Tag: Kashi Tamil Sangamam

Express News Service

VARANASI: For the 250-odd families living in Hanuman, Kedar and Harishchandra Ghats of Varanasi – known as mini Tamil Nadu in the heart of the holy city – the just-concluded Kashi Tamil Sangamam (KTS) rekindled the ancient connect between Kashi and Kachi. 

The bond between this cultural city in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu is centuries-old, as several mutts and temples – some even having Dravidian architectural designs – have been attracting thousands of Tamil pilgrims not only from India but abroad – mainly to perform the after-life rituals of deceased families conduct for their dear ones.

K Venkat Ramana Ghanapati, the first person of Tamil origin, to be appointed as the Trustee at Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust by the UP government. (Photo | Express)“The ties between Kashi and Tamil Nadu are centuries-old as it is the abode of Lord Shiva. We are delighted that this first-of-its-kind initiative was taken to revive and further strengthen our connection,” K Venkat Ramana Ghanapati, a Vedic pandit and the first person of Tamil origin, who has been made Trustee at Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust by the Uttar Pradesh government, told TNIE. The announcement was made during KTS.

“The Kashi Tamil Sangamam not only brought to limelight the flourishing Tamil culture and traditions, which is so much part of this temple-town but also helped in highlighting the many contributions of our ancestors and saints in the areas of arts, culture and education,” added Ghanapati, who is the fifth-generation priest and lives in a 100-year-old house near Harishchandra Ghat.

Ghanapati, whose great-grandfather was the one who had come to Varanasi, and chose to settle down here, said it was indeed a “proud feeling” when he met and interacted with the 2,500 delegates, including priests, farmers and students from all across Tamil Nadu for the month-long KTS,  which ended December 16.

As one enters his house, in the labyrinth of lanes and bylanes, it is easy to spot boys and young men, clad in white dhoti, with their foreheads smeared with horizontal tilak, speaking in Tamil. Even the signage is in Tamil in some places and boasts of a ‘New Madras Café, ‘New Madras Tour Travels’ and ‘Hotel Tamil Nadu.’

“I feel honoured and proud that I am the first Tamilian to be made the trustee of the Kashi Vishwanath temple,” said Ghanapati, who daily feeds over 100 to 150 people, who visit him, delicious staple south Indian food. 

Just a few metres from Ghanapati’s place is the house where renowned Tamil writer, poet and freedom fighter late Subramania Bharati lived. A small portion of the house, which was renovated into a museum, was virtually inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on December 11.

Though the beautifully-renovated portion, near Hanuman Ghat, is yet to open for the public, passers-by still pause to admire it because of its historical significance.

In the main house, Bharati’s grand-nephew, Prof. K V Krishnan, 96, lives with his youngest daughter, Dr Jayanti Murali, and her family.

“We all are so happy that this event was held. It was not only successful in celebrating the many contributions of Tamilians living here for generations but who helped in shaping the history of this ancient city.”

“The most wonderful thing about the Tamilians who have been living here for many generations is that they kept their traditions and culture alive. They never left it,” Dr Murali, a professor of Hindustani music at the Chaudhary Devi Lal University, told TNIE.

“We talk in our mother tongue, Tamil; we eat the same food, follow the same festivals, and even our marriage rituals are the same. Each generation carried this tradition forward,” she said, and proudly narrated how everyone in her family, including her, got married at the small shiva temple situated in the central courtyard of the house.

She added that the area is known as mini-Tamil because, from the boatmen to pandits to shopkeepers, everyone talks in Tamil, even though some of them are not even Tamilians.

“What we are celebrating today was written by Subramania Bhartiji at that time. He had said that ‘sit in Kashi and listen to Kanchi, and sit in Kanchi and listen to Kashi.’ Now, that is what is happening,” said Dr Murali, the sixth-generation living with her family.

Dr Murali, who during KTS received delegates, wanting to visit the great freedom fighter’s house, every alternative day, said, “no one ever thought earlier of organising such a mega event that has revived the age-old connections between Kasi and Kanchi.”

