TAMIL NEW YEAR

I was duty bound to write this piece after unwillingly dragged myself into the recent spat on which is to be observed as Tamil New Year. Chithirai 1^st or Thai 1st. I mentioned that I was unwillingly dragged into the spat because I was tired and decided not to indulge into this issue this year after throwing my two cents year after year particularly via facebook. But I could not refrain myself when I saw certain people advocated strongly and wrongly that Chithirai 1 which is tentatively April 14 is the Tamil New Year and not Thai 1. Furthermore, this is not about politics of the day but sorry state of a great race which have lost its identity over the last few hundred years.

Now, I don’t set out to correct the wrong or anything. I am just sharing some information which I learnt through my own research and media.  

Now, as always the focus here is Tamil New Year. Obviously we need to ponder a bit on who are Tamils before we proceed further. It is almost impossible to give a definite definition. However one thing is certain. Everyone accepts that Tamils are people who have Tamil language as their mother tongue. The Tamils formed one of the earliest and most sophisticated (if not the best) civilization. There are two schools of thoughts saying the origin of Tamils. One say we are from middle east the other sat we are from Australia. This is pre lemuria (kumari kandam) Nevertheless, I do not want to get into this otherwise this piece will a thesis. One of the core elements of a civilization is that it would have its own time system which includes a calendar, time and classification of season. The Tamils certainly have their own time system.

The Tamils named a year as aandu (a year or the act of ruling) because the way the seasonal changes (paruva maatram) in a year rule over their life. The Tamils divided the prevailing seasons in a year into 6 as ilavenil (early summer), muthuvenil  (late summer), Kaar (rainy),Koothir (cold season), munpani (early winter), pinpani (late winter). The Tamils further divide a day into vaikarai (dawn), kaalai (morning), nanpagal (early afternoon), etpaadu (late afternoon), maalai (evening), yaamam (night). This is further fine tuned into a day divided 60 naazhigai (a naazhigai is 24 minutes).

Having such a sophisticated system in place and everything is referred in pure Tamil words is it not unwise to argue that years which is not in Tamil to be Tamil years?

The Tamils start their calendar in ilavenil or early summer which commence on Thai.  Not only the Tamils every other civilization in world including the Chinese and the Japanese starts their new year on early summer. This trait speaks for itself.

A new year is a time for celebration. Celebration of a new start, new hope and new initiatives. That’s why the Tamils celebrate pongal which also means rise on the start of Thai. It’s a celebration for a rise of a good life in the year.  Not only pongal, the Tamils also do other significant initiatives in Thai such as starting new accounts, having marriages, house warming and other auspicious activities.

If this is the case when does the Chithirai 14 came into being as the “Tamil New Year”?.  Before that it, would be useful to know the story behind this calendar and the 60 years in it. The Hindu calendar which starts at the Pirava year  and ends with the Atchaya year  is believed to be started by a North Indian King called Saalivaganan. This explains why none of the 60 years does not have Tamil name. The purana (“story”) tells that once sage Naratha complained to Maha Vishnu that he was all alone with no companion. Lord Vishnu who pitied sage Naratha took the form of a woman had relationship with sage Naratha and bore 60 children. A calendar system in honor of the 60 children was started with every year is named after a child. After the 60^th year the cycle would start again from the 1^st year.

The practical problem with this calendar (apart from the purana which does not make sense) is that records could only be kept for 60 years. This calendar is useless for long term record keeping. Thus Tamil scholars such as Bharathidasan are against Chithirai as Tamil New Year argues that this calendar is both devoid of logic and is not practical.

Apart from the above the meaning some of the years denote is peculiar for example the third year in the Saalivagana calendar is called “Sukla”  which means sperm, the 23^rd year “virothi” means enemy, the 38^th year “kurothi” means avenger, the 33^rd year “vikaari” means someone ugly, the 55^th year ”thunmathi” means ill minded. It doesn’t make sense to have years in a calendar which denotes such meanings. This is not the way of life of Tamils.

On the historical perspective, anti northern sentiment among Tamil scholars were well known. A large group of Tamil scholars who were motivated by the need to put their feet down on the issue of Tamil New Year and safeguard cultural and lingual heritage of Tamils met sometime on 1921 under the leadership of Tamil Kadal Maraimalai Adigal. This gathering of scholars whom were well versed with Tamil history and culture carefully deliberated the issue of Tamil New Year and adopted the following resolutions:

That a calendar in the name and style of Tiruvalluvar is to observed;

That the above calendar is to nominated and followed as Tamil year.

Thereafter on 1939 another gathering called All India Thamizh Convention was held in Tiruchi, India and the same resolution was unanimously confirmed and carried.

There are a lot of references in Tamil literature to show that Thai has been significant in the lives of Tamil. Some are as follows (in its original language):

 "தைஇத் திங்கள் தண்கயம் படியும்" (நற்றிணை)

 "தைஇத் திங்கள் தண்ணிய தரினும்” (குறுந்தொகை)

  "தைஇத் திங்கள் தண்கயம் போல்" (புறநானூறு)

  "தைஇத் திங்கள் தண்கயம் போல" (ஐங்குறுநூறு)

  "தையில் நீராடி தவம் தலைப்படுவாயோ" (கலித்தொகை)

Apart from the above, we also have proverbs like “Thai piranthaal vazhi pirakkum” which points the significance of the month of Thai.

Chithirai on the other hand is the hottest month in Tamil lands. Tamils do not prefer the month of Chittirai. They avoid auspicious events as the aforesaid on this month. They even try the hardest to avid delivery of child in this month, They call this month “peedai maatham” loosely translated as bad month. Tamil literature and stone inscriptions in Tamil lands does not say anything about auspicious undertakings done in this month. There are even records of Kings such as Rajaraja Chola who was in war most of his life avoid military expedition on this month.

There you go people with the above I rest my case. I might have missed some points here and there. I will happily update in future when I have more information. Finally I would like to reproduce in English what the famous write Dr. Mu. Va has said “… In older times Chithirai was never the first day of a year. The Elders celebrated Thai 1^st as the new year. Their intention was the new year ought to bring new lease of life. It ought to bring newness or novelty or freshness into food, dress, home, mind. They will celebrate the new year with festivals…”.