Vadalur Ramalinga Swamigal

He made an indelible mark in the religious history of India when he came out openly against its caste system and the negative impact it had on society. In an attempt to redress the situation he established the `Samarasa Suddha Sanmarga Satya Sangam'<sup>[3]</sup> in 1865, which means `Society for pure truth in universal self-hood'. 

He had also by this time shifted to a place called Karunguzhi from Chennai. His next step in establishing a practical approach to religion was the setting up of a free eating house called The Sathya Dharma Salai^[8] in a place called Vadalur in 1867, where all could eat without any distinctions whatsoever. Ramalinga Vallalar abhorred non-Vegetarianism. In one of his poems he says:

When I see men feeding on the coarse and vicious food of meat, it is ever-recurring grief to me.^[9]

It is significant that the land on which this eating house was built was donated by a few landowners. The registered document is available for inspection even today and the service of providing free food also continues to this day.

Entrance to the Sathya Gnana Sabha. The sign above it reads "only those who have renounced meat and murder should enter"

Ramalinga Adigal opened, the "Sathya Gnana Sabha" (Hall of True Knowledge) at Vadalur on January 25, 1872. One of the primary teachings of Valallar is "Service to mankind is path of moksha". He declared that death is not natural that our life's first priority should be to fight death. He declared religion in itself is a darkness. He laid a very great emphasis on being vegetarian. He said God is "Arul Perum Jothi" who is personification of mercy and knowledge. He said the path of compassion and mercy are only path to God.

In 1865 he established a center for feeding the poor people. On the inaugural day he lit the fire of the stone stove, with a declaration that the fire be ever alive and the needy shall be fed forever. Around 1870 he established the Sathya Gnana Sabai, hall of True Wisdom Forum and ensuring it was entirely secular . This place is not a temple as no offerings of fruits or flowers could be made, and no blessings were given. It was open to people of all castes except those who ate meat, who were only allowed to worship from the outside. The oil lamp lit by him is kept perpetually burning. He said that our soul is blinded by 7 seven veils.^[10] There are seven cotton fabric screens, representing the seven factors that prevent a soul from realizing its true nature.

The entire complex is bound by a chain with 21,600 links, said to represent 21,600 inhalations^[11] by a normal human being.

He said intelligence we possess is Maya intelligence which is not true and final intelligence. Path of final intelligence is "Jeeva Karunyam".

He advocated a casteless society. Vallalar was opposed to superstitions and rituals. He forbade killing animals for the sake of food. He advocated feeding the poor as the highest form of worship. He condemned inequality based on birth.

Today there are spiritual groups spread out all over the world who practice the teachings of Swami Ramalingam and follow the path of Arul Perum Jothi. 

The most notable living Siddhars of this age are Sri Pranasiddhar and Sri Vadapalani Paranjothi Baba.

Dr. G Nammalvar

Born in 1938 in Elangadu, Tanjore District, Dr. G Nammalvar graduated from Annamalai University with a B. Sc degree in Agriculture.

In 1963 he began working for the Agricultural Regional Research Station, a government organization in Kovilpatti, as a scientist, conducting trials on spacing and manure levels of various chemical fertilizers in cotton and millet crops. During his tenure there, the government was conducting experiments in rain fed land, using expensive inputs like hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides which Dr. G Nammalvar considered futile as the rain fed farmers were resource poor. Based on his experience he felt very

strongly that it was imperative to totally reorient the research work undertaken but his peers at the institute paid little attention to his advice. Frustrated, he left the institute in 1969.

For the next 10 years he was an agronomist for Island of Peace, an organization founded by the Nobel Laureate R. P. Dominic Pyre. His focus was on improving the standard of living through agricultural development in the Kalakad block of Tirunelveli District, Tamilnadu. It was at this time that he realized that in order to get optimal results in farming, farmers should rely only minimally on external inputs. All inputs should come from within the farm. So called wastes should be recycled and used as input. This revelation was a turning point in his life. He completely lost trust in conventional farming practices and began experimenting with sustainable agricultural methods.

