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VOL. XXIV NO. 11, September 16-30, 2014
The Madras 'debate'
"No word like 'Chennai'
in Tamil"
(by A Staff Reporter )

The development of Fort St. George laid the foundationsfor the growth of Madras, the first modern city of India,” said J.B.P. More, a professor at INSEEC, who was speaking during a Madras Week celebration event at the Roja Muthiah Research Library on the subject of his recently-released book, Origin and Foundation of Madras.

More, who has a doctorate in History from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, has written over a dozen books on various aspects of South Indian history.

'Madraspatnam' (Fort St. George) within the walls, and 'Chennapatnam' (outside the walls).

Stating that villages and towns like Mylapore, Tiruvallikeni, Tiruvanmiyur and Tiruvottiyur existed before 1639, he said these places in the course of time became parts of Madras. Old inscriptions found in temples in these villages do not indicate that Madras or Chennai existed before 1639. Neither Arab, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, English and French travellers’ accounts nor official records mention the existence of Madras or Chennai before 1639. Nor is there any mention of Madras or Chennai before 1639 in ancient and medieval Tamil, Telugu or Sanskrit literature. “Therefore, we must conclude that Madras did not exist before 1639,” More stated. He added that he had come to this conclusion after thorough research and enquiry in Madras and London.

Madras, More said, acquired a cosmopolitan character right from the beginning. But with the gradual absorption of various neighbouring Tamil villages, Madras became predominantly a Tamil city, with a strong Telugu minority.

The English built their Fort St George on the ‘high plot’ granted to them by Damarla Venkatappa. Tamil and Telugu migrants settled in the vicinity of the Fort right from the time when the Fort was established. This was the area of Madraspatam in the beginning.

In the course of time several villages were incorporated by the English as parts of Madraspatam. Egmore, Purasawalkam and Tondiarpet became part of Madras in 1693, and Mylapore, Tiruvanmiyur, Adyar and many other urs, pakkams and pets much later.

Thus, without the English, there would have been no Madras. In fact, the erection of Fort St George laid the foundations for the growth of the first modern city of India. This in itself constitutes a major change.

According to More, some have held the view that Madras was derived from madrasa, which means an Islamic college. It was Col. Henry Yule who in 1886 made this claim. Another claim was that Madras was derived from Makhras Kuppam, which in turn was derived fromr Marakkayar Kuppam or Markars Kuppam, as there were a number of wealthy Marakkayars (Muslims), settled on the Madras coast. These claims stated that the Marakkayars as well as the Urdu-speaking Nawab Muhammad Ali Wallajah belonged to the same lineage of Hardat Ibrahim Khalilah, one of the Prophets. It is unlikely that wealthy Marakkayar traders of such illustrious lineage would have chosen lowly kuppams (fishing villages) to settle in; after all, there has never been any mention of anything but fishing villages where Fort St George was established, More points out.

The claims that Madras had a Christian origin – the land having been acquired from a Christian fisherman called Madaresan – or that it was derived from a wealthy Portuguese family called Madra or that it owed its origin to the Madre-de-Denus (Mother of God) Church – established by the Portuguese – have no solid evidence to support them. There are no Portuguese or other European records or travel accounts or Tamil or Telugu literature or inscriptions of the period to suggest these origins. As for ‘Chennai’, it simply means ‘fair’ in Telugu, More states, and goes on to say that “I have proved in my book beyond any doubt that Madras was a Tamil name derived from medu, so ‘medurasapatnam’.”

“The DMK notion that only they changed the name, that Madras was a European name or it had colonial connotations, is completely wrong,” asserts More. “It was always a Tamil word. In the Tamil Lexicon, the meaning of the word ‘Cennai’ has been given as ‘drum’ or ‘a brown coloured dog’. Otherwise, there is no such word as ‘Chennai’ in the Lexicon. Therefore, Chennai is undoubtedly not Tamil. On the other hand, Chenna meant ‘fair’ in Telugu. I have also established that Chenna was not derived from Chennappa Nayak, the father of Damarla Venkatappa. In the genealogical list preprared by Colin McKenzie in 1800, there is no mention of Chennappa as the father of Venkatappa. So why should we continue using Chennai, I wonder,” More asserts.

* * *

“Don’t deny Madras its place in pre-history”

(By A Special Correspondent)

There have been some murmurings about Madras’s 375th birthday. They contend that Madraspatnam and adjoining Chennapatnam existed much before Francis Day came to terms with Venkatadri Nayak. They cite Dr. P. Rajaraman, a retired Professor of History, who wrote in his book Chennai Through The Ages (1997) that “Chennapatnam was in existence even before Francis Day negotiated a cowl with the Nayak.” This is confirmed by several other historians, they say. Dr. Rajaraman also points out that the cowl the Nayak offered Francis Day in 1639 makes specific mention of the “port of Madraspatnam”. He also says that the Masulipatnam Consultation speaks of Madraspatnam as a port town between Pulicat and San Thomé belonging to Venkatadri Nayak. Therefore, to say that Madras (or Chennai) is only 375 years old, and that only the period of British presence should be reckoned and to state nothing existed before that, is a distortion of history. These critics say, and once again Dr.  Rajaraman is quoted, “Any presumption that the history of the city of Chennai has no antiquity and has only a life of four centuries lacks not only historic enquiry but insight. Its constituent towns, viz Mylapore, Tiruvanmiyur and Tiruvottriyur, have not failed to draw the notice of foreign travellers. They were conspicuous as centres of culture in the socio-religious history of our people.”

Editor’s Note: We have no doubt that people settled in the area now known as Madras when people from Africa streamed out to populate the world. There is no doubt that there were people in this area when Lemuria existed. They were also there in the Sangam ages. They were there when the Cholas, Pallavas, and Muslim cohorts and Vijayanagar fought over the area. And they would have been there when it was Thondamandalam, the focus of the area Dr. Rajaraman looks at before focussing on what happened in the 375-year-old Madras. But equally there is no doubt that the Madras we know of today, our city, grew from the founding of Fort St. George in 1639 and that thereafter absorbed ancient towns and villages like Mylapore, Triplicane, Tiruvottriyur, Tiruvanmiyur and many others which were not part of a cohesive whole but parts of the territories of various kingdoms. The Madras that grew out of Fort St. George made them a part of our city. And that Madras deserves celebration, whatever its lineage, be it a million or more years old, or only 375 years old.

Perhaps all those who are Doubting Thomases will now celebrate durng next Madras Week/Month/Season our city.

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No word like 'Chennai' in Tamil
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