Sadir

[Guest guest]

>Platts' Dictionary, p. 742, defines s.aadir (beginning with the

>letter s.vaad), from the Arabic, as meaning "issuing, going forth,

>proceeding, emanating"; or the past participle forms too. Perhaps

>this might have been the origin. good luck, FP

 

The Kerala coast had early trade with Arabia, and perhaps this Arabic

word entered tamil.

 

Looking at the meanings of catir, Online lexicon lists:

catir 03 boundary, limit and, catir 04 nautch.

 

Interestingly, araGkam = islet like srirangam in between two rivers,

refers to an inscribed boundary.

 

aragkam * 1. stage, dancing hall; 2. gambling house; 3. fencing school

for practice of arms; 4. assembly of learned men; 5. field of battle;

6. island formed by a river or rivers, delta; 7. sri1ran2ga

 

Tamil uses a verb formed from catir:

catir-ttal 02 to gain strength or power

Also, catiri = skilful or dexterous woman,

(Cf. From viRal = strength, power, skill,

viRali = dancer woman in sangam tamil).

 

catir dance removes evil eye, a related item:

catir-t-tEgkAy = coconuts thrown down and broken on special occasions

in fulfilment of a vow or for averting an evil eye.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

There seem to be two words which may have become confounded due to the drama or

dance being performed at court, or before royalty. It is also possible that the

dance/drama word is derived from the court word, and meant something like 'a

royal performance'.

 

Bharat Gupt has suggested Persian sadra 'chief'. Some other associations in the

thread are with rule and protection. These seem related to Sanskrit kshatra

and Persian satra-pa. A kshatrya was a satrapa.

 

The dance / drama word reminds me of the Latin satura. This word is associated

with dramatic presentations, poetry and morality plays, and is related to satyr

and finally English satire.

 

Bhakti Ananda Goswami

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY/message/1266

 

Tamil sangam texts don't contain the word, Sadir (in tamil

orthography, it's written as catir), it's plausible "sadir"

entered South India via the west coast sea trade.

 

In the ANDAL decad known as vAraNamAyiram where she dreams

of getting married to Vishnu, "catir" is used.

catir iLa maGkaiyar = young women of catir.

 

katir oLi tIpam kalacamuTan2 Enti

catir iLa maGkaiyar tAm vantu etirkoLa

maturaiyAr man2n2an2 aTinilai toTTeGkum

atirap pukutak kan2Ak kaNTEn2 tOzI nAn2

- ANDAL

 

Please note the young girls of catir carrying

lamps (diipam) with pots/urns (pUrNaghaTam),

some medieval commetators write that this

refers to kuTa-viLakku 'pot-lamp'. In the wedding

ceremonies in India, devadasis performing aarati

with a pot-lamp or a lamp-on-a-plate (to ward off

'evil eye' etc.) was very common until recently.

 

Let me add few Tamil literary examples where girls, dance, pots,

and lamps occur together in medieval poetry. Cilappatikaaram

has the gaNikA Maadhavi learning lamp dance. In the lamp

lights, viRali dancers performed for the king in sangam

times: pANTil viLakku parUu cuTar azala

nal nutal viRaliyar ATum - patiRRuppattu 47.

 

 

Medieval poems:

 

tOraNa majncat talamtoRum naTikkum tOkaiyar nATakam oru cAr;

pUraNa paim pon2 kumpamum, oLi kUr puri maNit tIpamum oru cAr;

 

- villipAratam

 

alku tIpam niRai kuTagkaL akilin2 tUpam koTi eTuttuc

celva man2aikaL alagkarittu teRRi ATal muzavu atirap

- periyapurANam

 

 

 

After Victorian times, Rukminidevi avoided the

mystical and erotic poses, mudras and patam-songs,

and made catir into bharatanATyam - a "sanitized" version fit for

moderm urban audiences trained in western education.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

I would like to thank everyone who wrote to me

privately and those who expressed their valuable

opinion on the list regarding ethymology of the word

sAdir.

It seems, indeed, that the word sAdir used in the Raja

Serfoji court cluld have come from the Tamil catir.

The Tanjore Quartet brothers who were responsible for

the revival and modification of the bharata-natyam's

precursor, were Tamils, or at least, dravidians

(judging by their names). They followed the South

Indian tradition of performing arts, so for what

reason they would use an Urdu or a Persian word

(although I cannot vote for origin of "catir" itself)

for such important technical term aimed to distinguish

the royal court dancing from the temple dancing?..

Perhaps, this sAdir from catir has in a sense merged

with a Marathi word later...

