Was Mahendra varma of mixed caste?

Was Mahendra varma of mixed caste?

 

I will tell you one example to highlight what blunders have been made in the enthusiasm for historical research: there are several titles for mahendra varma. Among them there is a title "sankeerna jati" – it means mixed caste. taking its translation literally for its meaning, our researchers concluded that mahendra varma was not of a pure royal lineage, he is born of mixed castes and was even proud of that! Therefore, even in his records he has given himself a title (mixed caste!). Whatever may be the current thinking among people on caste and race, the stone inscription and copper plate records, as well as songs of the poets of those times repeatedly support that our kings sincerely followed the caste system as coded in the manu dharma sastra. At such times, no pallava king whose dynasties proudly declared themselves as belonging to the bharadwaja clan, will ever say that he is belongs to a mixed caste. Nowadays, if people say that Nehru is a Brahmin and he supports the caste system – how it will irritate him? Like that, 13 centuries ago, though mahendra varma might have been born in a mixed caste, he would have got highly upset if someone said so. In the concluding part of comedy drama "matta vilasa prahasanam" that he wrote, the last few lines called "bharada vakyam" read as follows: "let the god of fire take the offerings of people made in the fire to the demi gods; that is let the yagas in my kingdom be performed without disruption; let Brahmins continue to study and practice the Vedas well; let the cows give lots of milk." The abundance of milk is stated because it is used for the yagas (the ghee from the cows milk is used for the oblations). "go brahmanebyo" is told to refer "brahmins and cows" together – not because of any partiality for them! Because cows and Brahmins are both needed for the yagas, it is told like that. The king who supported the Vedic rituals with such keen interest, would never have put a title for himself as mixed caste.

 

But then, why "sankeerna jati"? It was worrying me as I could not comprehend. Music researchers helped with the understanding.

 

A highly talented musician, Mahendra varma had inscribed in the kudimiya hill near pudokottai a stone inscription, as if it would have no comparison to anything else similar in the world. Therefore, researchers tried to interpret his title using music tradition. Among the beats there is a mixed called sankeerna jati. One thought was that perhaps the king was good at this beat or he discovered it. And they thought that therefore, he may have got that title. I also got some consolation from this. I also consoled myself that the king who followed the sastras did not therefore call himself as belonging mixed caste.

 

But that consolation was short lived, after some time. Some music researchers, when they dug deeper into this stated that the "sankeerna beat" is part of the tala system, which had come up only in the last 500 years. Therefore, they pointed with good evidence that mahendra varma who had lived 1300 years ago could never have used that name.

 

"What is this irony," I got curious again.

 

Mahendra varma is quite witty and often teases himself, with funny titles that he gave for himself. To show that he behaves in various preferences at different times, he called himself, "vichitra chittan". In another title, he calls himself "gunabharan" – i.e of high quality; in another title "ishta-dushta-brashta-saritan".

 

'Ishta saritan" may be okay; it means he is liked by everyone; "dushta saritan" can also have good meaning – he is tough with criminals and adversaries. I do not know how to find a good meaning for "Brashta saritan" that too for a title! In fact, if we look at his history, there is nothing to support that he was a "brashtan" – deviant. Then why belittle himself. Normally kings give themselves lofty titles. Mahendra varma perhaps wanted to be distinct from the usual practice (as he is vichitra chittan). So perhaps he decided to take some titles to belittle himself. While kings give themselves titles which they did not even do, perhaps he wanted to mock at that practice and gave himself a funny title. To understand how good he is at making farce and jokes, we should read his "matta vilasam". In his views kings overly praised themselves, "great in this and that". To make a mockery of this, he gave himself a title (though it was not true) – "mixed caste" – I tried to use this explanation to console myself, though not fully convinced.

 

The king initially belonged to the Jain religion which does not have the caste system. Poet Appar also belonged to that religion for some time, and then started to follow the Vedic tradition. In fact, the king tortured poet Appar for this religious conversion in various ways. When he saw the several miracles in which poet appar was not affected by any of his tortures, he transformed to follow the Vedic tradition. Such "convertors" are always freaks. I was constantly puzzled whether he wanted to insinuate himself as "mixed caste". It may have meant to hint that he was at one time following a religion that was opposed to Vedic rituals. But I could not find any reason to support that kind of argument.

 

Finally, I got the solution for my puzzle. The music researchers made further investigations to find this solution. They concluded as follows:

 

In the "sankeerna jati" – jati refers to the raga (or melody), not caste. In the bharatha sastra on music and dance, there is no word called raga (for melody), the word used is "jati" only. About 100 years prior to mahendra varma, matangar brought the name raga. After him for some period, people were using both raga and jati. Matagar has mentioned in his ragas the mixed rags called "sankeernam". The researchers found that mahendra varma had a distinct talent to create these mixed ragas and had specialized in them, from the inscriptions in kudumiya hill, in which he had given some scale changing notes—and therefore he gave himself the title "sankeerna jati". This was a happy conclusion to the research.

 

Let me now tell you based my limited understanding of music, what that mixed raga "sankeerna jati" is all about. We have the 72 mela karta ragas, and from these all ragas have emerged. This is how musicologists classify all ragas. There are 2 major classifications within the 72 ragas. Among the 7 notes, the "ma" note has 2 variations. The lower ma comes in sankarabharam, and the higher ma comes in kalyani. Using these 2 variations in ma, the ragas can be split into 36 each. In the karnatic music and the thevara music which is predecessor to this, no raga normally uses both the ma sounds at the same time. Like ma note, there are two variations for the other notes such as ri, ga, da, and ni. There are many ragas which use one variation of ri, ga, da, ni in the ascending sequence of notes, and another variation in the descending sequence of notes. However, in our south Indian music, only the in the case of the ma note, the same variation of ma is used in both the ascending and descending sequences. There are no ragas in which both variations of ma are mixed "sankeernam".

 

But, mahendra varma had created such 'mixed' ragas using both the variations of ma notes. The 7 ragas that he had given his stone inscriptions all have these 2 variations of ma notes. Therefore, he got the title "sankeerna jati".

 

South Indian musicians did not follow his music practice so much. Hindustani ragas only use both the ma notes more frequently. I came to know that because these mixed ragas sound so nice, our song writers of later times have also started to use such Hindustani ragas.

 

I was telling you how in the name of research people make disparaging conclusions about our ancient people. Because mixed caste marriage is praised in modern time, they wrongly classify that mahendra varma was a mixed caste! In this way only paranjyoti who was the military general to his son is classified as "fourth caste" in Tamil culture and that he promoted a separate Tamil culture.