Tamraparni

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File:Pothigai Hills Range.jpg
Agastya Malai of the Pothigai Hills range, the source of the Tamraparni river

Tamraparni (Tamil/Sanskrit) is an ancient name of the river proximal to Tirunelveli of South India and Puttalam of Western Sri Lanka.[1] A toponym, "Tamraparniyan" is eponymous with the socio-economic and cultural history of this area. Movement of people across the Gulf of Mannar during the early Pandyan and Anuradhapura periods, between the Tamilakam coasts of the river and Northwest Sri Lanka, led to the shared application of the name for the closely connected region.[2] The entire island of Sri Lanka itself came to be known in the ancient world as "Tamraparni". It is a rendering of the original Tamil name Tan Porunai of the Sangam period, "the cool river Porunai".[3][4]

Etymology

Shrines of Agastya, Chairman of the first Tamil Sangam in Madurai Pandya Kingdom, are worshipped at the Tamraparni river's source and in Sri Lanka, ancient Tamraparni

From the Tamilakam era, the area of the Tamraparni river, in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, has had name modifications,[3] from the original Tan Porunai river in the Eṭṭuttokai anthlogy to Tan Porundam then Tamira Porunai, to Tamraparni then Tambraparni and now called Thamirabarani River.[1][3][5] A meaning for the term following its derivation became "copper-colored leaf", from the words Thamiram (copper/red) in Tamil/Sanskrit and parani meaning leaf/tree, translating to "river of red leaves".[2][5] According to the Tambraparni Mahatmyam, an ancient account of the river from its rise to its mouth, a string of red lotus flowers from sage Agastya at Agastya Malai, Pothigai hills, transformed itself into a damsel at the sight of Lord Siva, forming the river at the source and giving it its divine name.[6] The shrine to Agastya at the Pothigai hill source of the river is mentioned in both Ilango Adigal's Silappatikaram and Chithalai Chathanar's Manimekhalai epics.[7] Similarly, the Sanskrit plays Anargharāghava and Rajasekhara's Bālarāmāyaṇa of the ninth century refer to a shrine of Agastya on or near Adam's Peak, the tallest mountain in Sri Lanka, from whence the river Gona Nadi/Kala Oya flows into the Gulf of Mannar's Puttalam Lagoon.[8] Other name derivations eventually applied to the entire island of Sri Lanka include the Pali term "Tambapanni", "Tamradvipa" of Sanskrit speakers and "Taprobana" and "Taprobane" of ancient Greek and Roman cartographers.[2][3][9] Robert Knox reported from his 20 years of captivity on the island in the hills that "Tombrane" is a name of the Sri Lankan Tamil people for God in Tamil, which they often repeated as they lifted up their hands and faces towards Heaven".[10]

In literature

Vanatheertham waterfalls of Tamraparni river

"Tamraparni" as a toponym is historically related to the Early Pandyan Kingdom. The region south of Tirunelveli, the citadel of the Pandyan kingdom on the river in Tamil Nadu, was referred to as Tamraparna by extension in the ancient period; Korkai, the kingdom's capital and the epicentre of the pearl trade, was located at the river's mouth.[11] Referring to pearls, Kautilya in his Arthasastra speaks of "Thamro Par nika, that which is produced in the Tamraparni", and notes the Pandya country is famed for its gems and pearls, describing Tamraparni as “a large river, which went to meet and traverse the sea (samudram avaghate) containing the row of islands”.[12] Varahamihira's Brihat Samhita mentions the river Tamraparni, pearls whereof are said to have been slightly copper-coloured or white and bright.[13] Kālidāsa praises the pearl fisheries of the river Tamraparni in South India, while giving details that an Ikshvaku king had conquered the Pandyas by carrying successful arms up to the mouth of the river.[14]

Bringing business prospects with them to Manadu's sandy tracts of land on the south bank of Tamraparni river were the Tirunelveli Nadar-Shannars, the royal vassal of Villavar bow-men Tamils who, like their related communities the Ezhava Channars and Tiyyas of Kerala, descend from Shandrar emmigrants from Jaffna and other districts of Northern Sri Lanka.[15] These land deeds were granted to them by early Pandyan royals; Nadar tradition holds that these Tamils are heirs of the Pandyan kingdom. Migrating cyclically from the early classical rule of the Three Crowned Kings, their movement led to socio-economic exchange as agricultural labourers (Nadar climber), aristocrats (the Nadan (Nadar subcaste)), Jaffna seednut palmyra and jaggery cultivators, toddy tappers and proponents of the Kalaripayattu Dravidian martial arts moved and settled south of the river Tamraparni.[15]