But, in this context I would like to ask the scholars

of Classical Tamil: if the dance performed by devadAsI

was called catir-ATTAm, was the term meaning something

different from devadAsI-ATTam? Could catir be a part

of dance connected with Arti only? And were the word

kuTTu stands in relation with catir and ATTam?

Besides, is the Tamil catir in any way related to the

Sanskrit catura?

Regards,

Marina Orelskaya

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, marina orelskaya <m_orelskaya> wrote:

> I would like to thank everyone who wrote to me

> privately and those who expressed their valuable

> opinion on the list regarding ethymology of the word

> sAdir.

> It seems, indeed, that the word sAdir used in the Raja

> Serfoji court cluld have come from the Tamil catir.

 

DEDR lists the word catir in three different entries.

but the third #2327

Ta. catur = ability, skill, dexterity, means, contrivance.

catir = ability, skill, dexterity; greatness, excellence, beauty,

loveliness.

catiri = skillful woman.

Ma. caturam

Ka.caduru, ceduru

Te. cadurUDu...

Tu. cadupu

 

Going from skill/dexterity to dance is natural I guess.

 

>...

> Besides, is the Tamil catir in any way related to the

> Sanskrit catura?

 

The DEDR entry above does care to ask the reader to

confer Skt. catura.

Their remark reads:

-----

/Cf. Skt. catura - dexterous, clever, charming, agreeable.

DED 1920

-----

 

But the compilers do not seem to have been convinced that it

is a borrowal since they cite that it had in the origianl 1968

version called DED it had entry #1920.

 

Often word inital ca- is from a-, ta- or ka-. So this might have

such an as yet unknown origin.

 

Relevant DEDR entries are

#137 Ta. atir = to shake, tremble...

#136. atan2am = excess...

#140. Ta. atai.....Ka. adaTu = self-will, boldness, pride, heroism

Te. adaTu = ....

 

 

 

> Regards,

> Marina Orelskaya

>

 

Regards

P.Chandrasekaran.

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, marina orelskaya <m_orelskaya> wrote:

>But, in this context I would like to ask the scholars

>of Classical Tamil: if the dance performed by devadAsI

>was called catir-ATTAm, was the term meaning something

>different from devadAsI-ATTam? Could catir be a part

>of dance connected with Arti only? And were the word

>kuTTu stands in relation with catir and ATTam?

 

On 'catir' dance, performed in the temples in the South,

until the mid-20th century, some usefull ref.s:

1) K. Sadashivan (Prof. of History), Devadasi system in

medieval Tamil Nadu. Trivandrum : CBH Publications, c1993.

2) Saskia Kersenboom, Nityasumangali : devadasi tradition

in South India, Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass, 1987.

3) (Orissan kings had Chola blood: Eg., ChODagangadeva, chODa stands

for tamil "chOzha".) Marglin, Frederique A.

Wives of the god-king : the rituals of the devadasis of Puri

Delhi ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1985.

4) (on catir dance transforming into the stage bharatanATyam):

Gaston, Anne-Marie. Bharata natyam : from temple to theatre

New Delhi : Manohar, 1996.

 

The term, "devadAsi" is coined in the 20th century. It's

a translation of the tamil term "tEvaraTiyAL" (cognate

with Malayalam tEviTicci). Commonly Tamils call the

term "tEvaraTiyAL" ( tEvar (< s. deva, god/lord) commonly

as "tEvaTiyA/tEviTiyA" (Lord's devotee/a nautch lady). The epicenter

of devadasi temple culture was the deep South. Almost every

village temple (both shiva and vishNugrhams) had few

or 100s of devadasis (some had bazars of their homes).

 

Leslie Orr explains the new coinage-usage of the term, "Devadasi":

L. C. Orr, Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of God: Temple

women in medieval Tamilnadu, OUP, 2000, p.5:

"I do not assume that women referred to as "devadAsIs" in various

periods of history are necessarily temple women, although

"devadasi" has become in this century the term most commonly

applied to temple women. As Marglin explains: "The word devadAsI

has attained widwspread usage since the revival of Indian

classical dance, first begun in Tamilnadu in the 1920s. It

has become a pan-Indian word, whereas traditionally each region

had its own term to designate temple dancers" (1985b, 313). The

term devadAsI, as it has recently gained currency, appears to be

a Sanskritized form of the Tamil term, tEvaraTiyAL, which was

one of the most common designations for temple women in Tamilnadu.

The term devadAsI itself is very rarely encountered in Indian

literature or inscriptional records before the present century."

