A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books
The name "Tirupasur" has always hung arounf memory as long as I can remember. Except its presence as an initial, there was hardly any trace that the place has a rich history and is well worth recounting. The Kosatalaiyar River drains into the famous Poondi Reservoir, and its tributaried provide streamlets that carry water to the Puzhal Lake and the lands around the town were rich agricultural zone of medieval Tondaimandalam with Knchipuram as an important weaving and urban centre. Prehistric tools have been excavated in the area and the Poondi eservoir itself is seeded with a number of urn burials daing to the first three centuries AD. Traces of Black and Red ware abound and there is also evidence of iron smelting in the region right up to the end of the seventeenth century. The rich soil and tank fed irrigation meant that Tirupasur was rich in culture,
The earliest reference to the place is found in the Third Tirumurai of Appar, the celebrated Tiruppasur Tiruttangagam,hymn the Lord of the place is called, pasur meviya param sudar, the Divine Light of Pasur. The Vachisvaram Temple named in the hyman gives Tirupasur its status as a padal petrra sthalam. and is one of 16 important shrines of Tondai mandalam. In the hyman cited above,Tirupapasur Tirukuruntokai, Appar describes the Lord as the destroyer of Kala (Time),and the ne who danced with the snake, who begged for his food with the skull (Brahma's) in his hand. The inconographic representations of all these forms of Shiva are found in te temple all around the prakara walls and the antaralaya. Sambandar too has composed songs that are presevered in the tevaram. He calls the deity Pasurnatar and describes the temple as surrounded by groves. The lyrical beauty of the language and the deeply felt bhakti of the hymnist as David Shulman, the greatest living authority on Tamil Language and Literature says in his Tamil: A Biography, made religion deeply emotional and sensual. The Vachisvaram Temple was erected as a tirukarralai by Rajaraja I (985-1014) as part of his imperial project of identifying sites sacred to the Nayanmars and trnasforming them into spectacular stone monuments. The shikara of the temple is aspidal and this makes the temple very interesting as such aspidal structures are extremly rare.
There are 23 inscriptions on the walls of the temple covering nearly 200 years of Chola History from the time of Rajaraja I till Kulotunga I the Chola king from the Eastern Chalukyan line and a descendent of Vimaladitya. As is the case with most temple inscriptions they record gifts given by kings, generals, queens and other important functionaries for the upkeep of the temple and for financing the cost of temple ritual. The inscriptions of the temple were copied in the late eighteenth century when Col. Colin Mackenzie visited Tirupasur,
The inscriptions offer a tantalizing glimpse into the medeival past of Tirupasur, Gifts of gold, jewels and money were showered on the temple. Vira Rajendra gave 10 kalunju of gold for fabricating a necklace for the deity. Another 10 kasu of gold was given for a lamp.THe King from the Chalukyan line, Kulotunga I gave a gift of 6 kalanju of gold for a necklace for the nachiyar or Amman. That Tiruppasur was a thriving town is evidnt from a Vijayanagara inscription f Arriyappa Dananayaka.
History is reconstructed on the basis of documets that have survived and if the right questions are asked the documents spew out the secrets long burried. Our approach to History differs from post modernist and post colonial methodologies as we squarely reject the notion that History is a Discourse. It is a discipline that provides a glimpse of the Past even as it is feeling from our grasp.
Thus we find Tiruppasur vegetating in the teeth of time until the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A small mud fort was built here by the Kalingarayns but all treces have disappeared. The road to the North particularly the approach to Chittoor and Palemner, important strategic locations and the road to Vellore passed through Tirupasur making its location important. It may not be an exaggeration to say that when the French lost their brief hold over Tirupasur their dreams of an empire in India collapsed as they could not hold on to the supply routes from Pondicherry as Count de Lally invested Madras. Tiruppasur saw a lot happening around it during the Carnatic Awars of the Eighteenth century. When Sir Eyre Coote arched from Vellore and defeated Hyder Ali;s son, Tipu in a battle faught just outside of Tiruppasur the fate of the Mysore userper was sealed. In 1763 the Jagir of Chingleput was given to the East India Company by the Nawab of Arcot and the entire revenue of Tiruppasur and a number of villages in the Jagir was made over to the Company. This transfer of revenure was two years befor the Treaty of Allahabad was signed after the victory in the Battle of Buxar and we find Sir Hector Munro was the architect of the Company victory in the Battle of Tiruppasur. We can speculate on the ewealth of the region when we read from the Histoical records that Tiruppasur alone generated an annual revenue of 85,000 star pagodas.
