TAMILIAN SAGAS

    THE KAVIRAYAR
BY
VIDYALANKARA
DR.S.JAYABARATHI
JayBee

    There is one small area in Tamilnadu where the territories of five districts interlock
and impinge upon each other - one inside the other - Madurai, Dindukal, Tiruchi,
Sivaganggai, and PudukkOttai.

    The pivotal point of this area is Piranmalai. Just a few miles from Piranmalai is a
small town called ThirukkuLambUr. This is now known as ThirukaLaambUr.

    There is a very ancient Siva temple here. This temple houses a Svayambhu Lingam.
A Pandyan king was speeding in his horse one day.

    Suddenly the hoof of the horse struck a stone. Out of the stone, blood spurted out.
    On digging out the stone, it was seen to be a natural Siva Lingam. Lord Siva appeared
in the dream of the Pandya and instructed him to build a temple there. The king made a
band of silver with which he covered the hoof-mark on the SivaLingam.

    During the medieval times, it was under the NishadhaRajas and Pallavarayars. It was then
conquered by Kilzavan SEthupathi. Kilzavan SEthupathi carved out an autonomous
militaristic state called PudukkOttai. It was given to his brother-in-law called Ragunatha
Thondaiman who started his own dynasty which ruled over PudukkOttai until 1947.

    When I was working in the State of Kelantan in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaya,
I was posted to the General Hospital of the State capital called Kota Bahru. 
    I was taking a very active part in politics, in religious activities and youth activities at
that time. I was closely associated with ministers; I founded the Malaysia Hindu Sangam
of Kelantan State and was its first president. I was the founder and co-ordinator of
Tamil Youth Bell Club for the States of Trengganu and Kelantan.
    Anyone coming to Kelantan would make it a point to visit me and spend time with me,
especially the Indian VIP's.
    One day I received a letter from one Swamiji about another Swamiji. That Swamiji
had been entertained by me in Kota Bahru. He asked me to receive another Swamiji
who was from ThirukkuLambur.
    On the stipulated day, the ThirukkuLambur Swamiji arrived.
    But he was far from looking like a Swamiji.

    He had a rugged and rustic look. He was wearing a silk jibba and eight mulza veshti.
He had an angavasthram. His hair was grown upto the nape of his neck into a type of
Baghavathar Crop. He had a thick bristling moustache. There were streaks of grey in his
hair and moustache. He was tall and well-built. The complexion was dark. His eyes were
large and bulging and his vision was divergent.
    He looked more like a Rasputin without beard.
    He looked like having arrived from some medieval times by a time-machine.
    He stayed in our house for more than a month. But this was the beginning of a friendship
which lasted for several years. He made several trips from India and followed us to several
places wherever we went.
    His name was Alzagu Ramaiyya. He said that he belonged to a branch of the Cholzas.
In fact, he had a family name - 'Cholzagar'.

    He had a strange story to tell.

    When he was young, he was a rowdy. He used to play pranks.
    One day he was sleeping in a KaLi temple. He had a dream in which KaLi appeared
and asked him to drink a small vessel of honey.
She also wrote some atcharam on his tongue with Her Trisulam.  From then onwards,
he could sing poems and verses in Chenthamilz.
    The noteworthy thing here, is that, he was illiterate.
    When he received letters from India, he would ask one of us to read them for him.
 And somebody would have to write his letters for him.
    But yet, he sang songs and poems like a versatile poet. And he could speak in clear
well-versed Tamil. He could give speeches in good Tamil. And he would speak about
religion, spirituality, and ithihasas and puranas.

    So we named him 'The Kavirayar'.
    But he preferred to call himself by another name - 'Kalai Maa Muni'.

About the Kavirayar belonging to the Cholza clan.......   
   
    The Cholzas have a legendary history from the dim past. Manunidhi Cholzan, Sibi,
and some others have a remote past.
    During the third Sangam, we come across Karikalan, NalangiLLi, NalangiLLi, and
several others. Karikaalan's many descendants started several royal dynasties in India
and South East Asia.
    They were dormant for 600 years. We come across KopperunchOlzan, and the father
of Mangayarkkarasi wife of NerumARa Pandyan, and a few others.

    The Cholzas were under the Pallavas. In the frequent wars waged by the Pallavas and
the Pandyas, the Cholzas took sides. Then when both the overlords wore themselves out,
the Cholzas took over from the Pallavas. Then they overcame the Pandyas and conquered
 a large territory. Thus the Imperial Cholzas came into being. RajaRaja and Rajendra
belong to this line.

    In 1216, Maravaraman Sundara Pandya I over-ran the Chola Empire during the rule of
Kuloththunga III. Soon after the defeat, Kuloththunga died. His son RajaRaja III came to
the throne. But during the war, he was imprisoned by his own feudatory, Kopperunjingga of
Thirukkovaluur.
          Due to the intervention of the Hoysala emperor of Mysore, who happened to be
RajaRaja's father-in-law, MS Pandya gave back the Chola Mandala to RajaRaja III.
But something happened. So MS Pandya attacked again in 1246. Soon after that MSPandya
died and two kings came to power in quick succession. They were weak. The Hoysala
NaraSimha made use of this opportunity because by this time he had become the
father-in-law of Maravarman Sundara Pandya II also. So he extended his territory from
Mysore right across Coimbatore, Dindigal, and Tiruchi where he built a huge fortress at Samayapuram. Right in the heart of Tamil country.
    Thus he created a Hoysala wedge in Tamilnadu, effectively separating the Cholzas in the
north and the Pandyas in the south.
   
