Kallidaikurichi Is a Home to Sanskrit Scholars
Recently, the Tamil Brahmins of Kalladaikurichi were aghast when they saw a newspaper report that claimed an unknown entity called Janaki Amma of Alapuzha in Kerala wrote the Sabarimala lullaby, Harivarasanam. It is widely known that Kambankudi Sundaram Kulathu Iyer, a guruswamy of Kallidaikurichi for several years, wrote the Hariharathmaja Ashtakam and that he was a regular pilgrim to Sabarimala when Anantha Krishna Iyer was the chief priest there from 1907-1920.
Tamil Brahmins were chief priests at Sabarimala before the Sabarimala temple was set to fire by Christian fundamentalists in May 1950.
The tradition of the village
Kallidaikurichi, on the banks of river Tamirabarani, in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu is not far from Punalur, in the Kollam district of Kerala, and it has been home to Sanskrit scholars and musicians. Chattampi Swamikal, the renowned spiritual guru, had learned the Vedas as a resident student with Subba Jatapadikal at Kallidaikurichi, for four years. Chattampi was introduced to Jatapadikal by Swaminatha Desikar, another Tamil Brahmin, who had been a government school teacher at Thiruvananthapuram. Jatapadikal had been a regular participant at the Vedanta conclave connected with the Murajapam of Padmanabha Swami Temple.
The famous Carnatic lyricist Muthuswamy Dikshitar lived at Ettayapuram in Kallidaikurichi from 1835 onwards. The home of musician Papanasam Sivan was not far and the modern spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar belongs to Papanasam. Sivan had his studies in Thiruvananthapuram.
There is a Sastha Temple in the Karanthayar Palayam agraharam in Kallidaikurichi, where, Sasthapreethi, the annual celebration of Tamil Brahmins, was observed for the first time. The idol in the temple is in the form of Sastha enjoying with his consorts, Poorna and Pushkala. Brahmins who migrated from here to other places celebrated the festival in unison; the offering everywhere is considered as the homage to the Sastha at Kallidaikurichi. The Sastha here is popularly known as Kulathu Aiyan and Kulathu Iyer is not an uncommon name among Tamil Brahmins.
For instance, R Kulathu Iyer had been a renowned biographer during royal rule, and he wrote the biographies of T Madhava Rao (1917) and Queen Sethulakshmi Bai (1929). The book on the queen was a textbook. The June 3, 1909 issue of 'Swadesabhimani' carries an ad for the biography, Ramayyan Dalawa, written by Iyer and published by T P Eapen Mappila. It is not known whether the two Iyers were relatives.
Kallidaikurichi reminds Tamil Brahmins of the famous "Kambankudi Vamsam" which is associated with Lord Ayyappa. When Ayyappa went to fetch tiger's milk for his ailing Queen mother, came to Karandayar Palayam, wet in heavy rains, to the house of a brahmin named Vijayan, had bajra porridge (which is kambu in Tamil) and slept in their house that night with the childless couple. When the couple realised early in the morning that the boy has disappeared from the bed, a divine voice told them that they would be blessed with children, and their next generation will be blessed by HIM whenever they wish.
Since the Lord was offered porridge made of kambu, his next generation would be called Kambukody-which later came to be known as Kampankudi. And the members of this family are made Sthanigar(President) of the Sasthapreethi conducted in Karandayar Palayam and are given a high seat and great recognition. Even today elderly people of the Kampankudi family live in various places, like Krishna Iyer, Veeramani Iyer and Ganapathi Iyer of Mumbai, and Suresh Iyer of Bengaluru. Appachi Krishna Iyer resides at Dondhivilakam street in Kallidaikurichi. The first Sasthapreethi in Bengaluru was conducted by this family.
Chella Pilai is supposed to be the son of Dharma Sastha and his lineage survives in the family of Chella Vilas Appalam Muthuswami Iyer and Chella Mani Iyer.
The branches of the Kampankudi family also migrated to Kerala, and they carried the Sasthapreethi tradition along with them. Sasthapreethi is conducted in Ernakulam, Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kottayam and Palakkad, and the people of the Karandhayar Palayam family are honoured there. According to P R Ramachandar, who translated Harivarasanam into English, a Kambankudi branch had been there in his native village of Chelakkara too.
It is the Chelakkara branch that published two books in the name of Kulathu Iyer, at the beginning of the 20th century, from Thiruvananthapuram, and Ramachandar keeps photocopies of both the books, titled Dharma Sastha Sthuthi Kadambam.
