{"id":5341,"date":"2016-07-24T13:56:16","date_gmt":"2016-07-24T13:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/?p=5341"},"modified":"2016-08-13T02:28:51","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T02:28:51","slug":"24th-jul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/?p=5341","title":{"rendered":"Book throws light on little-known facets of Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"The<\/a>
The cover of a new book on Pillai.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The author of Tamil prayer Neeradum Kadaludutha was a philosopher, historian and epigraphist<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

He is known as the author of the Tamil prayerNeeradum Kadaludutha<\/i> , which is part of his verse drama \u2018Manonmaniam\u2019. But few people know that P. Sundaram Pillai was a philosophy professor at the Maharaja\u2019s college in Trivandram for over 15 years and the work was dedicated to Robert Harvey, Professor and Head of the Department of the College.<\/p>\n

Sundaram Pillai, who died at the age of 42 in 1897, was also a historian, an epigraphist and a government official who held the post of Commissiones of separate revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe dedicated his work to Dr. Harvey as it was he who had recommended the appointment of Sundaram Pillai in his place after he decided to leave for England. He had even named his house as Harverypuram,\u201d said A.K. Perumal, whose new book Manonmaniam Sundaranarin Innorupakkam<\/i> (\u2018The other side Manonmaniam Sundaram\u2019, NCBH), throws light on the multi-faceted personality of the author of the Tamil prayer.<\/p>\n

\u2018Manonmaniam\u2019 has its roots in Lord Litten\u2019s \u2018The Secret Way\u2019, which was part of the collection of \u2018The Lost Tales of Miletus\u2019.<\/p>\n

It was made into a film by Modern Theatres in 1942. The prayer song was set to music by late M.S. Viswanathan, but M. Karunanidhi, the then Chief Minister, deleted a few lines.<\/p>\n

Sundaram Pillai\u2019s family was from Kalakadu in Tirunelveli district and moved to Alapuzha in the 18th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had studied Tamil in school. It is not clear how he had learnt Tamil literature in Kerala even though he was in touch with great Tamil scholars of his time, including U.Ve. Swaminatha Iyer and C.V. Damodaram Pillai,\u201d said Mr. Perumal.<\/p>\n

When he was the principal of the MDT Hindu School he learnt Saiva Siddantha from Kodakanallur Sundara Swamigal and held a long discussion with Swami Vivekananda during his visit to Kerala.<\/p>\n

As the Commissiones of separate revenue, the temple management was under his control and it came in handy for his research on epigraphs.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a historian he established with substantial evidence that Saivaite saint Thirugnana Sambandar belonged to 7th century and his English essay on the subject was published in the journal of the Madras Christian College. He also wrote an early sovereign of Travancore, an in-depth study of Travancore history,\u201d said Mr Perumal, who has collected the essays.<\/p>\n

Lost letters<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we are not able to get many of his letters and photographs. Since he was a Congressman, police seized many documents from his residence, including his correspondence with Swami Vivekananda. They are lost permanently,\u201d said Mr. Perumal.<\/p>\n

\u2018He was in touch with great Tamil scholars of his time, including U.Ve. Swaminatha Iyer’<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

source: http:\/\/www.thehindu.com \/ The Hindu \/ Home> Cities> Chennai \/ by B. Kolappan \/ Chennai – July 24th, 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author of Tamil prayer Neeradum Kadaludutha was a philosopher, historian and epigraphist He is known as the author of the Tamil prayerNeeradum Kadaludutha , which is part of his verse drama \u2018Manonmaniam\u2019. But few people know that P. Sundaram Pillai was a philosophy professor at the Maharaja\u2019s college in Trivandram for over 15 years … Continue reading Book throws light on little-known facets of Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artsculture-entertainment","category-education","category-historical-links-pre-independence","category-records-all"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5341"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5471,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions\/5471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thiruvananthapuramfirst.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}