Pearls have a historic connection with the Gulf of Mannar; two varieties, the "Tamraparnika" from the river Tamraparni and "Pandyakavataka" from the second Sangam seat Kapatapuram, are described by Kautilya
Map of Taprobana
1562 Ruscelli map after Ptolemy
Ptolemy's map of Taprobana of 140 CE shows the island of Sri Lanka with mountain ranges "Galibi" and "Malea", from whence rivers arise

"Tamraparni" is, according to 5th century legends of Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa, the name of the area invaded in Western Sri Lanka by the banished Vijaya of Vanga, bringing with him Pandyan queens.[9] Following his marriage to the Yakkha queen Kuveni, the "lady of Tamraparni", he entered the royal house of Pandya through another marriage. The name Tamraparni, already in use by Tamil inhabitants of the island, was adopted in Pali as Tambapanni.[16] Later in 543 BC, the invaded island area was made Vijaya's "capital" that he called the Kingdom of Tambapanni, of a country north of the island, Rajarata. The point on the Gulf of Mannar, near Chilaw/Mannar and north of Puttalam on the west coast, opposite the mouth of the Thambiraparani River in Tirunelveli, is where it was established.[3][5] On this west coast was where the Queen of Mannar and North Western Sri Lanka, Alli Arasani, the daughter of a Pandyan king, was paid tribute with pearls fished by Tamil Paravas, which she used to trade Arabian horses, at Kudiramalai.[17] The island's Pandyan connection grew annually, as Vijaya sent his Pandyan father-in-law a large variety of beryls, chanks and pearls worth 2 lakhs as gifts, and princes of the dynasty such as Panduvasdeva and Pandukabhaya of Anuradhapura built reservoirs for irrigation on the island using ideas from the people of Tirunelveli's Tamraparni river and Madurai coasts.[5] Puttalam served as a second capital to kings of the Jaffna kingdom, who directed their energies towards consolidating its economic potential by maximising revenue from a lucrative pearl fishing industry developed there.[18] The Divyāvadāna or "Divine narratives" a Sanskrit anthology of Buddhist tales from the 2nd century, calls Sri Lanka "Tamradvipa" and gives an account of a merchant's son who met Yakkhinis, dressed like celestial nymphs (gandharva), in Sri Lanka.[9] A Pali story of the Jataka tales from the same period renders the island of Sri Lanka's name as "Tambapanni"; the islands of Nagadipa and Kalyani too are mentioned.[9] These mentions corroborate writers of the period in relating Tambapanni island as a "fairyland" inhabited by Yakkhinis or "she demons" and the story of Kuveni.[9]

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Mahabharata

"Listen as I now recount the isle of Tamraparni below Pandya-desa and KanyaKumari, gemmed upon the ocean. The gods underwent austerities there, in a desire to attain greatness. In that region also is the lake of Gokarna. Then one should go to Gokarna, renowned in the three worlds. O Indra among kings! It is in the middle of the ocean and is worshipped by all the worlds. Brahma, the Devas, the rishis, the ascetics, the bhutas (spirits or ghosts), the yakshas, the pishachas, the kinnaras, the great nagas, the siddhas, the charanas, the gandharvas, humans, the pannagas, rivers, ocean and mountains worship Uma's consort there". Mahabharata. Volume 3. pp. 46-47, 99.