In the late 1970s, Dr. G Nammalvar became greatly influenced by Paulo Freire and Vinoba Bhave and their theories on education. The purpose of education should be freedom. Freedom is essentially self-reliance. Self-sufficiency means that one should not depend on others for one’s daily bread. Secondly, one should have developed the power to acquire knowledge for oneself. And last but not the least, a man should be able to rule himself, to control his thoughts and feelings.

Eager to propagate these new theories on education, specifically to aid farmers in becoming self-sufficient, he started a Society, Kudumbham in 1979. “Participatory Development” was the way forward. There can be no education without action. Nor can there be any action without education. Both go hand in hand. Dr. G Nammalvar interacted with local farmers, understood their needs, and based on their input, evolved farming practices suited to the local farmers.

In 1987, Dr. G Nammalvar had attended a 4-week training course conducted by the ETC Foundation, Netherlands, on ecological agriculture. In 1990, he founded a network LEISA (Low External Input and Sustainable Agriculture) to promote the concepts of ecological farming, specifically the importance of self-reliability and low external inputs. During the same year, he started an ecological research centre for rain-fed cultivation in Pudukottai district.

Dr. G Nammalvar was also greatly influenced by Mr. Bernard de-Clerk of Auroville fame, whom he had worked with since 1984. In 1995 he was nominated as the Tamilnadu state coordinator for ARISE (Agricultural Renewal in India for Sustainable Environment). Concurrently, Bernard was the coordinator at the national level. During his tenure he travelled widely across India promoting the principles of sustainable agriculture.

When the Tsunami hit India on December 25th, 2004, Dr. G Nammalvar was actively involved in the rehabilitation process. In 2005, he helped farmers across various villages in Nagapattinam district to rehabilitate. In 2006, he left for Indonesia and assisted in reclaiming several farms there in Tsunami affected areas.

Recognizing his extensive work in the field of agriculture, the Gandhi Gram Rural University, Dindugal honored Dr. G Nammalvar with a Doctorate of Science degree in 2007.

Dr. G Nammalvar has travelled widely across the world, observed the agricultural practices in various different ecological systems and based on his findings, has trained farmers and NGO workers. He has written several books and articles in the Tamil language. He has a wide readership across different sections of society. His works will soon be translated to the English language, making his writings easily accessible.

Currently, Dr. G Nammalvar spends a substantial part of his time actively touring the south and conducting training classes on ecological farming. He is in the process of setting up several research cum training centers across South India. The first will be at Surumanpatti, Kadavur in Karur district. He is also actively involved in linking different farms and institutes around the world so as to accelerate the process of ecological development.

K Kamaraj achievements in nutshell

You gave us 29000 schools in your regime -

You gave us Meal at school

You gave us IIT Madras

You gave us 13 Dams for Agriculture

You gave us Neyveli Lignite Corporation, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Railway Coach Factory and many more industries
You developed us in all fronts..

You are a school dropout, but Harrow educated Nehru asked all state's CMs to learn state administration from you.

You defined the destiny of Congress. You gave re-birth to Nehru's family in politics

Above all you gave us an opportunity to proudly say, that we had a CM who died with 10 Rupees in his pocket and gave everything else to his people.
And his Name is K. Kamaraj.

We truly Salute You as you are more than worthy...
(You are one whom any future generation of Politicians should strive to emulate...)

கே Kamaraj

Kumarasami Kamaraj (Tamil: குமாரசாமி காமராஜ்) better known as K. Kamaraj (15 July 1903[1] – 2 October 1975[2]) was an Indian politician from Tamil Nadu widely acknowledged as the "Kingmaker" in Indian politics during the 1960s. He was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu during 1954-1963 and a Member of Parliament during 1952-1954 and 1969-1975. He was known for his simplicity and integrity.