Now the bridge has been established, we hope this will continue, she hoped.

VARANASI: For the 250-odd families living in Hanuman, Kedar and Harishchandra Ghats of Varanasi – known as mini Tamil Nadu in the heart of the holy city – the just-concluded Kashi Tamil Sangamam (KTS) rekindled the ancient connect between Kashi and Kachi. 

The bond between this cultural city in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu is centuries-old, as several mutts and temples – some even having Dravidian architectural designs – have been attracting thousands of Tamil pilgrims not only from India but abroad – mainly to perform the after-life rituals of deceased families conduct for their dear ones.

K Venkat Ramana Ghanapati, the first person of Tamil origin, to be appointed as the Trustee at Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust by the UP government. (Photo | Express)“The ties between Kashi and Tamil Nadu are centuries-old as it is the abode of Lord Shiva. We are delighted that this first-of-its-kind initiative was taken to revive and further strengthen our connection,” K Venkat Ramana Ghanapati, a Vedic pandit and the first person of Tamil origin, who has been made Trustee at Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust by the Uttar Pradesh government, told TNIE. The announcement was made during KTS.

“The Kashi Tamil Sangamam not only brought to limelight the flourishing Tamil culture and traditions, which is so much part of this temple-town but also helped in highlighting the many contributions of our ancestors and saints in the areas of arts, culture and education,” added Ghanapati, who is the fifth-generation priest and lives in a 100-year-old house near Harishchandra Ghat.

Ghanapati, whose great-grandfather was the one who had come to Varanasi, and chose to settle down here, said it was indeed a “proud feeling” when he met and interacted with the 2,500 delegates, including priests, farmers and students from all across Tamil Nadu for the month-long KTS,  which ended December 16.

As one enters his house, in the labyrinth of lanes and bylanes, it is easy to spot boys and young men, clad in white dhoti, with their foreheads smeared with horizontal tilak, speaking in Tamil. Even the signage is in Tamil in some places and boasts of a ‘New Madras Café, ‘New Madras Tour Travels’ and ‘Hotel Tamil Nadu.’

“I feel honoured and proud that I am the first Tamilian to be made the trustee of the Kashi Vishwanath temple,” said Ghanapati, who daily feeds over 100 to 150 people, who visit him, delicious staple south Indian food. 

Just a few metres from Ghanapati’s place is the house where renowned Tamil writer, poet and freedom fighter late Subramania Bharati lived. A small portion of the house, which was renovated into a museum, was virtually inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on December 11.

Though the beautifully-renovated portion, near Hanuman Ghat, is yet to open for the public, passers-by still pause to admire it because of its historical significance.

In the main house, Bharati’s grand-nephew, Prof. K V Krishnan, 96, lives with his youngest daughter, Dr Jayanti Murali, and her family.

“We all are so happy that this event was held. It was not only successful in celebrating the many contributions of Tamilians living here for generations but who helped in shaping the history of this ancient city.”

“The most wonderful thing about the Tamilians who have been living here for many generations is that they kept their traditions and culture alive. They never left it,” Dr Murali, a professor of Hindustani music at the Chaudhary Devi Lal University, told TNIE.

“We talk in our mother tongue, Tamil; we eat the same food, follow the same festivals, and even our marriage rituals are the same. Each generation carried this tradition forward,” she said, and proudly narrated how everyone in her family, including her, got married at the small shiva temple situated in the central courtyard of the house.

She added that the area is known as mini-Tamil because, from the boatmen to pandits to shopkeepers, everyone talks in Tamil, even though some of them are not even Tamilians.

“What we are celebrating today was written by Subramania Bhartiji at that time. He had said that ‘sit in Kashi and listen to Kanchi, and sit in Kanchi and listen to Kashi.’ Now, that is what is happening,” said Dr Murali, the sixth-generation living with her family.

Dr Murali, who during KTS received delegates, wanting to visit the great freedom fighter’s house, every alternative day, said, “no one ever thought earlier of organising such a mega event that has revived the age-old connections between Kasi and Kanchi.”