    The last Chola emperor belonging to the Imperial Cholas was Rajendra III. He came to
the throne in 1256 A.D. He was the son of RajaRaja III.
   
          He defeated MS Pandya II in a war. But the Hoysala took the Pandiyan side this time,
to prevent a revival of Cholziyan Imperialism. But Jatavarman Sundara Pandya, the greatest
conqueror among the later Pandyas came to power in 1251.

          He started on an expansionist policy and conquered Chera, Chola,Ceylon and the
Telugu Choda territories and also got rid of the Hoysalas.

          But JS Pandya died in 1268 and was succeeded by Maravarman Kulasekhara Pandya,
the last of the Grand Pandyas.

          There was a last major war in which Rajendra III allied himself with Hoysala Ramanatha,
the son of Narasimha. But this grand alliance was totally defeated by MKPandya.    
          This war took place in 1279.
          And that is the last that we hear of Rajendra III and the Great Cholas.

          There is a group of people belonging to a particular community. They claim to be the
descendants of the Cholas. Until about 40 years ago, one of the families belonging to
this community used to hold a symbolic coronation ceremony in the Chidhambaram Temple
 just as their fore-runners did.

    The Kavirayar belongs to one of the kudis of this clan of people.
    They call themselves 'Cholzagar' which is occassionally used as a title.

    He had the help of a deity who used to do his bidding. The deity carried a weapon called
'uLi' and used to ride a horse. I am concealing his name. This is a different deity.
Not the one that you think.
    There were also other deities whom he would invoke at times. Also some spirits which
 would come to him when called.
    Normally he would apply high quality perfumes. He was seldom without them. But there
were times when some bad odour would be around when he is involved in doing some
'kalzichchal' for somebody. The smell would resemble that of rotting garbage and rubbish from
a road-side rubbish dump.
    But when he passes into the Kavirayar personality, he does not do all this type of work.
    When in the Kavirayar personality, whatever he says used to happen. People were generally
afraid when he was in that personality.
    When he was in his own normal self, he was adorable. He would come up with stories about strange happenings.

    He would materialise things from thin air. Once he streaked a blank wall with his fore-finger and
from it honey started flowing. He would control a flame of karpuram from a distance with slight waves of his hand. He would invoke deities. On some occassions, he would make them appear.

    Once, while in his Kavirayar personality, he asked a girl to hold a bottle of gingelly oil upright in
herhands. The bottle was new and was sealed.

    At the end of the song, he uttered the words, "pongguha SenthamilzE!"
    The oil in the sealed bottle started frothing and reached the level of the stopper within the
bottle.

    He knew the Art of Varma - Varma Kalai. Once, when I had severe one-sided head ache, he stroked particular spot in the left side of the nape of my neck. Immediately the pain disappeared.
    He soon went back to Tamilnadu.
    That was in 1981.
     In 1981, I went to a place called Kota Tinggi.
    In 1984, the Kavirayar had come to a place called Malacca on his own. He was staying at
someone's house. But his frequent pujais disturbed the household very much and they sent him
to me in Kota Tinggi.
    We made him stay in a room on his own with its own bathroom. It was an old type of
British Bungalow quarters. Windows with slit-like shutters and huge doors.

    After he came to Kota Tinggi, the time came for him to renew his visa.

    But to his horror, he could not find the passport and other documents.
    He said that he had placed them in a brown paper envelope and had kept in his 'trunkupetti'.
    But it was not there.
    He was very upset.
    The next morning, he got up very early and took a bath. Without combing his hair and
wearing only a towel on his waist, he smeared his arms and fore-head and his chest and belly
with kunkumam.

    Then he jumped and said, "$%#@ *&$3 avanukkaachchu enakkaachchu.....&%$# paaththuppuduvONdaa.....@##$%".

    He liberally used foul words when he was not in the Kavirayar personality.
    Then he sat on a sofa in the hall and refused to talk anything nor eat anything.
    He was unusually silent.
    Suddenly he jumped up.
    There was a sound of commotion outside his room.
    I saw something being dropped through the slit in the window frame-work. Then there was
a noise of somebody running away. And there was the sound of hoofs. Horses hoofs.
    There are no horses anywhere near Kota Tinggi.
    The Kavirayar was jumping and ran towards the noise shouting,
"pidraa avaney..... pidraa...pirdraa....pidraa!"
    We all rushed outside.
    There was nothing there. Nobody.
    No foot marks.
    And no hoof-marks.
    The Kavirayar ran back into the house.
    He picked up the object that had dropped through the window.
    It was a brown envelope.
    Inside it, was the passport and all the documents.

Regards

JayBee

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