Mamattirar paranjyoti

Mamattirar paranjyoti

 

Mahamatrar in Sanskrit became mamattirar in Tamil. There is a lot evidence to support that the title mahamatrar is used to refer to those who left the Vedic rituals and became doctors and warriors. For those who occupied high positions in the king's administration, and took distinct responsibilities, they were called 'mahamatrar' in the sloka that refers to this. Maha means big, matra means level— in what:

 

Mantre, karmani, bhooshayam, vide, mane, pracchate|

Matre cha mahati yesham mahamatrastu te smruta:||

 

Mantre in this context should be interpreted to mean, instead of "the mantra sastra", rather the "confidential advice to the king". Mahamatrar has a big part in giving advice to the king. Next karmani – he has a lot of responsibilities in the administration; bhushanam: his decorations and jewels will be similar to the royal ones; vitte – he is also endowed with wealth; mane – respect; next to the king, he is given societies' due respect; paricchate – servants – like the king he also has dedicated servants. Paricchate can also mean clothes, meaning that mahamatrar has some high quality of clothes.

 

The sloka says that the person, who is at a high level in all these above, is called the mahamatrar. These attributes do not some how match with the worker class in the setup in those days.

 

In the Amara which is the foremost among the Sanskrit dictionaries, there is mention of mahamatrar. The kings are refered to by various names: chakravarti, sarvabowman, manda-leswaran, samrat, then, mahamtrar occurs when his servants are mentioned. Usually we use mantri pradani. Pradani is the administrative head who is next to the minister. Before referring to this administrator, mahamatrar is mentioned for the minister, and after that the Vedic teachers are also mentioned.

 

Manusmruti is an ancient book. It is the foremost among the dharma sastras. It also has a reference to mahamatrar. Strangely, this mentions about the ministers who have gone in the wrong path, rather than those who are normal. The manu smruti talks about how the king should punish those who have commited crimes. In that, it covers those thiefs and other criminals whose acts are visible, as well as those who are occupying high positions in the society, but commit corrupt activities secretly. It refers to 4 professions: first mahamatrar (minister), next doctors, third sculptors, and last dancing women. The king needs these 4 types of people for his administration. The minister for administration, the doctor for physical health. One of the main duties of the king is to build temples to nurture the devotion among his citizens, and the sculptor is needed for this. Finally, dancing women are needed for the rituals in the temples, as well as for entertainment in the king's assembly. The manu smruti considers these four groups of professionals as those capable of abusing their position, and classified such culprits as the "thorns of the kingdom" – they are called loka kantaka – i.e. kantaka – thorn. Manusmruti advises that the king should strictly punish them. The importance of ministers is clear because is they are charged with the primary responsibility for the administration of the kingdom.

 

Though they had given up the highest duties of Brahmins, which is the Vedic rituals, they were called mahamatrar because they performed capably the medical or military tasks. Matra also refers to benchmark; we can say that they lived as a good benchmark to the society. Though they did not practice the Vedas, they had studied the books on sastras well. When sekkizhar talks about paranjyoti in the periyapuranam, he states that paranjyoti was well versed in Ayurveda and had studied several Sanskrit books. In addition to practicing the Ayurveda and dhanur Veda which are prescribed for mahamatrars, he also excelled in specialities such as gaja (elephant) and asva (horse) sastras, i.e. he was highly skilled in managing the troops of elephant and horses.

 

When thirugnanasambandar came to thiruchengattankudi paranjyoti's name changed to siruthondar nayanar. Like other nayanmars who were also householders, he was also one. When siruthondar invited the divine child of sambandar to his house, sekkizhar describes that "he too the feet of child in his chest with the sacred thread (used by Brahmins)." Therefore, he could not have been definitely a lower caste person.

 

It also says that siruthondar performed the 10 day rituals when his son siralan was born, thus stressing the Brahmin code. It comes that "he performed his 10^th day ritual as per his custom".

