Bharata Matha terracotta image

Bharatha Matha Terracota figure of composite unit of India, as visualized by Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi and his close associates, Mandayam Brothers S Thirumalachari, S Srinivasa Chari and S Parthasarathy Iyengar in the year 1916 during their exile at Pondicherry.  This idol was discreetly smuggled to Madras and taken in procession during Anti British movements. It has lost the Ceylon part which was in the form of a lotus bud at the feet,  during an encounter with British police.

Vande mataram.

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This text above, along with this picture, was shared by VK Srinivasan in our Tamil Heritage Trust Whatsapp group.

The Mandyam brothers owned a Tamil newspaper called Swadesa Mitran, in Madras (Chennai) and they hired Subrahmanya Bharati, the poet, as its deputy editor. Bharati today is primarily known throughout the Tamil speaking world as poet extraordinaire, a Mahakavi, whose patriotic poems about India, the Tamil language, are well known. But he did not earn much from his poetry; his primary income was as a journalist. He is considered THE pioneering journalist of the Tamil language - he wrote political essays advocating the expulsion of British rule (inspired by Bala Gangadhara Tilak), he introduced the first cartoons in Tamil newspapers, he wrote essays on science and technology, translated essays and poems from various languages of India like Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, and English. He was considered an extremist in those days, a follower of Bala Gangadhara Tilak, as opposed to the moderates led by the lawyers of Madras, led by the indomitable V Krishnaswami Aiyar. He introduced the Bengali phrase Vande Mataram into Tamil, without modifying the words, and made it popular. He also published an English newspaper, for years.

A cartoon published by Subramania Bharati Gandhi as a cow, the British as tigers

He formed a patriotic group with VO Chidamaram Pillai, Subramania Siva, Aurobindo Ghosh and VaVeSu Iyer. VO Chidambaram a lawyer of Thoothukkudi (Tuticorin), an old harbour city near Kanyakumari, is famous for starting a shipping company. He was later arrested and sentenced to jail, where he was also sentenced to be yoked (Literally a wooden yoke, like a plough) to an oil-press (instead of a bull) and forced to pull the oil-press.

Bharathi and others condemned this arrest and cruel sentence. The British issued an arrest order for Bharati for one of his essays, and he escaped to Puducheri (Pondicheri) which was under French rule, taking the advise of his friends. He spent nearly ten years in Pondicheri, in self-exile. At some point he was exhausted with his exhile and came back to British India - that is Madras province. He was arrested in Kadaloor (Cuddalore) and sentenced to jail, but was released after promising not to write against British government policies. Sadly he died a few years later. 

The Mandayam family, which ran the SwadesaMitran newspaper, and had hired Bharati as a writer and assistant editor, somehow inherited the terracotta idol of Bharata Matha. Decades later, after independence, N Balasubramanian, a mathematician and cryptologist, and an avid lover of Tamil literature and especially Subramaniya Bharati, was an active membre of Delhi Tamil Sangam. By the 1960s, a significant number of Tamils had moved to Delhi, a vast number of them employed as bureaucrats in the Government of India, and quite a few in academic circles also. The Delhi Tamil Sangam, regularly held meetings in which they discussed literature, hosted visiting writers, speakers, artists, etc; conducted music concerts (mostly Carnatic music) and Tamil plays and so on. Balasubramanian, who wrote under the Tamil pseudonym Nagupoliyan was one of the very active members of this group. On one of his travels, a member of the Mandayam family gave him the Bharatha matha statue for safekeeping. From then on, every monthly meeting of the Delhi Tamil Sangam started with a prayer and puja to this Bharata Matha statue. In 1982 the centenary year of Subramaniya Bharathi, year long celebration called Bharati 200 was conducted. It was called Bharathi 200 rather than 100, in the hope that Bharathi would be remembered for at least another hundred years. 

