṉ' from 'Pāṇaṉ'.

 

The entry in Thurston (1909: 29-42) on the Pāṇāṉ is a long one discussing both the Tamil Pāṇāṉ as well as the Malayalam Pāṇāṉ. The entry opens with a very brief discussion of the Tamil Pāṇāṉ while discussion of the Malayalam Pāṇāṉ takes up the bulk of the entry. But it is the brief discussion of the Tamil Pāṇāṉ that Hart should have taken into account.

 

As can be seen in page 3 of the attachment, the entry on the Pāṇāṉs opens with the following statement.  "The Tamil Pānāns are said, in the Census Report, 1901, to be also called Mēstris. They are "tailors among Tamils in Madura and Tinnevelly. They employ Brāhmans and Vellālas as purōhits. Though barbers and washermen will not eat food prepared by them, they are allowed to enter Hindu temples."   Later in the entry, as shown in page 4 of the attachment, in regards to the Pāṇāṉs of Travancore, Thurston (1909: 33) says, "For the following account of the Pānāns of Travancore, I am indebted to Mr. N. Subramani Aiyar. The word is of Tamil origin, and means a tailor. The title taken by them is Panikkan, the usual honorific appellation of most of the industrial castes of Malabar. They are supposed to be one with the Pānāns of the Tamil country though much below them in the social scale."  

 

As Gundert's dictionary notes, in Southern Tamil usage Pāṇaṉ could indicate a bard as well as a tailor.

പാണന്‍‍ pāṇaǹ T. M. (T. പാണ്‍ = പണ്‍ melody). A caste of musicians, actors & players; in So. T. also tailors B., necromancers D. (= മുന്നൂററന്‍, മലയച്ചെക്കന്‍, പറയന്‍). പാ' ന്‍റെ നായി പോലേ prov. പാ'നോട് ഒപ്പിക്കുംഎന്നെ ആചാര്യനോ Bhr. — കീഴ്പാണന്‍ V1. a caste of slaves.

 

Based on Tamil Lexicon and Gundert's dictionary, it is clear that Pānān and Pānan are only variants of the same word. After all, there is no separate entry for Pāṇaṉs of Kerala in Thurston (1909).  Hart should have investigated if the Pānān/Pānan, the tailor, and Pānān/Pānan, the bard, were related in any way.  If he had conducted some fieldwork like anthropologists do before writing about different communities, he would have quickly realized that the tailors were from the same community as earlier bards.  At least if he had done a careful literature review, he would have gotten the true picture of the Pānans. 

 

For instance, the Arumpatavurai commentary for the Cilappatikāram glosses tuṉṉakārar in Cilappatikāram (5.32) as Pāṇar. Also, as has been pointed out by Aiyar ([1924] 1999: 109), Travancore king Bālarāma Varma's Sanskrit work, Bālarāma Bharatam of the 18th century, presents as a tailor the bard Pāṇapattiran of Madurai mentioned in the opening poem of the 11th Tirumuṟai of the Śaiva canon. Irakavan (1971: 79), a 20th century scholar, stated:

 

"பாணர் குலம் இன்று உளதா? என்று பலரும் ஐயுறுகின்றனர்? பாணர் குலம் அழிந்துவிடவில்லை. பாண்டிய நாட்டில் இன்னும்இருந்து வருகிறது. யாழ் மறைந்ததோடு பாணர் குலமும் பாழ்பட்டு விட்டது என்று சிலர் கூறுகின்றனர். அது தவறு. ஆனால், பாணர்குலம் எண்ணிக்கையில் சிறுபான்மையினராய் மதுரை, திருநெல்வேலி, சாத்தன்குளம் போன்ற இடங்களில் வாழ்ந்து வருகின்றனர்.தொழிலின்றிப் பலர் தையல் தொழில் புரிந்துவருகின்றனர்."

 

Here is a translation of the above quote.

"Many wonder if the Pāṇar caste/lineage exists today. The Pāṇar caste/lineage has not perished. It exists in the Pāṇṭiya country even today. Some say that with the disappearance of the lute, the Pāṇar caste/lineage is ruined too. That is wrong.  But people of the Pāṇar caste/lineage live in small numbers in Maturai, Tirunelvēli, and Cāttaṉkuḷam. Without an occupation, many are engaged in the job of tailoring." 

I have attached a table from Ludden (1996:123) showing the status of the Pāṇaṉ in Tirunelveli district in 1823. (See page 5 of the attachment. The date of 1923 shown in the table title should actually be 1823.) One can see that they were small in number but part of the large 'Sudra' category.  So were barbers and washermen. None of them was/is an untouchable community.  That is why K. K. Pillay (1969: 208), while discussing the use of pulaitti in Classical Tamil texts to refer to the washerwoman, said, "It is not known how the term 'Pulaitti' came to be employed to denote her, because in later times the class of washermen was not identical with that of 'Pulaiyar'."

 

Many of the traditional upper caste Tamil pundits of the 20th century did not distinguish between hagiography and history. For them what the Periyapurāṇam and the Guruparamparā Prabhavam were presenting was history. They did not see these works as propagandist texts intended to promote a specific ideology. So these Tamil pundits believed that the Pāṇar were untouchables of earlier Tamil society. These Tamil teachers and especially Tamil teachers in northern Tamil Nadu did not know that Tamil Pāṇar have continued to exist as a community even today and are suffering no untouchability. 