Now the bridge has been established, we hope this will continue, she hoped.

The fabric of Indian history has enchanted the fabulous with a finer blend of drama, mythology, fact and philosophy. The ancient Indian texts such as Panini’s Astadhyayi, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and Bharata’s Natyashastra and many more ancient Indian texts supply ample evidence to these interspersions. The interesting interpolation of myth into history is found in its definitive topographical distinction of our country, which was referred to as Jambudvipa in our scriptures. The two large geographical demarcations of the northern and southern parts of our country, which configure as “Aryavarta” and “Vindhyaachal,” in the scriptures, were for the first time defied by Agasthya Muni, a celebrated sage from north India, who crossed the indignantly high Vindhyas to travel to south India, the Dakshinapath, to signify the larger terrain of the country as an indivisible whole. The myth connotes the unified psyche of the country to maintain its unique historical and cultural fabric, when a larger question hangs around to drop its doubtful veil on the country’s divisibility in terms of region, language, ethnicity, culture and religion.

The Kashi-Tamil Sangamam is a masterly initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi which tacitly carries this historical and mythological denominator to co-mingle the heart of the north and the throb of the south in re-scripting and re-writing history, this time minus myth, in his New Agastheeyam (story of the modern sage). The initiative is a timely effort to reassert the newly defined political stability of the country under a leadership shunning the claims of blue blood. It is a louder statement to hint at the country’s irreversible march in the economic, political, cultural and social spheres, which coincides with the country’s sovereign ascent to writ large its redoubtable arrival on the world stage in assuming the G-20 Presidency in early December.

This newly enhanced image gained a festive mood through the cultural confluence of the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam, which is a redoubtable assertion of the country’s global ascendancy. The foreign policy has emerged from its former self of neutrality to stand out with a bold affirmation of national priorities, a self-assertion to stand out in the comity of nations. It is the time that the same sovereign conduct in the external affairs found its new complementarity and reflection in the country’s internal matters, which needed an urgent intervention to uphold the time-defying sense of unity, which is deeply embedded in the historical and cultural interactions in the country’s geography.  This inbred dormant consciousness of the modern generations needs only a reminder and a right context to parade its memories encrypted in history that records the timeless cultural and social exchanges in happy co-existence.

The Kashi-Tamil Sangamam is the most notable initiative to revisit these common and entwined historical and cultural interactions in the annals of literature, art, history and culture of the nation. The name encapsulates in three words a history spanning thousands of centuries. The Sangam Age in Tamil Nadu was the golden age of literature where litterateurs and literature were celebrated and honoured with few parallels.

The Prime Minister has set personal examples by quoting from history and literature at the Sangamam. The success of the event can be seen in the fact that Tamil language has been highlighted, and teach-yourself-Tamil books have been flying off the shelf. There is a greater awareness of culture as there has been a new consciousness of the similarities and ties between the two parts of the country. There are innumerable places in the North and South named after cities in either regions. There is a Madurai in Tamil Nadu after Mathura in the North. Tenkashi  is a Tamil town.

The Kashi-Tamil Sangamam captions a history of centuries, a civilization that has an unbroken existence to rise above the onslaughts of time, the wrath of nature and the vehemence of spiteful invasions. Indian spiritual texts and folklore stand as a live witness to Kashi’s elevated and ornamental descriptions as a holy site of the divine, which is deeply rooted across the Indian geographies. The idea in its extreme sense has made Kashi, a chosen destination to undress this carnal existence to have an easy confluence with the divine soul. “On the Ganga Ghat” is a collection of short stories by Raja Rao, one among the ‘big three” writers of Indian writings in English, hailing from Karnataka.