When Balasubramanian retired and settled down in Madras (Chennai), he brought back this image with him and somewhere along the way, the Bharata Matha statue returned to the Mandyam family. During the condolence meeting of R A Padmanabhan in 2014, who wrote a biography of Subramaniya Bharati, I met one of the stalwarts of the Mandayam family - Mandayam Parthasarathy Iyengar, then around 96 years old; he was one of the speakers.

Mandayam Parthasarathi Iyengar at  condolence meeting of RA Padmanabhan, 2014

I met "Nagupoliyan" Balasubramanian around 2010. We called him Balu sir and learned about the various aspects of his life only later. He announced a weekly Sanskrit class then, and I began to attend it regularly until 2015 or so. I didn't learn much Sanskrit, but learnt a lot about sanskrit and also learnt a lot about Bharati and a many fascinating aspects of Tamil literature from him. At this point he only had a photo of this Bharata Matha statue with him. In December 2010, he decided to donate a collection of his books on Bharati and his Bharati memorabilia, including clippings from several newspapers and magazines to the Mahakavi Bharati School in Kasuva village, near Thiruninravur, run by Sevalaya. I accompanied Balu sir and several of his writer friends, where stalwarts like writers Ja Ra Sundaresan, and Rani Maindan spoke. Balu sir had already donated some of his collection to the Bharati Illam, a memorial house in Tiruvallikeni near the Parthasarathi temple, and they are on display there.

 

TiruppudaiMarudur Paintings by Prof Baluswamy

On May 1, 2016 I attended the launch of a Tamil book titled “Chitrakoodam – Tiruppudai Marudur paintings.” The book was authored by Prof Baluswamy of Madras Chrisitian College, Tambaram, whose earlier books “Arjunan Tapasu” and “Krishna Mandapam” also about famous monuments in Mamallapuram are outstanding works of research. Speakers included botany professor Dayanandan of MCC, artists Trotsky Marudu, Smt of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department, photographer Narasimhan and conservator and documentary film-maker MV Baskar. These are notes from their talks which I posted on Facebook, on that day, which I have now copied and edited for this blog. Prof Baluswamy himself delivered a vote of thanks, which I don’t seem to have taken notes for. The event was the Goethe Insitute auditorium, Rutland Gate, Nungambakkam, Madras.

I first heard of these paintings at the Tiruppudaimarudur temple from Prof Baluswamy himself at the 2012 Tamil Heritage Trust Pechu Kacheri on Paintings of India, which was held in the Tatvaaloka auditoirum, Eldams Road, Teynampet in Chennai. These paintings and the unusual military history they recorded were part of his talk which was about Nayak era paintings of the Tanjavur and Madurai Nayaks. It was recorded along with other talks at the Pechu Kacheri but none of these have been yet edited and made available to the public.

The book was only released last year and was available at the Chennai Book Fair in Nandanam. An earlier book on these paintings by Dr Kannan director of Chennai Egmore museum, was presented to me as a gift around this time, for my talk and guided tour about the Amaravati gallery of the Egmore museum, by the then Director, Dr Kavita Ramu. Dr Kannan who reshaped the Amaravati gallery also undertook a restoration/renovation effort of these murals and has recorded them in his book.

The notes from the talks at the 2016 book launch follow:

Prof Dayanandan, MCC

Lawrence Surendra played a major role in developing this book, "Chitrakoodam - Tiruppudaimarudur Oviyangal", by using MCC as a powerful resource to research and collate.

Baluswamy is our treasure. That others share him invokes jealousy and pride. We had a great asan at MCC in 60s Gift Siromoney, who pulled all of us into several fields. we thought he had reached a peak with Arjuna's penance, but he has breached new barriers with this book on Tiruppudaimarudur paintings. He has a wide variety of knowledge in depth.

Nagaswamy threw a bomb that Rajasimha built everything in Mallai. Gift Siromoney measured all sculptures with scales. We discovered that no male was depicted before 720. Baluswamy went beyond all this. He brought whole new theories to scholarship on Mallai. Using biology, sculpture sense etc. He discovered that the painting in Tiruppudaimarudur depicted the Tamraparni battle between Vijayanagar and Travancore. After the advent of Portuguese. I discussed Columbian exchange with Baluswamy, after which pineapple potato chili etc entered India.