Kothai Aditya Varma, the King of Venad had ruled the kingdom from Kallidaikurichi, from 1469-11484, and he built the Adivaraha Perumal Temple. The image of the king is there in the precincts of the temple. Adhivarhar Temple is in the middle of the village. Garuda Seva, performed in the Tamil month of Purattasi Saturdays is an important offering in this temple. Every day, water is brought from the river for Abishekam to Lord Lakshmipathi.
Another feature of this village is the famous "Sadavidaiyar Temple". It is believed that the god came to earth in the form of a lady with thickened hair (Sadai in Tamil) to assist a poor girl during her childbirth at midnight on a rainy day. As the girl was poor she could not offer her anything except a mixture of jaggery and rice (which is kapparisi in Tamil). Even today, the deity there is offered this mixture and ladies are not allowed inside the temple. Sadavidaiyar followers never take neem leaves (veppilai) in any functions in their family.
My family deity is the Maragathavalli Amman situated inside the Kasi Viswanatha temple at Kalladaikurichi, and I have been there twice to take part in rituals.
Till a few years back, 18 agraharams of this village had only Brahmin families. This village is home to several well-known Sastrigals and Dikshithars.
Kallidaikurichi is also famous for dal appalams, rice appalams, pepper appalams and vadams. The appalams made with urad dal combined with the purity of Tamarabharani river water have an excellent taste. This is a household job for 90 percent of families here. Thamarabharani originates from Podigai Mountain with a natural fragrance. It is flowing near the village and the villagers take bath in it.
The history of Harivarasanam
The song Harivarasanam found a place for the first time in a Tamil book, Sasthasthuthi Kadambam, compiled and published by Kulathu Iyer in 1920. This book was published in Malayalam by Jayachandra Book Depot of Chalai, Thiruvananthapuram, in 1963.
Tamil articles record that Kulathu Iyer wrote Harivarasanam after Ayyappa appeared before him in a vision. He claimed Ayyappa prompted him to write each line. The song is in the form of an ashtakam, which means it has eight stanzas. Each stanza has 32 lines and 352 letters.
Though there is a claim that Swami Vimochananda was instrumental in singing the lullaby as a regular ritual, Tamil articles record that Chengannur Kittunni Nambudiri used to play the song much earlier, in flute. When Mavelikara Eswaran Nambudiri was the chief priest in 1950 and after, V R Gopala Menon, a devotee from Alapuzha, continued to stay at the Sannidhanam, and sing Harivarasanam, at the end of the evening puja. It was then a small jungle temple, with few devotees.
Once in the 1950s, Menon, who reached Sabarimala during November-December, continued to be in the Sannidhanam, refusing to go back. He offered himself to Ayyappa, made friends with the animals, and kept himself alive eating jungle fruits. He kept the Sannidhanam clean of litter, sweeping whenever required. But the Temple Board strictly warned him not to stay back, after the evening puja was over. The orphaned devotee left the temple in tears, finally dying in a tea estate at Vandipperiyar.
When Eswaran Namboodiri came back for pujas the next November, he could not hold back his tears at the news of Menon's death. Since there was no one to sing the lullaby, Nambudiri himself started chanting it daily, after the evening puja. When the lullaby reached the last stanza, he put off the lamps, and thus it became a ritual.
"Our father has told us that it was Kulathu Iyer who wrote the song", remembers his children, Narayanan Namboodiri and Govindan Namboodiri who reside at Mavelikara.
Now we hear the lullaby at Sabarimala in the divine voice of K J Yesudas; he had sung it for the 1975 movie, Swami Ayyappan, produced by the Merryland Studio. Karthikeyan, the owner of the Studio, had listened to Eswaran Nambudiri's rendering at the beginning of the 1960s, when he spent an entire day at Sabarimala, traversing the jungle path through Vandipperiyar. It continued to reverberate inside him and hence he asked the composer G Devarajan to recreate it for the movie. The lullaby thus got transformed into the Carnatic raga, Madhyamavati.
The movie became a huge hit and at a reception accorded to the crew, the temple board president G P Mangalathumadom declared that the song would be played at Sannidhanam when Ayyappa sleeps after the evening puja. The rest is history and Konnakath Janaki Amma has absolutely no role in the history of the song, except copying it in a notebook, as the daughter of Anantha Krishna Iyer.
Narayanan Nair of Puzhavath, Changanassery, editor of Service, the official organ of the Nair Service Society, rejects the claim of the Janaki Amma family. "Four years ago, Janaki Amma's daughter had sent me an article claiming the song was written by her mother", Nair remembers. He consulted the General Secretary, G Sukumaran Nair, who took the position that the article lacks evidence and need not be carried.
© Ramachandran