With Sathyamurthy:-
Kamaraj's political guru and inspiration was S. Satyamurti, orator and parliamentarian. Satyamurti found in Kamaraj "an efficient, loyal, indefatigable worker and skillful organizer (p. 147, Pakshirajan)." Both developed a deep friendship and complemented each others' skills. In 1936, Satyamurti was elected President of the Provincial Congress Committee and he appointed Kamaraj the General Secretary. Four years later they swapped positions. The party base was strengthened under their leadership. So deep was Kamaraj's devotion to Satyamurti that when India gained independence, he first went to Satyamurti's house and hoisted the Indian flag there. On his election as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Kamaraj went to Satyamurti's house and garlanded his photo and paid his respects to the leader's widow
Education

The uneducated Kamaraj, with a convert's zeal, removed the visionary family vocation based Hereditary Education Policy introduced by Rajaji. He reopened the 6000 schools closed by previous government for financial reasons and also added 12000 more schools thereby destroying the fabric of Grama Swaraj. The State made immense strides in education and trade. New schools were opened, so that poor rural students were to walk no more than 3 miles (4.8 km) to their nearest school. Better facilities were added to existing ones. No village remained without a primary school and no panchayat without a high school. Kamaraj strove to eradicate illiteracy by introducing free and compulsory education up to the eleventh standard. He introduced the Mid-day Meal Scheme to provide at least one meal per day to the lakhs of poor school children (first time in the whole world). He introduced free school uniforms to weed out caste, creed and class distinctions among young minds.

During British regime the education was only 7 percent. But in Kamaraj's period it was 37% . During Rajaji's period there were 12000 schools in the state. Whereas it was 27000 in the period of Kamaraj.


Kamaraj Statue in Marina Beach, Chennai depicting his contribution to education in the state.Apart from increasing number of schools, steps were taken to improve standard of education. To improve the standards number of working day were increased from 180 to 200. Unnecessary holidays were reduced. Syllabus were prepared to give opportunity to various abilities.

Kamaraj and Sri Bishnuram Medhi (Governor) took efforts to start the IIT Madras in 1959.[8]


Agriculture

Major irrigation schemes were planned in Kamaraj's period . Lower Bhavani, Mani Muthuar , Cauvery Delta , Aarani River , Vaigai Dam , Amravathi , Sathanur , Krishnagiri , Pullambadi , Parambikulam and Neyyaru Dams were among them . The Lower Bhavani Dam in Coimbatore district was constructed with an expenditure of Rs 10/- Crores. 207,000 acres (840 km2) of land are under cultivation.

45,000 acres (180 km2) of land are benefited through Mettur canal of Salem. Another scheme was Krishnagiri in the same district. Vaigai , Sathanur facilitate to cultivate thousands of acres of lands in Madurai and North Arcot districts respectively. Rs 30 crores were planned to spend for Parambikulam River scheme in Kamaraj's period. This has helped for the development of Coimbatore district in agriculture field.

Number of dams were constructed under his rule are


Manimuthar Dam,
Vaikai Dam.
Aliyar Dam.
Sathanur Dam.
Krishnagiri Dam.
In 1957-61 1,628 Tanks were de-silted under Small Irrigation Scheme 2000 wells were digged with outlets. Long term loans with 25% subsidy were given to farmers. Apart from formers who are having dry lands were given oil engines , electric pump sets on installment basis.

150 lakhs of acres of lands were cultivated during Kamaraj's period. One third of this i.e. 56 lakhs of acres of land got permanent watering facility.

Industrial Development

Industries with huge investments in crores of Rupees were started in his period. Neyveli Lignite Scheme, Raw photo film industry at Nilgri, Surgical instruments factory at Guindy, Sugar factories , Bi-Carbonates factories, Cement factories, Railway Coach factory at Perambur, Mettur paper industry were started in the period of Kamaraj. These are the back-bone for the development of the nation.

Other industries which were started his period are


BHEL, Trichy.
Neyveli Lignite Corporation.
MANALI Refinary Ltd.
Other

Many schemes were started to generate electicity like Guntha hydro power station, Ooty hydel power station and Neyveli thermal power station. During his period, Tamil Nadu was developing in all fronts.