The changing agrarian structure brought about by the advent of Company rule meant that new policies and agents were put into place. The Nawab and later the Company had to deal with an extremely recalcitrat group of landlords called mirasidars. The Tirupapsur Mirasdars were a fiesty lot. They refused to pay the enhanced revenue claims sought by th Collector of the Jagir, Lionel Price and were dispossessed of their rights. It is perhaps at this point in time that some of the mahrathi speaking Mirasdrs migrated to Madras to being a new lige under new set of condiditions that life and time imposed on them.
And that is a different story.
 |
| THE GOOGLE IMAGE OF TIRUPASUR |
The earliest reference to the place is found in the Third Tirumurai of Appar, the celebrated Tiruppasur Tiruttangagam,hymn the Lord of the place is called, pasur meviya param sudar, the Divine Light of Pasur. The Vachisvaram Temple named in the hyman gives Tirupasur its status as a padal petrra sthalam. and is one of 16 important shrines of Tondai mandalam. In the hyman cited above,Tirupapasur Tirukuruntokai, Appar describes the Lord as the destroyer of Kala (Time),and the ne who danced with the snake, who begged for his food with the skull (Brahma's) in his hand. The inconographic representations of all these forms of Shiva are found in te temple all around the prakara walls and the antaralaya. Sambandar too has composed songs that are presevered in the tevaram. He calls the deity Pasurnatar and describes the temple as surrounded by groves. The lyrical beauty of the language and the deeply felt bhakti of the hymnist as David Shulman, the greatest living authority on Tamil Language and Literature says in his Tamil: A Biography, made religion deeply emotional and sensual. The Vachisvaram Temple was erected as a tirukarralai by Rajaraja I (985-1014) as part of his imperial project of identifying sites sacred to the Nayanmars and trnasforming them into spectacular stone monuments. The shikara of the temple is aspidal and this makes the temple very interesting as such aspidal structures are extremly rare.
There are 23 inscriptions on the walls of the temple covering nearly 200 years of Chola History from the time of Rajaraja I till Kulotunga I the Chola king from the Eastern Chalukyan line and a descendent of Vimaladitya. As is the case with most temple inscriptions they record gifts given by kings, generals, queens and other important functionaries for the upkeep of the temple and for financing the cost of temple ritual. The inscriptions of the temple were copied in the late eighteenth century when Col. Colin Mackenzie visited Tirupasur,
The inscriptions offer a tantalizing glimpse into the medeival past of Tirupasur, Gifts of gold, jewels and money were showered on the temple. Vira Rajendra gave 10 kalunju of gold for fabricating a necklace for the deity. Another 10 kasu of gold was given for a lamp.THe King from the Chalukyan line, Kulotunga I gave a gift of 6 kalanju of gold for a necklace for the nachiyar or Amman. That Tiruppasur was a thriving town is evidnt from a Vijayanagara inscription f Arriyappa Dananayaka.
Thus we find Tiruppasur vegetating in the teeth of time until the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A small mud fort was built here by the Kalingarayns but all treces have disappeared. The road to the North particularly the approach to Chittoor and Palemner, important strategic locations and the road to Vellore passed through Tirupasur making its location important. It may not be an exaggeration to say that when the French lost their brief hold over Tirupasur their dreams of an empire in India collapsed as they could not hold on to the supply routes from Pondicherry as Count de Lally invested Madras. Tiruppasur saw a lot happening around it during the Carnatic Awars of the Eighteenth century. When Sir Eyre Coote arched from Vellore and defeated Hyder Ali;s son, Tipu in a battle faught just outside of Tiruppasur the fate of the Mysore userper was sealed. In 1763 the Jagir of Chingleput was given to the East India Company by the Nawab of Arcot and the entire revenue of Tiruppasur and a number of villages in the Jagir was made over to the Company. This transfer of revenure was two years befor the Treaty of Allahabad was signed after the victory in the Battle of Buxar and we find Sir Hector Munro was the architect of the Company victory in the Battle of Tiruppasur. We can speculate on the ewealth of the region when we read from the Histoical records that Tiruppasur alone generated an annual revenue of 85,000 star pagodas.
The changing agrarian structure brought about by the advent of Company rule meant that new policies and agents were put into place. The Nawab and later the Company had to deal with an extremely recalcitrat group of landlords called mirasidars. The Tirupapsur Mirasdars were a fiesty lot. They refused to pay the enhanced revenue claims sought by th Collector of the Jagir, Lionel Price and were dispossessed of their rights. It is perhaps at this point in time that some of the mahrathi speaking Mirasdrs migrated to Madras to being a new lige under new set of condiditions that life and time imposed on them.
And that is a different story.
No comments:
Post a Comment