Most of these Tamil pundits were not knowledgeable about the reality-based social information available in the inscriptions. For instance, they did not know that  the Pāṇar were engaged in singing in front of the deities in brahminic temples, training the temple women in music, and were given houses and money by royal order to perform these duties. See page 6 of the attachment for a translation of a 12th century inscription in the Tiruviṭaimarutūr temple by Orr (2000: 102).

Some scholars in Southern Tamil Nadu like Irakavan (1971:78-79) were sold on the Periyapuranam's promotional view that it was the egalitarian nature of the Bhakti movement that allowed the Pāṇar to enter temples. (On this score, the Periyapurāṇam had succeeded in its promotional objective.) They had failed to note that Paripatal 3, a pre-Bhakti-movement Classical Tamil poem, calls Visnu "a good Pāṇaṉ of lute" in a poem that is full of Vedic and Puranic elements. As part of the poem's adoration of Viṣṇu, Paripāṭal 3: 81-86 offers the following praise:

"You are the red-eyed one with dark complexion (Vāsudeva), the black-eyed and white complexioned one (Sankarṣaṇa), the golden complexioned one (Pradyumna), the green complexioned one (Aniruddha), the one who dances to the left and right (of cowherd girls), the one who dances with the pot, the one who has the plough, the one who is the lord of cowherds, the one who protects, the one whose nature is not being seen, the one who never leaves the devotee's thought, the one that never dies, the one who rules the world, the poet of ancient texts, the good Pāṇāṉ of lute..." 

One cannot imagine this if the Pāṇaṉ were untouchable before the time of Tiruñanacampantar.

 

One can understand the traditional Tamil pundits' ahistorical view given their possibly limited exposure to historiography, anthropology, and comparative linguistics. But one would expect a US scholar with access to Western critical scholarship and other resources at Harvard University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of California, Berkeley to critically explore and evaluate facts.  Even after Orr (2000) published the translation of the Tiruviṭaimarutūr inscription shown in the attachment, Hart has not updated his views.

 

The facts that the Tamil Paṟaiyar were not untouchable even until 11th century and the Pāṇar are not untouchable even today completely invalidate Hart's theories regarding untouchability among ancient Tamils.  

Moreover, if contact with aṇaṅku, the sacred power, caused one to be polluted and become untouchable, Tēvantikai, a brahmin woman in the Cilappatikaram, a post-ClassicalTamil epic, who got possessed by Cāttaṉ, danced, and offered oracles would not have been appointed as a priestess by the king in a temple with Vedic sacrificial hall. (See http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.info/2013-November/038692.html)

It is ironic that in order to buttress his views Hart is citing Dravidian Etymological Dictionary as if its groupings are true for all time and as if it gives etymological roots. He is incorrect on both counts. (Deriving etymological roots purely based on dictionary entries without considering the philological context can lead to wrong etymologies as in the case of Tamil āḻvār 'Vaiṣṇava saint' (DEDR 396), which S. Starostin derives from *āẓ-. See http://tinyurl.com/q64ko6e . But literary and epigraphic data clearly show that āḻvār 'Vaiṣṇava saint' should be grouped with DEDR 5157. See http://www.linguist.jussieu.fr/~chevilla/FestSchrift/supa_9d.pdf for the reasons. Hart's discussion of pul as a root is just another example of the same kind of etymologizing.)  Dravidian Etymology Dictionary's author, Emeneau, would be the last person to hold such views. A good example of Emeneau's genuine open-minded scholarship can be seen in Emeneau (1988),  after the revised Dravidian Etymological Dictionary was published in 1984. 

 

In other words, philological, epigraphic, and sociological data clearly refute Hart's theories of sacred power and untouchability among Tamils, which were based on a research approach with fundamental problems. 

 

 

References

 

Emeneau. M. B. 1988. Proto-Dravidian *C- and Its Developments. Journal of the American Oriental Society 108, no. 2: 239--268.

 

Irakavan. A. 1971. Icaiyum Yalum. Tirunelveli: Kalainūṟ Patippakam.

 

Hart, George L., III. 1975a. Ancient Tamil Literature: Its Scholarly Past and Future. In Essays on South India. Edited by Burton Stein, 41-63. University of Hawaii: The University Press of Hawaii.

 

Hart, George. L., III. 1975b. The Poems of Ancient Tamil: Their Milieu and Their Sanskrit Counterparts. Berkeley: University of California Press. 

Hart, George L., III. 1987. Early Evidence for Caste in South India. In Dimentions of Social Life: Essays in Honor of David G. Mandelbaum. Edited by Paul Hockings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

 

Ludden, D. E. 1996. Caste Society and Units of Production in Early Modern South India. In

Institutions and Economic Change in South Asia: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Edited by Burton Stein and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, 105-133. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

 

Orr, Leslie. 2000. Donors, Daughters, and Devotees of God: Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pillay, K. K. 1969. A Social History of the Tamils Part I. Madras: University of Madras.

 

Thurston, E. 1909. Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 6.  Madras: Government Press. 

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Regards,

Palaniappan