Sangam Era marudu tree would have been lagerstomia. Sthala trees are not more than 200 or 300 years old, opined a botany professor in Madras University.

Baluswamy makes the distinction between mythology and history when teaching. No humans in India before sixty thousand years. So please forget Lemuria etc. When Africans settled the world. The common mother of all living humans lived in Africa 180000 years ago. Based on mitochondrial evidence.

Who ordered the paintings at Tiruppudaimarudur? Did the painters paint what they were ordered to? The book will discuss all these.

Panelists and audience - photo by VK Srinivasan

Trotsky Marudu, artist

I grew up with the Nayak paintings around poRRamarai tank in Madurai Meenakshi temple. All now eradicated. This tragedy bothered for a longtime. Western realism combined with Indian artistic tradition only in the Nayak period. My predecessors like Adimoolam worked at Weavers Institute. Government photographers captured paintings of Alagar Koil, Avudaiyar Koil etc and they used those designs in weaving textiles.

Even Adimoolam has not seen the Tiruppudaimarudur paintings. MV Baskar, Sarangan, myself and Baluswamy had the opportunity to see them after 2000. In 1990s I could not go past the first level and it was too dark to see these paintings. After the Danielles, Europe saw India in pictures. Parsi theater gave another visual perspective to Europeans. Later Ravi Varma printed his own paintings, made with costumes used by Parsi theater, most of which became popular across households in India. Marathi cinema 's look influences films of South India films now, having few Tamil identity. Dadasaheb Phalke Ravi Varma's Contemporary, and the artists who worked in Bombay film studios determined the look of Telugu and Tamil cinema. Film arts, calendar art and magazine art became the defining art of Tamil country (disconnected from the temple art of the Nayak era).

For several decades maps and images have been eradicated from Tamil books as cost cutting measure.

European books for children had paintings from Egyptian temples and pyramids and much less text. Fourteenth century venetian art decorated such books about Egypt and even Hollywood actors. Indian books do such a lousy job. Hyder Ali for example depicts him practically as a beggar though there are wonderful pictures of him. Sadly Tamil culture is mostly verbal. We pay poor attention to visual art.

Thadagam published a very visual book and they are doing this with Baluswamy's book on Tiruppudaimarudur. This is a treasure for the world at large not just Tamils.

Smt Kavitha of HR&CE

Of the thirty eight thousand temples under HR&CE about fifty temples have paintings like Tiruppudaimarudur. We have permitted several people to photograph paintings for scholarly study. Our department is blind to a lot of technology, and have inadequate in situ scholarly talent. We are now restoring temple paintings. INTACH restored kuRRalam Chitra Sabha, then another group complained that INTACH had ruined them by using very bright colors.

There are wooden panels at every level in Tiruppudaimarudur gopuram. Insect infestation and bats were big problems. Water seepage is another problem. We used to use cement, then combination mortar, and now we use lime mortar. We don't touch up the paintings. In ASI chemists do the job. Our sthapathi said Silpa Sastra shows several sources of paint including sand and stone colors, not just vegetable dye.

There are PhDs who have published with no reference to the temple or HR&CE. Why can't you give copies to the temple and our department??

Please cooperate with us. Don't have an antagonistic approach. We find it very difficult to find talent for restoration. A text called "Aalaya nirmana bimba Lakshana" shows us how to restore temples. Materials die, just preserve the monument, not just the materials. Expertise is hard to come by. Maintaining thousands of temples have to be maintain 38,000 temples with income from 2000 temples. It's not our intention to destroy, we do it out of ignorance.

Or by good intentions to save a monument or protect public from collapsing roof etc (one such attempt at Srirangam thayar shrine caused the paintings to crumble).