Kamaraj remained Chief Minister for three consecutive terms, winning elections in 1957 and 1962. Kamaraj noticed that the Congress party was slowly losing its vigor. He came up with a plan which was called the "Kamaraj Plan".

On 2 October 1963, he resigned from the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Post. He proposed that all senior Congress leaders should resign from their posts and devote all their energy to the re-vitalization of the Congress.

In 1963 he suggested to Nehru that senior Congress leaders should leave ministerial posts to take up organisational work. This suggestion came to be known as the Kamaraj Plan, which was designed primarily to dispel from the minds of Congressmen the lure for power, creating in its place a dedicated attachment to the objectives and policies of the organisation. Kamaraj was elected President, Indian National Congress, on 9 October 1963.

Well impressed by the achievements and acumen of Kamraj, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru felt that his services were needed more at the national level. In a swift move he brought Kamaraj to Delhi as the President of the Indian National Congress. Nehru realised that if he had wide learning and vision, Kamaraj possessed enormous common sense and pragmatism

Advice to His Ministers
Kamaraj gave a simple advice to his ministers, "Face the problem. Don't evade it. Find a solution, however small. People will be satisfied if you do something." Followed by him a number of Central and State ministers like Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jagjivan Ram, Satyendra Narayan Sinha, Morarji Desai and S.K. Patil followed suit and resigned from their posts. In 1964, Kamaraj was elected 'Congress President' and he successfully navigated the party and the nation through the stormy years following Nehru's death. Kamaraj’s political maturity came in full view when Nehru died in 1964. How he settled the succession issue for the Prime Ministership was amply proved by his choice of Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi in succession.

Remembering the 'Saint of the Gutter'

When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed... If words could reveal sentiments, it could not have been expressed any better than by Mother Teresa.

Simplicity, piety and charity headlined the life of the 'Saint of the Gutter'. On her birth centenary, we trace the story of her extraordinary love and dedication for poor, homeless and the needy

Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, in the former Yugoslavia, she was the youngest of three children. In her teens, Agnes became a member of a youth group in her local parish called Sodality.

Through her involvement with their activities guided by a Jesuit priest, Agnes became interested in missionaries. At age 17, she responded to her first call of a vocation as a Catholic missionary nun.

She joined an Irish order, the Sisters of Loretto, a community known for their missionary work in India. When she took her vows as a Sister of Loretto, she chose the name Teresa after Saint Therese of Lisieux.

In Kolkata (then Calcutta), Sister Teresa taught geography and cathechism at St Mary's High School.

In 1944, she became the principal of St Mary's. Soon Sister Teresa contracted tuberculosis, was unable to continue teaching and was sent to Darjeeling for rest and recuperation.

It was on the train to Darjeeling that she received her second call -- 'the call within the call'.

Mother Teresa recalled later, 'I was to leave the convent and work with the poor, living among them. It was an order. I knew where I belonged but I did not know how to get there.'

In 1948, the Vatican granted Sister Teresa permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and pursue her calling under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Calcutta.

Mother Teresa started with a school in the slums to teach the children of the poor.

She also learned basic medicine and went into the homes of the sick to treat them. In 1949, some of her former pupils joined her.

They found men, women, and children dying on the streets who were rejected by local hospitals.

The group rented a room so they could care for helpless people otherwise condemned to die in the gutter. In 1950, the group was established by the church as a Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese.

It was known as the Missionaries of Charity.

In 1952 the first Home for the Dying was opened in space made available by Calcutta. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from 12 to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centres around the world.

Mother Teresa created many homes for the dying and the unwanted from Calcutta to New York to Albania.

She was one of the pioneers of establishing homes for AIDS victims. For more than 45 years, Mother Teresa comforted the poor, the dying, and the unwanted around the world.

In 1966, the Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded. Homes began to open in Rome, Tanzania, and Australia. In 1971, the first home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York.

Mother Teresa gained worldwide acclaim with her tireless efforts on behalf of world peace.

