cmr story contents

                                                   Contents.

                   a) Prologue  [ author: R.Rajagopal ]

                           b) Preface

                          c) cmr story

                            Part no     Title name                      Year         Graha Lakshmi & co
                                                                           [ mamiyar & mattuppen parambara ]  
      

                                                                        Story makers             

Part                    1 …” The Soil “………………..AD 1800.     Kamakshi ammal

Part                   2 …” The Seeds “……………... AD 1825      Subba Lakshmi

Part                  3 …” The Roots “……………... AD 1850       Nachchiyar Alamelu

   

Part                  4… ” Trunks and Branches”…   AD 1875        Kamakshi

                                                                                              
  

Par                 5 ....” Trees and Groves “……..   AD 1900        Seetha Lakshmi

                                                                                                 [ alias அக்கா பாட்டி ]

  

                                                               

Part                6 .....” Is it jungle or forest? “…... AD 1930        Visalakshi 

                                                                                         [ விசாலப் பாட்டி ]

                       f)  Epilogue.           [ For future story tellers. ]



                                 Later on after 1960                                                                                                                                           

                    -   ” Family shifted from cmr “……                        Sarasvathi krishnamoorthy

                .... to settle down at Chennai.                            Rajalakshmi Rajagopal                            

                                                                                        Jayalakshmi Subramanian

                                                                                        Malathi Dandapani alias Raju.

                                                                                        Latha Sundar

           -  “Builders of modern generation..  from  1980 -  "Ashta Lakshmi Cousins"
                [ Mythili Sriram - Vasanthi Rajeev - Nandini Harish - Savitha kartik -
                 Priya Nataraj - Anitha Raja - Gayathri Bala & Archna Sathya. ]                                                        

                                                                   
                                                                                       
                                                                                with modern graha lakshmis,
                                                                                Srividya prasanna and
                                                                                Raksha Sidhdarth (alias pradeep)
                                         
                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                          
                                                                             
                                                                         

                                                                                 
                                                          
                    In Future after 2000 AD

                                                                                                    

                     " Career builders......"                             The utra modern global cousins.

     
                                                                          - ” Sinnamanur?.. what is it“ ….            ..

                                                                             Mexican dish or Italian delicacy! 



         

                                                     Prologue ( Author's note )

It is a little wonder how I got in to this mess.                                

Then, I asked self, “What made me venture in to this”?

Is it not a near impossible task to under take? – What made you do it?

To think of it, it was Kitchu’s son Ashok – really!

It was perhaps 20 or more years back. –

Kitchu had come back to India after a long gap.

He came home with his teen-age son Ashok and we had a family get-together and dinner.

It was noisy as usual, every one laughing and talking all at the same time.

Then, I noticed that Kitchu was constantly being disturbed by his son.
He kept asking questions like who is who and how is one related to the other etc.

So, I brought the 54” x 12”size family chart roll of Kitchu’s clan
and handed it over to young Ashok telling that it is self-explanatory.

After some time I thought that the boy has gone to sleep, noticing that
 he was flat on the floor, upside down with his head buried to the chart spread on the ground.

Then, I realized that not only that he was deeply engrossed in to it but was taking notes.

Till then I never thought that young ones will have any interest in the good old times.

Perhaps that was when I got this idea of sharing with others what ever I knew of the past.

But the time has not come to make an effort – not even after my retirement
 that too when it coincided with the birth of PC and internet.

Time will come on its own not when you order it to come.

May be the time has come now but I am not sure if I up to it. 

Still I have to do what I can.- It is a commitment to our clan members.

I fervently hope that ‘He’ who resided in the writing stick of ‘Veda Vyasa’,
will come to my rescue to help moving my mouse and pressing the key board buttons.

CMR story reveals the importance of female line ( Graha Lakshmis ) of the clans as the back bone of joint family system, keeping under control the emotional imbalances that lead to disputes and quarrels to maintain peace and unity of the family of relatives.

                                                     சிவகாமி அம்மன் துணை

                                                             
                                                       All  about our ancestral place.

Before knowing about our forefathers, we need to know about their place of settlement.
Our story may deal with 200 year old grand pas but our ancestral place 'Vala Nadu'
is more ancient than we know of and got renamed as 'Chinnamanoor' only 800 years back
There is a story for its present name. 

                          
                                                  “The story for the name chinnamanoor”.

At the fag end of the Chola Empire, ‘Pandyas’ were back in power by AD 1250.

The aging king ‘Kulabooshana Pandyan’ had two sons. He made his first son Rajendran
as the crown prince, to become the king and ruler of Pandya’s capital city of Madurai.

The younger brother Rajasingan, married to the Chola princess was getting influenced by his new contacts and became jealous of his brother. - Becoming bold by the support of the Chola’s army, he ventured to capture Madurai, lost the battle and was brought as a prisoner before his brother Rajendra pandiyan.

Rajasingan felt ashamed not at his defeat but because of his brother who showed him the magnanimity as a king and great affection as his elder brother. - He not only pardoned him for his ignorant act but also offered to him a portion of his kingdom to rule.