Vyasa, Mahabharata. c.401 BCE. Corroborating the map of Ptolemy drawn four hundred years later, this text also elaborates on two ashrams of the Siddhar Agastya in the region, one near the bay and another atop the Malaya mountain range.[19]

In the Mahābhārata (3:88) a Sanskrit passage relates to the island region before the Anuradhapura period. "Listen, O son of Kunti, I shall now describe Tamraparni. In that asylum the gods had undergone penances impelled by the desire of obtaining salvation".[20]

The 2nd century BC Sangam Tamil text Purananuru mentions Tamraparni river by its original name "Tan Porunai"; in this literature corpus Lanka, a province of Tamilakam is mentioned, once lying close to the estuary of the Tamraparni River before a huge deluge, most likely a tsunami, separated Lanka with a broad channel from whence it has remained the island of Sri Lanka.[1][21]

In Valmiki's Ramayana, "Tamraparni" is related "Search the empire of the Andhras, the sister nations three, Cholas, Cheras and the Pandyas dwelling by the southern sea. Pass Kaveri's spreading waters, Malaya's mountains towering brave, seek the isle of Tamraparni, gemmed upon the ocean wave!"[22]

The north side of the Puttalam Lagoon where the Kingdom of Tambapanni was founded with Pandyan and Yakkha queens in Tamraparni, ancient Sri Lanka

The Puranas mention Tamraparni as one of nine divisions of Bharatavarsha, the greater Indian subcontinent, and as the river sourced from the Kulacala hill of the Malaya mountains in the Pandyan country of Dravida, visited by Balarama, flowing through sandalwood regions, famous for pearls and counch, fit for Śrāddha offerings, sacred to Pitrs, flows towards the southern ocean, at its confluence with the ocean, it produces conches, shells and pearls.[23]

Tamraparni is mentioned in the Edicts of Asoka, as one of the areas of Buddhist proselytism in the 3rd century BCE:

"The conquest by Dharma has been won here, on the borders, and even six hundred yojanas (5,400–9,600 km) away, where the Greek king Antiochos rules, beyond there where the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander rule, likewise in the south among the Cholas, the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni)." (Edicts of Ashoka, 13th Rock Edict, S. Dhammika).

Tamraparni in the edicts was the name by which the Buddhists of the ancient times referred to Sri Lanka.[24]

Vasubandhu mentions the Tamraparniya nikāya school of Buddhism, of Sri Lankan lineage, in the 4th century

"Tamraparniya" is a name given to one of the early Buddhist schools that developed in Asia - the nikāya school predecessor of Theravada Buddhism and its monastic divisions of Sri Lanka.[25] Theravada doctrines descend from the "school of Tamraparniya", which translates to "the Sri Lankan lineage".[25] In Mahanidessa of the Theravada Buddhist Pali Canon in the first century BC, a geographical list notes Tamraparni island (Tambapanni) as being on an important, spiritual sea route from Tamali to Java, and concurrently, this list of sea voyages that includes the island is mentioned in the Burmese Theravada literature Milinda Panha of the same time period.[26] The term Tamraparniya grew in popularity in South India to denote the Sri Lankan sects. Vasubandhu writing in the 4th century in the Sanskrit Abhidharmakośakārikā on Buddhism mentions the Tamraparniya-nikaya.[27] From this Tamraparniyan school grew subdivisions of Theravada, developed in Sri Lanka at monasteries in Anuradhapura. One was at the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya, where Buddhadatta, Buddhaghosa and Dhammapala taught in the sixth century, all of whom had also lived in the Tirunelveli district on the Tamraparni river in Tamil Nadu.[28][29][30] Buddhaghosa expounds in Manorathapurani, his commentary of the Anguttara Nikaya, "tambapannidlpe anurddhapuram majjhimadeso nama" meaning "on Tamraparni island, the city of Anuradhapura serves as the "middle country".[31] Another division was the Jetavanaramaya. The largest grew to be the Abhayagiri Vihara sect; the Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian of the early 5th century, who used the geography list of the Mahanidessa and Melinda Panha to reach Tamraparni island, describes Abhayagiri Vihara's concurrent existence.[32] In the 7th century CE, Xuanzang also describes the concurrent existence and major divisions of Theravāda in Sri Lanka's monasteries, referring to the Abhayagiri tradition as the "Mahāyāna Sthaviras," and the Mahāvihāra tradition as the "Hīnayāna Sthaviras."[33][34] By the 7th century CE, more rulers of Sri Lanka gave support and patronage to the Abhayagiri Theravādins, and travelers such as Faxian saw the Abhayagiri Theravādins as the main Buddhist tradition in Sri Lanka, before the Tamraparniyan fraternities were forced in unison under Parakramabahu I.[35][36]

The name Tamraparni was adopted into Greek as Taprobana, called as such by Onesicritus and Megasthenes in the 4th century BC.[37] Megasthenes says that "Taprobane is separated from the mainland by a river; that the inhabitants are called Palaiogonoi, and that their country is more productive of gold and large pearls than India."[38] Nearchus and Onesicritus, contemporaries of Alexander the Great mention the island as Taprobana, which also finds mention in De Mundo of Aristotle. "Taprobane" was a new hemisphere according to Hipparchus, Strabo also mentions Taprobane while fellow Roman writer Pliny the Elder states that only during Alexander the Great's rule did the west consider Taprobane to be an island.