Her work brought her numerous humanitarian awards, including the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

In receiving this award, Mother Teresa revolutionised the award ceremony.

She insisted on a departure from the ceremonial banquet and asked that the funds, $6,000 be donated to the poor in Calcutta.

This money would permit her to feed hundreds for a year.

Mother Teresa travelled to help the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia.

Her zeal and works of mercy knew no boundaries. In November of 1996, Mother Teresa received the honorary US citizenship.

In October 2003, the Pope beatified her, paving the way for her canonization (being declared a saint). She qualified for beatification after Vatican officials acknowledged that she was responsible for a miracle in which an Indian woman was cured of stomach cancer through her intervention.

Mother Teresa died at the age of 87 on September 5, 1997. Her life and work are still alive as a prayer...

"Make us worthy, Lord, to serve those people throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give them peace and joy."

Tolkappiyam is not dependent on Sanskrit sources: Tamil scholar

Tolkappiyam is not dependent on Sanskrit sources and a work that demanded not only vast knowledge but also a lot of thinking from its author, according to Alexander Dubyanskiy, veteran Tamil scholar from Moscow State University.

“Many scholars (have) pointed out that Tolkappiyam is dependent on Sanskrit sources. It is said that its author, Tolkappiyanar followed the Aindra School of linguistics. Subrahmanya Sastri, a scholar who studied Tolkappiyam, even stated that some parts of the work were translations of some portions of Panini's Ashtadhyayi, Yaska's Nirukta, Rigveda Pratishakya, etc., which according to me is not right,” he said in his paper presented at the World Classical Tamil Conference on Sunday.

“I think it is not correct because at those times the process of interaction of texts was connected not with translating but with rendering and, speaking generally, there was nothing unusual in borrowing or using ideas from other sources.”

The author of Tolkappiyam was a well educated person who used the works available to build a construction of his own and place the same in the mainstream Indian theoretical linguistic thought.

He said that it was known that Tolkappiyanar did not try to conceal his indebtedness to his predecessors and often used – around 150 times – expressions which clearly signified them.

Vast knowledge

“I am sure that Tolkappiyam is a work which demanded not only vast knowledge and a lot of thinking but a considerable creative skill from its composer.”

Dr. Dubyanskiy also said, “Interestingly enough, there are cases when Tolkappiyanar himself shows his independence on the Sanskrit tradition.” He quoted a verse to underscore his point.

“Besides, one should not forget that Tolkappiyanar described not an Indo-Aryan [language], but Tamil, a language of a different family with its own phonetics and grammatical structure and he could not copy the sources blindly.”

In his tribute to Tolkappiyanar, the professor said that though nothing much was known about him, he seemed to be a person of great intellect, deep thought and an open mind.

On Tamil and its classical status, he said any classical language presented itself in a fixed verbal form that was in the form of a certain kind of treatise, a text describing and analysing the structure and specific features of the language or literature, prescribing rules and regulations for them.

Like Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, Tamil too had such texts, he said and added “during more than 2,000 years of its development, Tamil tradition produced a great quantity of such texts. Many of them are very famous like ‘Nannool,' ‘Yaaparunkalam,' ‘Agapporul,' among others.”

“Together with commentaries they made a vast section of literature of a special kind, very important and interesting. And, in the beginning of the theoretical tradition stood Tolkappiyam, a treatise connected with Tamil classical poetry.”

Dr. Dubyanskiy further said that the authority of the text was undeniable. “It is a literary and cultural monument of great importance.”

Parpola and the Indus ஸ்கிரிப்ட் - ஐராவதம் Mahadevan

In the recent interview with Asko Parpola published in The Hindu (April 15, 2010), readers were made aware of the lasting contributions by Professor Parpola to Indological studies, especially in the field of the Indus Civilisation and its script. Having known him personally for four decades and having closely watched his great contribution to the study of the Indus script, I am in a position to amplify the information provided in the interview.