These stories encapsulate the idea to portray the physical longing of persons living on the Ganga ghat, who tirelessly seek to embrace death, which symbolizes the ecstasy to leave the prisoned body to seek the eternity in spirituality. The town of Kashi is surrounded by mysticism and wonder, which also inspires awe in the collective consciousness of the country. “Kashi Majili Kathalu” (The Stories on the Way to Kashi), written by Madhira Subbanna Deekshita Kavi from Andhra Pradesh were the bed-time luxuries to the children told by their grandparents. These stories were the narrations of the people, who go on foot to pay a holy visit to Kashi from the South.

The Bhakti Movement, a religious reform movement had its pervasive influence across the country. With its origin in Tamil Nadu in sixth century AD, the Bhakti movement preached to develop a deep devotion to a deity for a mystical union with the God, which occurred in various regional forms, but maintaining a commonality of spiritual seeking. This movement, further, enhanced the social and cultural transactions between the north and the south in a periodical assertion of their oneness.

Perhaps it is relevant to mention here that at least eight major temples from Kedarnath in the North to Rameswaram in the South are aligned in a straight line of 790 longitudes. This could not have been an accident, but this cosmic verticality is a happy reaffirmation of a line of unbroken affinity. It is to this ancient heritage that marks Indian civilisation that the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam evokes. A living tradition, loved and admired across the country is now focusing again on ancient connections that have common kinship. The timing is significant.

The historical and cultural currents that flow from one region to the other will get a further boost with this Kashi-Tamil Sangamam meet. This inspiring step by the Government will make every Indian proud and boost their sense of participation and stake in the country and its future. Needless to say that the Prime Minister has scripted a “New Agastheeyam,” a saga retold to the young generations about the thickly interwoven cultural strands of the country, and reminded the elderly of a happy future, which is safe in the hands of their successors guarded by an ideal leadership.

What can be a better step towards this than the Sangamam that seamlessly brings together the past and the present, the rural and the urban? And what is more, an ancient city has played host to contemporary event. Our modernity is rooted in our ancient heritage, as always. The Sangamam is a remarkable step in this long journey, taking as it does from the past, and indicating a path to the future to come.

 Professor E Suresh Kumar is Commission Member, University Grants Commission, New Delhi and also the Vice Chancellor, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, Shillong, and Lucknow.

The fabric of Indian history has enchanted the fabulous with a finer blend of drama, mythology, fact and philosophy. The ancient Indian texts such as Panini’s Astadhyayi, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and Bharata’s Natyashastra and many more ancient Indian texts supply ample evidence to these interspersions. The interesting interpolation of myth into history is found in its definitive topographical distinction of our country, which was referred to as Jambudvipa in our scriptures. The two large geographical demarcations of the northern and southern parts of our country, which configure as “Aryavarta” and “Vindhyaachal,” in the scriptures, were for the first time defied by Agasthya Muni, a celebrated sage from north India, who crossed the indignantly high Vindhyas to travel to south India, the Dakshinapath, to signify the larger terrain of the country as an indivisible whole. The myth connotes the unified psyche of the country to maintain its unique historical and cultural fabric, when a larger question hangs around to drop its doubtful veil on the country’s divisibility in terms of region, language, ethnicity, culture and religion.

The Kashi-Tamil Sangamam is a masterly initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi which tacitly carries this historical and mythological denominator to co-mingle the heart of the north and the throb of the south in re-scripting and re-writing history, this time minus myth, in his New Agastheeyam (story of the modern sage). The initiative is a timely effort to reassert the newly defined political stability of the country under a leadership shunning the claims of blue blood. It is a louder statement to hint at the country’s irreversible march in the economic, political, cultural and social spheres, which coincides with the country’s sovereign ascent to writ large its redoubtable arrival on the world stage in assuming the G-20 Presidency in early December.

This newly enhanced image gained a festive mood through the cultural confluence of the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam, which is a redoubtable assertion of the country’s global ascendancy. The foreign policy has emerged from its former self of neutrality to stand out with a bold affirmation of national priorities, a self-assertion to stand out in the comity of nations. It is the time that the same sovereign conduct in the external affairs found its new complementarity and reflection in the country’s internal matters, which needed an urgent intervention to uphold the time-defying sense of unity, which is deeply embedded in the historical and cultural interactions in the country’s geography.  This inbred dormant consciousness of the modern generations needs only a reminder and a right context to parade its memories encrypted in history that records the timeless cultural and social exchanges in happy co-existence.