I hope at least Prof Baluswamy will acknowledge HR&CE

Episodes from the live of Gnanasambandar - a slide from a PPT

A painting of Portuguese horse trade

Photographer Narasimhan -  Documenting the paintings

Our long time dream is getting fulfilled. I must acknowledge one who has not been acknowledged by other speakers. Mrs Baluswamy approved all the great expenses involved. Two types of people visit Baluswamy, those who go to learn and those who go to plagiarize.

Amutharasan came forward to publish the book. This pre publication is a special effort.

The technology to document was brought to us by Sarangan and Baskar.

Tiruppudaimarudur is a rare temple to still have original Nayak Era paintings. Most temple paintings have suffered great change. We have documented Alagar Koil paintings. They are valuable historical evidence. Baluswamy's effort to understand the paintings has been phenomenal. Investigating the Tamraparni war took four years. Lots of discussions with Sanskrit scholars to understand historical narrations of the war. Retired Supreme Court Justice Ratnavel Pandyan has been wonderfully helpful in this research.

We held several conferences to convey the importance to students and public. We ran a workshop at Srirangam for temple executive officers to our preserve sculptures and paintings.

One of the quite but wonderful servants of the documentation of this book is Mr Uthraadam, a PhD student of Baluswamy. This books is a milestone in tamil history.

MV Baskar - Visual documentation

Thirteen years of Hard labor. Documentation is not mere photography but Archaeometry. Digital cameras of 8Megapixels entered India in 2003. Now we shoot with 80Mp cameras. We composed each photo of A4 size, so a wall painting will be photographed as sixty different shots. Lighting is uneven so the same red may show up in different shades in adjacent shots. We used gray cards to give us color context.

Most people shoot the most photogenic scenes. We shot everything even the missing pieces which had only damaged wall or even graffiti, so we can reconstruct the painting. All paintings tend to be narrative paintings in temples, not pattern paintings. Vasanta mandapam of Alagar Koil has lovely Ramayana depiction. Tirugokarnam has Ramayana as we exit the temple, a structural narrative.

We had two photographers just for paintings and two for all other aspects. Digital tempts them to shoot limitlessly. We threw away two days worth of photos because we could not put them together.

So we had to shoot after planning, by mapping the pictures first. Cameras have no file structure. We had to map and key in advance and then collate photos in that order.

This is scalable vector art, machine readable. I worked with a Kalamkari artist from Andhra. We need pigment analysis and such equipment is only in Aurangabad and Bombay. We picked up all the fallen paint flecks and put them in zip lock bags.

Every painting in every temple has been over painted. They can only be seen with infrared photography. An infrared camera is twenty thousand dollars. Now it is much cheaper. We can rig one. I've shot Ladakh Buddhist monastery paintings with infrared cameras and they are also multi layered over time.

Academically, art and design schools lack tangible programs to educate students. We need multiple accredited programs at respected colleges to do this. Paintings also are accompanied by inscriptions or text.

The paintings depict several musical instruments. We recorded sounds from such musical instruments to create a multi media presentation. History can be far more engaging than only Archaeology. Money shortage is no longer an issue.

I'm delighted Art Painting has finally come to Tamilnadu. This is quite popular in Bombay Delhi etc but so far unsuccessful here. Hotels ask for paintings but haven't paid and ran some people bankrupt. But that is changing

----End of Lecture notes---

Acknowledgement I downloaded some photos of Powerpoint presentations on screen at the lecture, taken by VK Srinivasan during the book release and posted in the comments of my Facebook and added them in this blog. I presume the original photos used in the Powerpoint are by photographer Narasimhan, who was one of the speakers.

Related Links

Prof Baluswamy on Arjuna’s Penance in Mamallapuram

Prof Dayanandan’s lecture on Evolution at Varahamihira Science Forum

MV Baskar on Preserving Ramayana Murals at Tamil Heritage Trust

Index of My essays on Art

Index of  Lecture Notes in this blog