In the world map drawn by the ancient Egyptian Greek Ptolemy (Claudious Ptolemaeus "Geographia", 150 AD), a huge island located south of the Indian subcontinent is referred to by the Greek as “Taprobane”, which the historian has identified as the island of Sri Lanka.[39]

The Tamraparni river originates on the east side of Agastya Malai from where it flows into the Tirunelveli district

The Bengali poet Krishnadasa Kaviraja mentions in Chaitanya Charitamrita the Tamraparni river in Tirunelveli, Pandya Desa, as a holy place Chaitanya Mahaprabhu visited as a pilgrim, and glorifies the Vishnu temple Alwarthirunagari Temple on its bank.[40]

The Greek name was adopted in medieval Irish (Lebor Gabala Erenn) as Deprofane (Recension 2) and Tibra Faine (Recension 3), off the coast of India, supposedly one of the countries where the Milesians / Gaedel, ancestors of today's Irish, had sojourned in their previous migrations.[41][42]

The name remained in use in early modern Europe, alongside the Persianate Serendip, with Traprobana mentioned in the first strophe of the Portuguese national epic poem Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões. John Milton borrowed this for his epic poem Paradise Lost and Miguel de Cervantes mentions a fantastic Trapobana in Don Quixote.[43]

In epigraphy

A Prakrit inscription at Bodh Gaya in Bihar, on one of the railing bars of the Mahabodhi Temple, details a gift donation to the temple from Bodhirakhitasa, a man from Tamraparni.[44]

Excavations at the Chandraketugarh archaeological site in North India reveal the mast of a ship with Vijayasinha's seal, describing Vijayasinha, the son of the king of Sinhapura of Vanga's marriage to Kuveni – the indiginous Yakkha queen of Tamraparni.[45] Another Brahmi inscriptions with Megalithic Graffiti Symbols from the site read "yojanani setuvandhat arddhasatah dvipa tamraparni", meaning "The island of Tamraparni (now Sri Lanka) is at a distance of 50 yojanas or 50 km from Setuvandha (in Tamil Nadu).[46]

Nagarjunakonda, where Tamraparniyan monks from Sri Lanka taught to students from the island, the river in Tirunelveli and from across the continent by 275 CE

Nagarjunakonda inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh belonging to the Andhra Ikshvaku king Madhariputa Sri Vira Purisadata's reign of 275 CE speak of a convent founding a Chaitya-griha (Chaitya hall) dedicated to the Sthaviravadin (Theravada) teachers, nuns and monk fraternities from Tamraparni island. These Buddhist monks are credited to have converted the people of Kashmir, Gandhara, China, Tosali, Aparanta, Vanga, Vanavasa, Yavana (Greece), Damila and the isle of Tamraparni at the monastery to their doctrine, a site of great cultural influence and exchange. Vanga Kingdom of Bengal, according to the inscription, was among several regions where "tranquility" (pasada) was brought about by the Sthaviravadin teachers of Tamraparni.[47][48]

Buddhist Bhikkus monks from Tamraparni resided at Navahatta in Bengal in 600 CE.[49] A seal excavated at the site of the Raktamrittika Vihara at Rajbadiganga mentions the community thus Navahatte Tamavanika Bhikshunam meaning "the bhikshus from Tamraparni residing in Navahatta".[50] The language of the inscription is an amalgam of Sanskrit and Prakrit — "Navahatta" is Sanskrit and "Tamavanika" is the Prakritized form of the Sanskrit word "Tamraparnika".[50] It is an identity seal of the monks from Sri Lanka residing at the monastery, part of a votive insignia to the shrine in an offering on behalf of all monks.[49]

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