"Ancient Tamils knew Valmiki Ramayana" - my article in Vijayvaani

 My article published in Vijayvaani.com

Rama and Ramayana were common knowledge in Tamil speaking lands in olden days. Numerous Rama temples all over Tamil Nadu bear testimony to this. But there is a propaganda blitzkrieg that Ramayana is a myth and there is no connection between Rama and Tamils. Let us examine the evidence from Tamil literature.

Although Rama lived in Ayodhya, the major portion of the Ramayana occurred in the Tamil region. It was from the coast of Tamil Nadu that Rama went to Lanka. He reached the south east coast of Tamil Nadu and stayed there for a few days. He did penance on the shores and then started building a dam across the ocean. There is an old temple at the location where he is believed to have done penance, while the remnants of Ram Setu are there to see. Were there local people present at that time to pass on the news about Rama’s arrival there? It seems there were!

Dhanushkodi, where the Setu Dam begins, was part of Tamil lands known as “Neydhal” – coastal land. There must have been small settlements here and there even in olden days when Rama lived. Rama’s arrival there must have been an unforgettable event for them. People seem to have talked about places where Rama sat and where he slept and carried those memories generation after generation. One such memory has been recorded in the Sangam literature called ‘Agananuru’

The context described in the poem of Agananuru shows how deeply the memory of Rama’s visit to the region was etched in the minds of the common people. The situation is about a man and a woman in love with each other. When the people of the town came to know about it, the gossip-mill started grinding and stopped only after they got married.

The girl’s friend tells how the gossip was ended. When Rama sat down under a banyan tree on the seashore and consulted his friends about how to cross the sea, all the birds that lived in that tree, which were making noise until then, became silent. Similarly, when this man and the woman got married, the village people who were speaking ill about them until then, just stopped speaking anything about them.

Could the woman have given such a parable if there had not been such a notion among the people of that coastal region that this was the place where Rama had come and sat under a banyan tree?

It can be said that this is poet’s imagination. As far as the Sangam literature is concerned, the poets have told what was prevalent. What the people of the area often talk about, was incorporated in their poems. The memory of Rama’s arrival, the place he wandered, and the place he sat under the banyan tree were all noted by the locals...CONTINUE TO READ HERE