 

More later,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

Dear Prof. A. G. Menon,

 

It's likely that "catir" (pronounced "sadir") is a

loan word borrowed by tamil. Whether catir is from skt. catura

or arabic sadir can be debated. We find catir occurrence

in Tamil literature only from bhakti period onwards.

 

"catir" not only denotes skill, dexterity but also

cleverness, cunningness too. catir-kaccEri means

"nautch party". catirkkAri is a devadasi in a temple.

In the ANDAL pAsuram, catir women carry pots and lamps

or acc. to commentators pot-lamps of devadasis seen

in the weddings.

INDOLOGY/message/1277

 

Take a look at NammAzvAr's tiruvAymozi poem:

 

*catir iLa maTavAr* tAzcciyai matiyAtu

atir kural caGkattu azakartam kOyil

mati tavaz kuTumi mAliruJcOlaip

patiyatu Etti ezuvatu payan2E!

 

(poem 3111, nAlAyira tivyap pirapantam (ed. S. JakatraTcakan2,

Madras, 1993, p. 1137)

 

Here tAzcci (= baseness, vileness, deterioration, etc.) of

catir women is talked about by AzvAr. In the Tamil bhakti poems

of that period, we notice the "tAzcci" being associated with

performing arts. Let me quote Pulavar irA. iLaGkumaran2,

pANar, maNivAcakar patippakam, page 126-127:

 

[begin quote]

"

pANkulAyp paTukkal vENTA - 2515

 

en2n2um cintAmaNikkup "pANmaic collAlE vaLaittu

emmai akappaTuttutal vENTA" en2a urai ezutum

naccin2Arkkin2iyar, 'pAN - tAzcci' en2ap poruL

varaintAr (1624). mElum, "paNintu pAN ceytatan2RE"

en2pataRkum "vaNaGkit tAzcci ceytatu" en2a ezutin2Ar.

 

tAzcci pEci en2pataip " pANE pEci" en2kiRatu

tiruvAcakam (tiruccatakam. 84). "

[End quote]

 

While NammAzvAr connects tAzcci with catir women

(of dance?), MaaNikkavAcakar also uses tAzcci for

nATyAcharyas. In DED 1920, the clever, cunning etc.,

meanings for "catir" are present as well.

 

The clever, beguiling nature of Shiva is told by

Campantar in 7th cent. tEvAram using the word, "catir".

 

tEv1x44x7 cagku oLi vaNNarO tAzkuzal vATac catir

ceyvatO ivar cArvE

 

When we read the entire tEvAram decad where this

*catir* term is embedded, the nature of catir

as deceptive, beguiling, cunning, clever is clear.

Because in the neighboring tEvAram verses,

catir comes along with mayal, iTar, citai, catur,

pazi, and pun2ai. Note all of them have a

"negative" aspect, and the same holds true for catir

and catir women in old tamil.

 

Also, the dancers in temples were called

cULai (sULe in Kannada) related with cULAmaNi/cUDAmaNi,

mANikya 'ruby', cANi 'skillful lady' (in tamil, sAni-mAnyam

= land-grants to devadasis in telugu). While

tEvaraTiyAL literally means 'lord's devotee', most Tamils

understand tEvaTiyA as refering to vezyAs.

The 'sULe'-like designations have two meanings,

one of which is given in ancient prAkrit verses.

 

M. A. Selby, Grow long, Blessed night, OUP, 2000, p.105

"PrAkrit gAthAs, which are perhaps from a slightly earlier

time period than the Tamil poems, also come from a

different, more heavily "Sanskritized" geographic area.

Public brawling over sexual matters is a popular theme

in the poems, but the language of indirect expression

is favored as the medium [snip]

 

Addressed by a neighbor thus, "You're a slut".

a woman replied:

 

Okay, so I'm bad.

Go away, faithful wife.

Your name may be untarnished,

 

but at least we don't

lust after the barber

like somebody's wife we know.

(GAthAsaptazatI 5.17)

 

GaGgAdharabhaTTa's brief commentary beautifully highlights

the topsy-turvy nature of the PrAkrit insult: Yes means no;

good means bad. He writes, "Pativrate (this term literally

means 'one whose vow is her husband') is a censorious address

here. 'Like somebody's wife' means 'you, yourself'. The idea

is, 'I may be a slut, but I'm attached to a high type of man.

But you are attached to a barber. Your gotra ('name') hasn't

been tarnished but your kulam ('family') certainly has been."

[End quote from M. A. Selby's book].

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

 

Ref.s:

INDOLOGY/message/1269

 

INDOLOGY/message/1296