[Advaita-l] Fwd: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Onam in ancient Madurai

[V Subrahmanian]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Radhakrishna Warrier <radwarrier at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 11:30 PM
Subject: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Onam in ancient Madurai
To: bharatiya vidya parishad <bvparishat at googlegroups.com>


A link in a Facebook post led me to the article “*City life in ancient
Madurai as experienced by a Tamil Sangam poet*” by one Cibiraj.


https://medium.com/@cibirajsingaravelu/city-life-in-ancient-madurai-as-experienced-by-a-tamil-sangam-poet-285b52e41c04


It was an interesting read.


>From the description, Madurai seems to have been a splendorous city.  The
article provides the beautiful “bird’s eye view” description of the city
said to be from the Sangam classic Paripāṭal by poet Kīrantaiyār.


The article has a description of the 7-day ōṇam festival of Madurai as
provided by the ancient poet Kīrantaiyār.  What was the name Kīrantaiyār
used for ōṇam in Paripāṭal?  Did he use the word ōṇam?



Interestingly, as per the article, Kīrantaiyār mentions śiva temple,
Murukan temple and places of worship of the Buddhists and the Jainas in
Madurai.  What Tamil words did Kīrantaiyār use for the Bauddha and Jaina
Dharmas and for the followers of these Dharmas?  And for the places of
worship?  Did he use Kōvil for the śiva and Murukan temples and Paḷḷi for
the places of worship of the Bauddhas and Jainas?


Old Malayalam poets used to call Mathura of north India as “Uttara
Mathurāpuri” (northern city of Mathura) and Madurai of Tamil Nadu as “Dakṣiṇa
Madhurāpuri”.  I think in some versions of Prakrit, the name Mathurā (मथुरा)
becomes “Madhurā” (मधुरा) which is more meaningful (“sweet”).  In
Malayalam, the name of the city in Tamil Nadu is written as Madhura (മധുര)
and the name of the city in north India is written as Mathura (മഥുര). The
change of intervocalic “th” to “dh” and then to “h” seems to have been
common between Sanskrit and Prakrit.  The change used to remain to the
modern Indo-Aryan stage, like Hindi.  But it seems “Madhurā” went back to
“Mathurā” in modern Indo-Aryan like Hindi.  It is said that the Tamil name
Madurai (written Maturai மதுரை) is from the name of the north Indian city
Mathurā.  In Tamil, it wouldn’t make a difference if the name came from
Sanskrit Mathurā or from Prakrit Madhurā.


Best regards,

Radhakrishna Warrier

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