Professor Parpola's contributions to Harappan studies are truly monumental, and these are not confined merely to the study of the Indus script. He has published a long series of brilliant papers to establish the fact of Aryan immigration into South Asia after the decline of the Indus Civilisation. As a Vedic scholar-turned-Dravidianist, he has the best academic credentials to prove that the Indus Civilisation was pre-Aryan and that its writing encoded a Dravidian language. In addition to his linguistic skills and deep scholarship of Vedic Sanskrit and the Dravidian languages, he has harnessed the computer in one of the earliest scientific attempts to study the structure of the Indus texts through computational linguistic procedures. Professor Parpola has produced the first truly scientific concordance to the Indus inscriptions. His concordance is accurate and exhaustive and has become an indispensable tool for researchers in the field.

Equally impressive, and again truly monumental, are the publications inspired and co-authored by Professor Parpola, of two volumes of the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. These volumes reproduce in amazing clarity and detail all the Indus seals (and their newly-made impressions) and other inscriptions. I happen to know personally the enormous difficulties Professor Parpola faced in publishing these volumes, nudging and goading the slow-moving bureaucracy in India and Pakistan to make available the originals, most of which were photographed again by the expert whom Professor Parpola sent from Finland for the purpose.

He published his magnum opus in 1994, Deciphering the Indus Script. The book contains the best exposition of the Dravidian hypothesis relating to the Indus Civilisation and its writing. Even though the Indus script remains undeciphered, as Professor Parpola readily admits, his theoretical groundwork on the Dravidian character of the Indus Civilisation and the script, and the fact of Aryan immigration into India after the decline of the Indus Civilisation, have been accepted by most scholars in the world.

Most of the Early Dravidian speakers of North and Central India switched over to the dominant Indo-Aryan languages in Post-Harappan times. Speakers of Aryan languages have indistinguishably merged with speakers of Dravidian and Munda languages millennia ago, creating a composite Indian society containing elements inherited from every source. It is thus likely that the Indus art, religious motifs and craft editions survived and can be traced in Sanskrit literature from the days of the Rigveda, and also in Old Tamil traditions recorded in the Sangam poems. Professor Parpola is aware of the Harappan heritage of both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages, the former culturally and the latter linguistically. His profound scholarship in both families of languages enables him to mine the Indian cultural heritage holistically in his search for clues to solve the mysteries of the Indus script.

It may be asked: What has Tamil to do with the Indus script that Professor Parpola should be honoured with the inaugural Classical Tamil Award? Tamil happens to be the oldest and the best-documented Dravidian language. It is mainly for this reason that the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary of Burrow and Emeneau accords the head position to Tamil entries in the dictionary. That this distinction is well-deserved is also proved by the fact that Old Tamil contains the most archaic features of Dravidian phonology and morphology, like for example, the retention of the character aytam and the sound zh. Dravidian linguists have also established that most proto-Dravidian reconstructions are in close accord with words in Old Tamil. The earliest Tamil inscriptions date from the Mauryan Era. The earliest Tamil literature, the Sangam works, are from the early centuries of the Common Era, but record oral traditions from a much earlier time. It is for this reason that Professor Parpola and other Dravidian researchers consider Old Tamil to be a possible route to get at the language of the Indus inscriptions.

Professor Parpola speaks for himself in the following excerpt from his message of acceptance of the Classical Tamil Award. He says: “When the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu's award is given to me for a Dravidian solution of the Indus enigma, this award will inevitably be interpreted by many people as politically motivated. Nevertheless, I am ready to fight for the truth, and in my opinion, the Tamils are entitled to some pride for having preserved so well the linguistic heritage of the Indus Civilisation. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that though their language has shifted in the course of millennia, people of North India too are to a large extent descended from the Harappan people, and have also preserved cultural heritage of the same civilisation.”

Professor Parpola's work on the Indus script will prove to be as important and as long-lasting as U.Ve. Swaminathaiyar's resurrection of the Tamil Classics from decaying palm leaves. He richly deserves the honour of being the first recipient of the Classical Tamil Award instituted by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.

(Iravatham Mahadevan is a noted epigraphist and Tamil scholar.)