The Kashi-Tamil Sangamam is the most notable initiative to revisit these common and entwined historical and cultural interactions in the annals of literature, art, history and culture of the nation. The name encapsulates in three words a history spanning thousands of centuries. The Sangam Age in Tamil Nadu was the golden age of literature where litterateurs and literature were celebrated and honoured with few parallels.

The Prime Minister has set personal examples by quoting from history and literature at the Sangamam. The success of the event can be seen in the fact that Tamil language has been highlighted, and teach-yourself-Tamil books have been flying off the shelf. There is a greater awareness of culture as there has been a new consciousness of the similarities and ties between the two parts of the country. There are innumerable places in the North and South named after cities in either regions. There is a Madurai in Tamil Nadu after Mathura in the North. Tenkashi  is a Tamil town.

The Kashi-Tamil Sangamam captions a history of centuries, a civilization that has an unbroken existence to rise above the onslaughts of time, the wrath of nature and the vehemence of spiteful invasions. Indian spiritual texts and folklore stand as a live witness to Kashi’s elevated and ornamental descriptions as a holy site of the divine, which is deeply rooted across the Indian geographies. The idea in its extreme sense has made Kashi, a chosen destination to undress this carnal existence to have an easy confluence with the divine soul. “On the Ganga Ghat” is a collection of short stories by Raja Rao, one among the ‘big three” writers of Indian writings in English, hailing from Karnataka.

These stories encapsulate the idea to portray the physical longing of persons living on the Ganga ghat, who tirelessly seek to embrace death, which symbolizes the ecstasy to leave the prisoned body to seek the eternity in spirituality. The town of Kashi is surrounded by mysticism and wonder, which also inspires awe in the collective consciousness of the country. “Kashi Majili Kathalu” (The Stories on the Way to Kashi), written by Madhira Subbanna Deekshita Kavi from Andhra Pradesh were the bed-time luxuries to the children told by their grandparents. These stories were the narrations of the people, who go on foot to pay a holy visit to Kashi from the South.

The Bhakti Movement, a religious reform movement had its pervasive influence across the country. With its origin in Tamil Nadu in sixth century AD, the Bhakti movement preached to develop a deep devotion to a deity for a mystical union with the God, which occurred in various regional forms, but maintaining a commonality of spiritual seeking. This movement, further, enhanced the social and cultural transactions between the north and the south in a periodical assertion of their oneness.

Perhaps it is relevant to mention here that at least eight major temples from Kedarnath in the North to Rameswaram in the South are aligned in a straight line of 790 longitudes. This could not have been an accident, but this cosmic verticality is a happy reaffirmation of a line of unbroken affinity. It is to this ancient heritage that marks Indian civilisation that the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam evokes. A living tradition, loved and admired across the country is now focusing again on ancient connections that have common kinship. The timing is significant.

The historical and cultural currents that flow from one region to the other will get a further boost with this Kashi-Tamil Sangamam meet. This inspiring step by the Government will make every Indian proud and boost their sense of participation and stake in the country and its future. Needless to say that the Prime Minister has scripted a “New Agastheeyam,” a saga retold to the young generations about the thickly interwoven cultural strands of the country, and reminded the elderly of a happy future, which is safe in the hands of their successors guarded by an ideal leadership.

What can be a better step towards this than the Sangamam that seamlessly brings together the past and the present, the rural and the urban? And what is more, an ancient city has played host to contemporary event. Our modernity is rooted in our ancient heritage, as always. The Sangamam is a remarkable step in this long journey, taking as it does from the past, and indicating a path to the future to come.

 Professor E Suresh Kumar is Commission Member, University Grants Commission, New Delhi and also the Vice Chancellor, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, Shillong, and Lucknow.