kulaSEkhara aazhvaar

[Guest guest]

Regarding Sri Mani"s Query :

 

In Kulasekhara's time , there was no KeraLa desam.

It was known earlier as Parasurama Kshetram,

since the land was recovered from the sea by Parasuramaa.

Hence there was no sharp division such as MalayALa desam and

Tamizh nAdu as we know today. There were Chozha ,

Pandya and Sera NAdus . Pandya NAdu overlapped

with Chera NAdu . TamiL was spoken there along with

Sanskrit by the Brahmins and KshatriyAs. The women and

children spoke Prakrutham in those households . I have

covered the country of Kulasekhara AzhwAr in my

translation of Mukunda maalai few years ago. AzhwAr was

a chieftain of Kolli Naadu and the kingdom extended

to the border of Mathurai ( Koodal ) and Srirangam ( Kozhi ).

He was not a special devotee of Sri Anantha Padmanabha

swamy of Thiruvananthapuram like the other kings

of Kerala , who came later. Kulasekhara's unique

attachment of Sri Ranganatha(Periya PerumAL )is well documented.

Few decades after Kulasekhara's shaking his mortal coils ,

Seran Senguttavan , a king from the same same chera Desam

a great Siva BhakthA ,wrote brilliant Tamil poetry

saluting Lord Nataraja . He went on a white elephant

to Kailasam according to the legend. Sundara Murthy Nayanaar

followed him on a white horse according to the same

legend.I am referring to this to point out that Tamil

was widely spoken in Chera Naadu.From Kanyakumari

to Thiruvenkatam . Tamil was widely spoken in ancient times

innthese lands .Thirupathi was considered the northern border

of Tamil Desam .It may sound controversial . But, to me

MalayALam is a highly sanskritized TamiL .

Many Tamilians were settled later in regions like

Palkaad , which is not too far from Coimbatore.

People from Shenkotta were transplanted in Kannada

Desam and formed the group of Sankethis . There were

so many " Brownian movements" inside the larger Tamil

Desam. I am sure there are other historical records,

if we want to dig deeper.Just to get the discussions going ,

I wish to recall these points .

 

V.Sadagopan

 

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DATE: 11/13/96 11:23 PM

 

RE: kulaSEkhara aazhvaar

 

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kulaSEkhara aazhvaar

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Dear Divya Prabandha rasikas,

 

Is there any internal evidence in the

perumaaL tirumozhi for kulaSEkhara mahaaraaja

being "cEralar kOn" (king of kerala) as said

in the taniyan? In the signature paasurams,

he calls himself kUdalar kOn (king of kUdal,

near madurai, right?), kozhikkOn (king of woraiyur,

near Srirangam), but never says anything about

cEra dESam. He also does not call himself

perumaaL, which is the family name of the kerala

dynasty.

 

Was kulaSEkharan really a Malayali? ;-)

 

Mani

[Guest guest]

>From the late Sangam age, we have a song of the poet Kapilar,

where he says that Kari, the chieftain of Mullur, defeated

Ori and handed over Ori's fort on Kollimalai to the Chera king.

This is the same Kolli that Kulasekhara Azhwar refers to.

 

Besides, Azhwar also mentions Kongu as one of his territories.

Kongunadu is modern day Coimbatore, Salem and Erode, which were

under the rule of the Kerala kings, till Independence. These

areas were included in Tamil Nadu only upon the linguistic

reorganization of the states. Thus, Kulasekhara Azhwar was

probably of the Chera dynasty, whether or not he ruled any

regions in Kerala proper.

 

Vidyasankar