Though mahamatrar were separate from the Brahmins, their rituals were not different and several were part of their custom, and so the 10^th day ritual was called "as their customary ritual". On the eleventh day including the date of birth a child is bathed and given its name. Without counting the date of the birth, the apastamba sutra calls it the 10^th day, "dasamyam". In the same way, sekkizhar calls it "10^th day".

 

It says that the child was performed "neiyyatal ceremony". While we do not know the contents of the ceremony, it says that the same ceremony was performed for the sambandar who was born in a Brahmin family belonging to the kaundinya clan.

 

After this it says that siralan was performed the "hair platting ceremony" at the age of three.

From all these, we can see the evidence that confirm that mahamatrars had the next position after the original Brahmin clan.

 

There is a 600 year old book called the sekkizhar swamigal puranam. It was written by umapathi Sivachariyar who was well versed in the practice of the siddanta saivaism. There is another opinion that it was written by a poet by name umapathi Sivam. Nevertheless, it is an old book and authoritative. In this book there is a mention about the 63 nayanmars and which caste they belonged to. In this first, the Vedic Brahmin are listed first, (there were 13 Brahmins) followed by 2 Brahmins who got the agama (saivaite) instruction, and third 1 mahamatra is mentioned, as the one wearing jewels that make sound. Usually only kshatriyas wear such jewels, in this book, the kshatriyas are mentioned after the mahamatras. From this we can infer that the mahamatras has a position between Brahmins and kshatriyas. The book lists 6 nayanmars who were big kings, five smaller kings; five who were brahma –kshatriyas, then 5 vaisya nayanmars; and after that only lists 13 worker class (velalar) nayanamars. The books talks about the paranjyoti who was the mahamatrar who later became siruthondar. In sekkizhar's list in his puranam also has only one mahamatrar. The 13 velalar nayanmars are mentioned separately from that list. Also note how the list begins from the pure Brahmins, followed by saivaite Brahmins, then mahamatrars, and after that only kshatriyas, vaisyar, and so on.

 

You may have heard about arumuga navalar. He lived during the times of ramalinga swamigal and was well versed in Tamil as well as saivaism. He is a great scholar and Siva devotee. He will smear vibhuti vividly and also wear rudraksha on his head. He belonged to nallur in yazhpanam in Sri Lanka. He had lived in Tamil nadu also for long. He had written several Tamil books from the beginners' books to deeply researched volumes. On religious topics, he had written easily understandable prose versions of the great Tamil works like periya puranam, thiruvilaiyadal puranam, as well as the Saiva sastra texts. He had installed schools for teaching Tamil and had printed books for use in them. While in the case of Vedic schools, the bachelor students went around daily to collect rice through alms, this scholar went around himself to collect rice for his Tamil schools.

 

I had told you that this great scholar who had done yeoman service for Tamil and devotion had written a narrative for periya puranam? In this book also there is a mention about the caste of the 63 nayanmars. There are minor differences between this list and the umapathi Sivam's list. That is not important for us. In the foreword to this book (I do not know if the navalar wrote it or the publisher wrote it), the Siva agama saivaities are glorified and there are statements while condemn saivaites who respect the Vedic Brahmins and give them the first position. Though it is not explicitly opposed to Brahmins this books argues for higher priority for the saivaites. Such a book will not list one nayanmar as Brahmin if there is even a little doubt about that. In that books list, as you can expect, the 4 saivaite nayanmars are listed first beginning with sundaramoorthy nayanar, after that 12 Brahmin nayanmars are listed including gnanasambandar, somasi mara nayanar, rudra pasupati nayanar, and after that the siruthondar is the only one listed as mahamatrar. After this the list mentions the three dynasties of kings the seraman perumal, nedumara pandyan, kochsenkat cholan, followed by other kings who were nayanmars, and later mentions vaisyas (karaikal ammaiyar, iyarpahai nayanar, and others), and finally velalar (13 of them, including appar), kuyavar (thiru nilakanda nayanar), ekaliyar (thirukurippu thonda nayanar), and the list ends with pulaiar – who is the thirunalai povar nayanar – he was none other than nandanar.