He made him the prince of ‘Vala nadu’ – so named because of its fertile soil in the periar valley, 80 km west of Madurai. - Surrounded by hills and rivers it was in a remote corner, unnoticeable to outsiders and blessed with hard working and peace-loving people.

For the rural masses, Rajendran, was ‘Periaman’ meaning peria mannan, (Senior king)

They referred to Rajasingan as ‘Chinnaman’, meaning china mannan. (Junior king)

Rajasingan quickly got into the act of improving agriculture by developing cultivable lands through deforestation and clearing that brought to light an ancient Shiva temple.

They found a ‘Swayamu Lingam’ too hidden from view by the over grown thick bushes of the flower forests on the banks of the river mullai aaru.

                             

It turned out to be a pre-historic place – A Punya Shethram called “ Arikeasi Nallur”.
The grateful citizens of Poolanandapuram named the new find as Chinnaman's Oor = chinnamanoor.

It is tala purana, as told by temple priest of cmr sivakami amman temple and it is supposed to find mention in "Kaantha purana", one of the eighteen saivite puranas.

Originally told by Lord Shiva to Nandhi devar, it was passed on to saint Sannat kumarar who in turn told it to veda Vyasar.- His deciple Sudha mamunivar narrated the same with its side-stories to sage Athri and a large group of saints gathered at kymisaranya vanam.

The back ground scenario of this purana story involving Aarikesarinallur(cmr) are those events that took place in a particular yuga in which Parvathi devi is born as Dakshayani and marries Parama sivan, much against her father Dakshan's wishes.

Later on, Dakshan humiliates Lord Siva by not inviting him to his maha yagam and thus refusing him the privilage of first honour in any yagnam. - No one will dare do this.

He also ignores his daughter who comes there uninvited, inspite of Shiva’s warning.

Parvathi feels too ashamed to go back to her husband and jumps in to the yaga gundam.

Lord Shiva is furious and sends Veerabadra with his army of ‘Boodha Ganangal’

They destroy Dakshan and his army and punish those who attended the yagnam.   

Even 'Kamadenu' and 'Kalpaga vriksham', inspite of their accidental presence in the scene could not escape and ‘Veerabadra’ cursed them too but gave saba-vimochanam.

Accordinly, kalpaga vriksham will be born as poola maram and start giving shade and protection to the Swayambu lingam at a place on earth, to be known as Arikesanallur.

Kamadenu will be born as a cow in the neighbourhood in the custody of a Brahmin.

The story develops like this and ends up specifying five shiva shethrams that has the special power of giving mukthi. (Helping human souls from pain of rebirth cycles)

1. Kasi  (Varanasi ) is a holy town where a bath and three dips in Ganga River provide mukthi.

2. Thiruvannamalai: - To think of this place while breathing the last is enough.

3. Chidambaram: - Dharshan of Thillai Natarajar at the time of death gives mukthi.

4. Thiruvarur: - The very birth in this place is good enough to attain salvation.

5. Arikesari nallur: - Living here or if one's ancestors have lived here, is good enough.

In fact, this valanadu could be the age-old 'Arikesari nallur of BC 5000 ?.... if the temple priest
is to be believed on his Thala purana, in which case, the first two initial links of the ancestral chain
in our cmr clans - Maharishi Bharatwajar and Srivatsar might have at east visited this Shethram,
if not lived in this place.

.....Now, doubts may arise, as it naturally should, in the curious mind of our readers.

1) While the first four Shethrams are still alive and kicking, why the last one is no more?

2) Is Arikesari nallur a real one or imaginary?

3) Is there any proof for the so called ‘Sthala Puranam’ of temple towns?

4) Can I locate this ancestral place of ours in Google search’?

5) Assuming that I locate this, in what possible way I am connected to it?

6) Genetically speaking, how these chaps, dead and gone, are related to me?

I hope doubts will generally get cleared by the time we finish reading the full story.

Still for the ‘Doubting Thomas’ who expect DNA proof etc for hereditary origin, they may go and meet Professor Pitchappan, a geneticist from Madurai Universit

He has made an extraordinary discovery working among the Kallar tribal people.

He has found traces of the ancestral mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes from the earliest genetic heritage of India.

British district gazetteers had recorded the names of tribal people of western ghats as the Kadar; Panian; Korava; Yanadi Irula; Gadaba; Chenchu and Kallar whose culture and African appearance marked them out from other citizens surrounding them.

They lived in isolation in the thick forests as groups.

Prof. Pitchappan tested and found it in one individual and subsequently discovered that all other people of his village also had it. – They carried M130 gene from the first wave of migration of modern humans out of Africa – some groups as far as Kerala coast.

This gene must have carried down by isolation, by the strictures of the caste system and by endogamy: the kallar practice of first cousin marriage, the oldest and most characteristic form of kin marriages in south India.

There were at least two early waves of migration – may be that spoken language developed only later, say, 15000 years ago. - Language is not same as ethnicity. - Languages can easily be adopted which is also true with religion but compared with custom, kin relation and so on, it is a surface layer, just a belief system.

We will see more of it later in separate topics like,

“How old can the’ Old’ possibly be? dealing with ancient India, while another one by name..
" Life was like this once " deals with 'History' and in particular, centered on Madurai through ages.